DEAREST HETTA,

I think you have been most unjust to me, and if you have ever loved me I cannot understand your injustice. I have never deceived you in anything, not by a word, or for a moment. Unless you mean to throw me over because I did once love another woman, I do not know what cause of anger you have. I could not tell you about Mrs Hurtle till you had accepted me, and, as you yourself must know, I had had no opportunity to tell you anything afterwards till the story had reached your ears. I hardly know what I said the other day, I was so miserable at your accusation. But I suppose I said then, and I again declare now, that I had made up my mind that circumstances would not admit of her becoming my wife before I had ever seen you, and that I have certainly never wavered in my determination since I saw you. I can with safety refer to Roger as to this, because I was with him when I so determined, and made up my mind very much at his instance. This was before I had ever even met you.

If I understand it all right you are angry because I have associated with Mrs Hurtle since I so determined. I am not going back to my first acquaintance with her now. You may blame me for that if you please,—though it cannot have been a fault against you. But, after what had occurred, was I to refuse to see her when she came to England to see me? I think that would have been cowardly. Of course I went to her. And when she was all alone here, without a single other friend and telling me that she was unwell, and asking me to take her down to the seaside, was I to refuse? I think that that would have been unkind. It was a dreadful trouble to me. But of course I did it.

She asked me to renew my engagement. I am bound to tell you that, but I know in telling you that it will go no farther. I declined, telling her that it was my purpose to ask another woman to be my wife. Of course there has been anger and sorrow,—anger on her part and sorrow on mine. But there has been no doubt. And at last she yielded. As far as she was concerned my trouble was over except in so far that her unhappiness has been a great trouble to me,—when, on a sudden, I found that the story had reached you in such a form as to make you determined to quarrel with me!

Of course you do not know it all, for I cannot tell you all without telling her history. But you know everything that in the least concerns yourself, and I do say that you have no cause whatever for anger. I am writing at night. This evening your brooch was brought to me with three or four cutting words from your mother. But I cannot understand that if you really love me, you should wish to separate yourself from me,—or that, if you ever loved me, you should cease to love me now because of Mrs Hurtle.

I am so absolutely confused by the blow that I hardly know what I am writing, and take first one outrageous idea into my head and then another. My love for you is so thorough and so intense that I cannot bring myself to look forward to living without you, now that you have once owned that you have loved me. I cannot think it possible that love, such as I suppose yours must have been, could be made to cease all at a moment. Mine can't. I don't think it is natural that we should be parted.

If you want corroboration of my story go yourself to Mrs Hurtle. Anything is better than that we both should be broken-hearted.

Yours most affectionately,

PAUL MONTAGUE.



CHAPTER LXXXV - BREAKFAST IN BERKELEY SQUARE

Lord Nidderdale was greatly disgusted with his own part of the performance when he left the House of Commons, and was, we may say, disgusted with his own position generally, when he considered all its circumstances. That had been at the commencement of the evening, and Melmotte had not then been tipsy; but he had behaved with unsurpassable arrogance and vulgarity, and had made the young lord drink the cup of his own disgrace to the very dregs. Everybody now knew it as a positive fact that the charges made against the man were to become matter of investigation before the chief magistrate for the City, everybody knew that he had committed forgery upon forgery, everybody knew that he could not pay for the property which he had pretended to buy, and that actually he was a ruined man;—and yet he had seized Nidderdale by the hand, and called the young lord 'his dear boy' before the whole House.

And then he had made himself conspicuous as this man's advocate. If he had not himself spoken openly of his coming marriage with the girl, he had allowed other men to speak to him about it. He had quarrelled with one man for saying that Melmotte was a rogue, and had confidentially told his most intimate friends that in spite of a little vulgarity of manner, Melmotte at bottom was a very good fellow. How was he now to back out of his intimacy with the Melmottes generally? He was engaged to marry the girl, and there was nothing of which he could accuse her. He acknowledged to himself that she deserved well at his hands. Though at this moment he hated the father most bitterly, as those odious words, and the tone in which they had been pronounced, rang in his ears, nevertheless he had some kindly feeling for the girl. Of course he could not marry her now. That was manifestly out of the question. She herself, as well as all others, had known that she was to be married for her money, and now that bubble had been burst. But he felt that he owed it to her, as to a comrade who had on the whole been loyal to him, to have some personal explanation with herself. He arranged in his own mind the sort of speech that he would make to her. 'Of course you know it can't be. It was all arranged because you were to have a lot of money, and now it turns out that you haven't got any. And I haven't got any, and we should have nothing to live upon. It's out of the question. But, upon my word, I'm very sorry, for I like you very much, and I really think we should have got on uncommon well together.' That was the kind of speech that he suggested to himself, but he did not know how to find for himself the opportunity of making it. He thought that he must put it all into a letter. But then that would be tantamount to a written confession that he had made her an offer of marriage, and he feared that Melmotte,—or Madame Melmotte on his behalf, if the great man himself were absent, in prison,—might make an ungenerous use of such an admission.

Between seven and eight he went into the Beargarden, and there he saw Dolly Longestaffe and others. Everybody was talking about Melmotte, the prevailing belief being that he was at this moment in custody. Dolly was full of his own griefs; but consoled amidst them by a sense of his own importance. 'I wonder whether it's true,' he was saying to Lord Grasslough. 'He has an appointment to meet me and my governor at twelve o'clock to-morrow, and to pay us what he owes us. He swore yesterday that he would have the money to-morrow. But he can't keep his appointment, you know, if he's in prison.'

'You won't see the money, Dolly, you may swear to that,' said Grasslough.

'I don't suppose I shall. By George, what an ass my governor has been. He had no more right than you have to give up the property. Here's Nidderdale. He could tell us where he is; but I'm afraid to speak to him since he cut up so rough the other night.'

In a moment the conversation was stopped; but when Lord Grasslough asked Nidderdale in a whisper whether he knew anything about Melmotte, the latter answered out loud, 'Yes I left him in the House half an hour ago.'

'People are saying that he has been arrested.'

'I heard that also; but he certainly had not been arrested when I left the House.' Then he went up and put his hand on Dolly Longestaffe's shoulder, and spoke to him. 'I suppose you were about right the other night and I was about wrong; but you could understand what it was that I meant. I'm afraid this is a bad look out for both of us.'

'Yes;—I understand. It's deuced bad for me,' said Dolly. 'I think you're very well out of it. But I'm glad there's not to be a quarrel. Suppose we have a rubber of whist.'

Later on in the night news was brought to the club that Melmotte had tried to make a speech in the House, that he had been very drunk, and that he had tumbled over, upsetting Beauchamp Beauclerk in his fall. 'By George, I should like to have seen that!' said Dolly.

'I am very glad I was not there,' said Nidderdale. It was three o'clock before they left the card table, at which time Melmotte was lying dead upon the floor in Mr Longestaffe's house.

On the following morning, at ten o'clock, Lord Nidderdale sat at breakfast with his father in the old lord's house in Berkeley Square. From thence the house which Melmotte had hired was not above a few hundred yards distant. At this time the young lord was living with his father, and the two had now met by appointment in order that something might be settled between them as to the proposed marriage. The Marquis was not a very pleasant companion when the affairs in which he was interested did not go exactly as he would have them. He could be very cross and say most disagreeable words,—so that the ladies of the family, and others connected with him, for the most part, found it impossible to live with him. But his eldest son had endured him;— partly perhaps because, being the eldest, he had been treated with a nearer approach to courtesy, but chiefly by means of his own extreme good humour. What did a few hard words matter? If his father was ungracious to him, of course he knew what all that meant. As long as his father would make fair allowance for his own peccadilloes,—he also would make allowances for his father's roughness. All this was based on his grand theory of live and let live. He expected his father to be a little cross on this occasion, and he acknowledged to himself that there was cause for it.

He was a little late himself, and he found his father already buttering his toast. 'I don't believe you'd get out of bed a moment sooner than you liked if you could save the whole property by it.'

'You show me how I can make a guinea by it, sir, and see if I don't earn the money.' Then he sat down and poured himself out a cup of tea, and looked at the kidneys and looked at the fish.

'I suppose you were drinking last night,' said the old lord.

'Not particular.' The old man turned round and gnashed his teeth at him. 'The fact is, sir, I don't drink. Everybody knows that.'

'I know when you're in the country you can't live without champagne. Well;—what have you got to say about all this?'

'What have you got to say?'

'You've made a pretty kettle of fish of it.'

'I've been guided by you in everything. Come, now; you ought to own that. I suppose the whole thing is over?'

'I don't see why it should be over. I'm told she has got her own money.' Then Nidderdale described to his father Melmotte's behaviour in the House on the preceding evening. 'What the devil does that matter?' said the old man. 'You're not going to marry the man himself.'

'I shouldn't wonder if he's in gaol now.'

'And what does that matter? She's not in gaol. And if the money is hers, she can't lose it because he goes to prison. Beggars mustn't be choosers. How do you mean to live if you don't marry this girl?'

'I shall scrape on, I suppose. I must look for somebody else.' The Marquis showed very plainly by his demeanour that he did not give his son much credit either for diligence or for ingenuity in making such a search. 'At any rate, sir, I can't marry the daughter of a man who is to be put upon his trial for forgery.'

'I can't see what that has to do with you.'

'I couldn't do it, sir. I'd do anything else to oblige you, but I couldn't do that. And, moreover, I don't believe in the money.'

'Then you may just go to the devil,' said the old Marquis turning himself round in his chair, and lighting a cigar as he took up the newspaper. Nidderdale went on with his breakfast with perfect equanimity, and when he had finished lighted his cigar. 'They tell me,' said the old man, 'that one of those Goldsheiner girls will have a lot of money.'

'A Jewess,' suggested Nidderdale.

'What difference does that make?'

'Oh no;—not in the least if the money's really there. Have you heard any sum named, sir?'

The old man only grunted. 'There are two sisters and two brothers. I don't suppose the girls would have a hundred thousand each.'

'They say the widow of that brewer who died the other day has about twenty thousand a year.'

'It's only for her life, sir.'

'She could insure her life. D—- me, sir, we must do something. If you turn up your nose at one woman after another how do you mean to live?'

'I don't think that a woman of forty with only a life interest would be a good speculation. Of course I'll think of it if you press it.' The old man growled again. 'You see, sir, I've been so much in earnest about this girl that I haven't thought of inquiring about any one else. There always is some one up with a lot of money. It's a pity there shouldn't be a regular statement published with the amount of money, and what is expected in return. It'd save a deal of trouble.'

'If you can't talk more seriously than that you'd better go away,' said the old Marquis.

At that moment a footman came into the room and told Lord Nidderdale that a man particularly wished to see him in the hall. He was not always anxious to see those who called on him, and he asked the servant whether he knew who the man was. 'I believe, my lord, he's one of the domestics from Mr Melmotte's in Bruton Street,' said the footman, who was no doubt fully acquainted with all the circumstances of Lord Nidderdale's engagement. The son, who was still smoking, looked at his father as though in doubt. 'You'd better go and see,' said the Marquis. But Nidderdale before he went asked a question as to what he had better do if Melmotte had sent for him. 'Go and see Melmotte. Why should you be afraid to see him? Tell him you are ready to marry the girl if you can see the money down, but that you won't stir a step till it has been actually paid over.'

'He knows that already,' said Nidderdale as he left the room.

In the hall he found a man whom he recognized as Melmotte's butler, a ponderous, elderly, heavy man who now had a letter in his hand. But the lord could tell by the man's face and manner that he himself had some story to tell. 'Is there anything the matter?'

'Yes, my lord,—yes. Oh, dear,—oh, dear! I think you'll be sorry to hear it. There was none who came there he seemed to take to so much as your lordship.'

'They've taken him to prison!' exclaimed Nidderdale. But the man shook his head. 'What is it then? He can't be dead.' Then the man nodded his head, and, putting his hand up to his face, burst into tears. 'Mr Melmotte dead! He was in the House of Commons last night. I saw him myself. How did he die?' But the fat, ponderous man was so affected by the tragedy he had witnessed, that he could not as yet give any account of the scene of his master's death, but simply handed the note which he had in his hand to Lord Nidderdale. It was from Marie, and had been written within half an hour of the time at which news had been brought to her of what had occurred. The note was as follows:

DEAR LORD NIDDERDALE,

The man will tell you what has happened. I feel as though I was mad. I do not know who to send to. Will you come to me, only for a few minutes?

MARIE.

He read it standing up in the hall, and then again asked the man as to the manner of his master's death. And now the Marquis, gathering from a word or two that he heard and from his son's delay that something special had occurred, hobbled out into the hall. 'Mr Melmotte is— dead,' said his son. The old man dropped his stick, and fell back against the wall. 'This man says that he is dead, and here is a letter from Marie asking me to go there. How was it that he—died?'

'It was—poison,' said the butler solemnly. 'There has been a doctor already, and there isn't no doubt of that. He took it all by himself last night. He came home, perhaps a little fresh, and he had in brandy and soda and cigars;—and sat himself down all to himself. Then in the morning, when the young woman went in,—there he was,—poisoned! I see him lay on the ground, and I helped to lift him up, and there was that smell of prussic acid that I knew what he had been and done just the same as when the doctor came and told us.'

Before the man could be allowed to go back, there was a consultation between the father and son as to a compliance with the request which Marie had made in her first misery. The Marquis thought that his son had better not go to Bruton Street. 'What's the use? What good can you do? She'll only be falling into your arms, and that's what you've got to avoid,—at any rate, till you know how things are.'

But Nidderdale's better feelings would not allow him to submit to this advice. He had been engaged to marry the girl, and she in her abject misery had turned to him as the friend she knew best. At any rate for the time the heartlessness of his usual life deserted him, and he felt willing to devote himself to the girl not for what he could get,—but because she had so nearly been so near to him. 'I couldn't refuse her,' he said over and over again. 'I couldn't bring myself to do it. Oh, no;—I shall certainly go.'

'You'll get into a mess if you do.'

'Then I must get into a mess. I shall certainly go. I will go at once. It is very disagreeable, but I cannot possibly refuse. It would be abominable.' Then going back to the hall, he sent a message by the butler to Marie, saying that he would be with her in less than half an hour.

'Don't you go and make a fool of yourself,' his father said to him when he was alone. 'This is just one of those times when a man may ruin himself by being softhearted.' Nidderdale simply shook his head as he took his hat and gloves to go across to Bruton Street.



CHAPTER LXXXVI - THE MEETING IN BRUTON STREET

When the news of her husband's death was in some very rough way conveyed to Madame Melmotte, it crushed her for the time altogether. Marie first heard that she no longer had a living parent as she stood by the poor woman's bedside, and she was enabled, as much perhaps by the necessity incumbent upon her of attending to the wretched woman as by her own superior strength of character, to save herself from that prostration and collapse of power which a great and sudden blow is apt to produce. She stared at the woman who first conveyed to her tidings of the tragedy, and then for a moment seated herself at the bedside. But the violent sobbings and hysterical screams of Madame Melmotte soon brought her again to her feet, and from that moment she was not only active but efficacious. No;—she would not go down to the room; she could do no good by going thither. But they must send for a doctor. They should send for a doctor immediately. She was then told that a doctor and an inspector of police were already in the rooms below. The necessity of throwing whatever responsibility there might be on to other shoulders had been at once apparent to the servants, and they had sent out right and left, so that the house might be filled with persons fit to give directions in such an emergency. The officers from the police station were already there when the woman who now filled Didon's place in the house communicated to Madame Melmotte the fact that she was a widow.

It was afterwards said by some of those who had seen her at the time, that Marie Melmotte had shown a hard heart on the occasion. But the condemnation was wrong. Her feeling for her father was certainly not that which we are accustomed to see among our daughters and sisters. He had never been to her the petted divinity of the household, whose slightest wish had been law, whose little comforts had become matters of serious care, whose frowns were horrid clouds, whose smiles were glorious sunshine, whose kisses were daily looked for, and if missed would be missed with mourning. How should it have been so with her? In all the intercourses of her family, since the first rough usage which she remembered, there had never been anything sweet or gracious. Though she had recognized a certain duty, as due from herself to her father, she had found herself bound to measure it, so that more should not be exacted from her than duty required. She had long known that her father would fain make her a slave for his own purposes, and that if she put no limits to her own obedience he certainly would put none. She had drawn no comparison between him and other fathers, or between herself and other daughters, because she had never become conversant with the ways of other families. After a fashion she had loved him, because nature creates love in a daughter's heart; but she had never respected him, and had spent the best energies of her character on a resolve that she would never fear him. 'He may cut me into pieces, but he shall not make me do for his advantage that which I do not think he has a right to exact from me.' That had been the state of her mind towards her father; and now that he had taken himself away with terrible suddenness, leaving her to face the difficulties of the world with no protector and no assistance, the feeling which dominated her was no doubt one of awe rather than of broken-hearted sorrow. Those who depart must have earned such sorrow before it can be really felt. They who are left may be overwhelmed by the death—even of their most cruel tormentors. Madame Melmotte was altogether overwhelmed; but it could not probably be said of her with truth that she was crushed by pure grief. There was fear of all things, fear of solitude, fear of sudden change, fear of terrible revelations, fear of some necessary movement she knew not whither, fear that she might be discovered to be a poor wretched impostor who never could have been justified in standing in the same presence with emperors and princes, with duchesses and cabinet ministers. This and the fact that the dead body of the man who had so lately been her tyrant was lying near her, so that she might hardly dare to leave her room lest she should encounter him dead, and thus more dreadful even than when alive, utterly conquered her. Feelings of the same kind, the same fears, and the same awe were powerful also with Marie;—but they did not conquer her. She was strong and conquered them; and she did not care to affect a weakness to which she was in truth superior. In such a household the death of such a father after such a fashion will hardly produce that tender sorrow which comes from real love.

She soon knew it all. Her father had destroyed himself, and had doubtless done so because his troubles in regard to money had been greater than he could bear. When he had told her that she was to sign those deeds because ruin was impending, he must indeed have told her the truth. He had so often lied to her that she had had no means of knowing whether he was lying then or telling her a true story. But she had offered to sign the deeds since that, and he had told her that it would be of no avail,—and at that time had not been angry with her as he would have been had her refusal been the cause of his ruin. She took some comfort in thinking of that.

But what was she to do? What was to be done generally by that over-cumbered household? She and her pseudo-mother had been instructed to pack up their jewellery, and they had both obeyed the order. But she herself at this moment cared but little for any property. How ought she to behave herself? Where should she go? On whose arm could she lean for some support at this terrible time? As for love, and engagements, and marriage,—that was all over. In her difficulty she never for a moment thought of Sir Felix Carbury. Though she had been silly enough to love the man because he was pleasant to look at, she had never been so far gone in silliness as to suppose that he was a staff upon which any one might lean. Had that marriage taken place, she would have been the staff. But it might be possible that Lord Nidderdale would help her. He was good-natured and manly, and would be efficacious,—if only he would come to her. He was near, and she thought that at any rate she would try. So she had written her note and sent it by the butler,—thinking as she did so of the words she would use to make the young man understand that all the nonsense they had talked as to marrying each other was, of course, to mean nothing now.

It was past eleven when he reached the house, and he was shown upstairs into one of the sitting-rooms on the first-floor. As he passed the door of the study, which was at the moment partly open, he saw the dress of a policeman within, and knew that the body of the dead man was still lying there. But he went by rapidly without a glance within, remembering the look of the man as he had last seen his burly figure, and that grasp of his hand, and those odious words. And now the man was dead,—having destroyed his own life. Surely the man must have known when he uttered those words what it was that he intended to do! When he had made that last appeal about Marie, conscious as he was that every one was deserting him, he must even then have looked his fate in the face and have told himself that it was better that he should die! His misfortunes, whatever might be their nature, must have been heavy on him then with all their weight; and he himself and all the world had known that he was ruined. And yet he had pretended to be anxious about the girl's marriage, and had spoken of it as though he still believed that it would be accomplished!

Nidderdale had hardly put his hat down on the table before Marie was with him. He walked up to her, took her by both hands, and looked into her face. There was no trace of a tear, but her whole countenance seemed to him to be altered. She was the first to speak.

'I thought you would come when I sent for you.'

'Of course I came.'

'I knew you would be a friend, and I knew no one else who would. You won't be afraid, Lord Nidderdale, that I shall ever think any more of all those things which he was planning?' She paused a moment, but he was not ready enough to have a word to say in answer to this. 'You know what has happened?'

'Your servant told us.'

'What are we to do? Oh, Lord Nidderdale, it is so dreadful! Poor papa! Poor papa! When I think of all that he must have suffered I wish that I could be dead too.'

'Has your mother been told?'

'Oh yes. She knows. No one tried to conceal anything for a moment. It was better that it should be so;—better at last. But we have no friends who would be considerate enough to try to save us from sorrow. But I think it was better. Mamma is very bad. She is always nervous and timid. Of course this has nearly killed her. What ought we to do? It is Mr Longestaffe's house, and we were to have left it to-morrow.'

'He will not mind that now.'

'Where must we go? We can't go back to that big place in Grosvenor Square. Who will manage for us? Who will see the doctor and the policemen?'

'I will do that.'

'But there will be things that I cannot ask you to do. Why should I ask you to do anything?'

'Because we are friends.'

'No,' she said, 'no. You cannot really regard me as a friend. I have been an impostor. I know that. I had no business to know a person like you at all. Oh, if the next six months could be over! Poor papa,—poor papa!' And then for the first time she burst into tears.

'I wish I knew what might comfort you,' he said.

'How can there be any comfort? There never can be comfort again! As for comfort, when were we ever comfortable? It has been one trouble after another,—one fear after another! And now we are friendless and homeless. I suppose they will take everything that we have.'

'Your papa had a lawyer, I suppose?'

'I think he had ever so many,—but I do not know who they were. His own clerk, who had lived with him for over twenty years, left him yesterday. I suppose they will know something in Abchurch Lane; but now that Herr Croll has gone I am not acquainted even with the name of one of them. Mr Miles Grendall used to be with him.'

'I do not think that he could be of much service.'

'Nor Lord Alfred? Lord Alfred was always with him till very lately.' Nidderdale shook his head. 'I suppose not. They only came because papa had a big house.' The young lord could not but feel that he was included in the same rebuke. 'Oh, what a life it has been! And now,— now it's over.' As she said this it seemed that for the moment her strength failed her, for she fell backwards on the corner of the sofa. He tried to raise her, but she shook him away, burying her face in her hands. He was standing close to her, still holding her arm, when he heard a knock at the front door, which was immediately opened, as the servants were hanging about in the hall. 'Who are they?' said Marie, whose sharp ears caught the sound of various steps. Lord Nidderdale went out on to the head of the stairs, and immediately heard the voice of Dolly Longestaffe.

Dolly Longestaffe had on that morning put himself early into the care of Mr Squercum, and it had happened that he with his lawyer had met his father with Mr Bideawhile at the corner of the square. They were all coming according to appointment to receive the money which Mr Melmotte had promised to pay them at this very hour. Of course they had none of them as yet heard of the way in which the Financier had made his last grand payment, and as they walked together to the door had been intent only in reference to their own money. Squercum, who had heard a good deal on the previous day, was very certain that the money would not be forthcoming, whereas Bideawhile was sanguine of success. 'Don't we wish we may get it?' Dolly had said, and by saying so had very much offended his father, who had resented the want of reverence implied in the use of that word 'we'. They had all been admitted together, and Dolly had at once loudly claimed an old acquaintance with some of the articles around him. 'I knew I'd got a coat just like that,' said Dolly, 'and I never could make out what my fellow had done with it.' This was the speech which Nidderdale had heard, standing on the top of the stairs.

The two lawyers had at once seen, from the face of the man who had opened the door and from the presence of three or four servants in the hall, that things were not going on in their usual course. Before Dolly had completed his buffoonery the butler had whispered to Mr Bideawhile that Mr Melmotte—'was no more.'

'Dead!' exclaimed Mr Bideawhile. Squercum put his hands into his trousers pockets and opened his mouth wide. 'Dead!' muttered Mr Longestaffe senior. 'Dead!' said Dolly. 'Who's dead?' The butler shook his head. Then Squercum whispered a word into the butler's ear, and the butler thereupon nodded his head. 'It's about what I expected,' said Squercum. Then the butler whispered the word to Mr Longestaffe, and whispered it also to Mr Bideawhile, and they all knew that the millionaire had swallowed poison during the night.

It was known to the servants that Mr Longestaffe was the owner of the house, and he was therefore, as having authority there, shown into the room where the body of Melmotte was lying on a sofa. The two lawyers and Dolly of course followed, as did also Lord Nidderdale, who had now joined them from the lobby above. There was a policeman in the room who seemed to be simply watching the body, and who rose from his seat when the gentlemen entered. Two or three of the servants followed them, so that there was almost a crowd round the dead man's bier. There was no further tale to be told. That Melmotte had been in the House on the previous night, and had there disgraced himself by intoxication, they had known already. That he had been found dead that morning had been already announced. They could only stand round and gaze on the square, sullen, livid features of the big-framed man, and each lament that he had ever heard the name of Melmotte.

'Are you in the house here?' said Dolly to Lord Nidderdale in a whisper.

'She sent for me. We live quite close, you know. She wanted somebody to tell her something. I must go up to her again now.'

'Had you seen him before?'

'No indeed. I only came down when I heard your voices. I fear it will be rather bad for you;—won't it?'

'He was regularly smashed, I suppose?' asked Dolly.

'I know nothing myself. He talked to me about his affairs once, but he was such a liar that not a word that he said was worth anything. I believed him then. How it will go, I can't say.'

'That other thing is all over of course,' suggested Dolly. Nidderdale intimated by a gesture of his head that the other thing was all over, and then returned to Marie. There was nothing further that the four gentlemen could do, and they soon departed from the house;—not, however, till Mr Bideawhile had given certain short injunctions to the butler concerning the property contained in Mr Longestaffe's town residence.

'They had come to see him,' said Lord Nidderdale in a whisper. 'There was some appointment. He had told them to be all here at this hour.'

'They didn't know, then?' asked Marie.

'Nothing;—till the man told them.'

'And did you go in?'

'Yes; we all went into the room.' Marie shuddered, and again hid her face. 'I think the best thing I can do,' said Nidderdale, 'is to go to Abchurch Lane, and find out from Smith who is the lawyer whom he chiefly trusted. I know Smith had to do with his own affairs, because he has told me so at the Board; and if necessary I will find out Croll. No doubt I can trace him. Then we had better employ the lawyer to arrange everything for you.'

'And where had we better go to?'

'Where would Madame Melmotte wish to go?'

'Anywhere, so that we could hide ourselves. Perhaps Frankfort would be the best. But shouldn't we stay till something has been done here? And couldn't we have lodgings, so as to get away from Mr Longestaffe's house?' Nidderdale promised that he himself would look for lodgings, as soon as he had seen the lawyer. 'And now, my lord, I suppose that I never shall see you again,' said Marie.

'I don't know why you should say that.'

'Because it will be best. Why should you? All this will be trouble enough to you when people begin to say what we are. But I don't think it has been my fault.'

'Nothing has ever been your fault.'

'Good-bye, my lord. I shall always think of you as one of the kindest people I ever knew. I thought it best to send to you for different reasons, but I do not want you to come back.'

'Good-bye, Marie. I shall always remember you.' And so they parted.

After that he did go into the City, and succeeded in finding both Mr Smith and Herr Croll. When he reached Abchurch Lane, the news of Melmotte's death had already been spread abroad; and more was known or said to be known, of his circumstances than Nidderdale had as yet heard. The crushing blow to him, so said Herr Croll, had been the desertion of Cohenlupe,—that and the sudden fall in the value of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway shares, consequent on the rumours spread about the City respecting the Pickering property. It was asserted in Abchurch Lane that had he not at that moment touched the Pickering property, or entertained the Emperor, or stood for Westminster, he must, by the end of the autumn, have been able to do any or all of those things without danger, simply as the result of the money which would then have been realized by the railway. But he had allowed himself to become hampered by the want of comparatively small sums of ready money, and in seeking relief had rushed from one danger to another, till at last the waters around him had become too deep even for him, and had overwhelmed him. As to his immediate death, Herr Croll expressed not the slightest astonishment. It was just the thing, Herr Croll said, that he had been sure that Melmotte would do, should his difficulties ever become too great for him. 'And dere vas a leetle ting he lay himself open by de oder day,' said Croll, 'dat vas nasty,— very nasty.' Nidderdale shook his head, but asked no questions. Croll had alluded to the use of his own name, but did not on this occasion make any further revelation. Then Croll made a further statement to Lord Nidderdale, which I think he must have done in pure good-nature. 'Mylor,' he said, whispering very gravely, 'de money of de yong lady is all her own.' Then he nodded his head three times. 'Nobody can toch it, not if he vas in debt millions.' Again he nodded his head.

'I am very glad to hear it for her sake,' said Lord Nidderdale as he took his leave.



CHAPTER LXXXVII - DOWN AT CARBURY

When Roger Carbury returned to Suffolk, after seeing his cousins in Welbeck Street, he was by no means contented with himself. That he should be discontented generally with the circumstances of his life was a matter of course. He knew that he was farther removed than ever from the object on which his whole mind was set. Had Hetta Carbury learned all the circumstances of Paul's engagement with Mrs Hurtle before she had confessed her love to Paul,—so that her heart might have been turned against the man before she had made her confession,— then, he thought, she might at last have listened to him. Even though she had loved the other man, she might have at last done so, as her love would have been buried in her own bosom. But the tale had been told after the fashion which was most antagonistic to his own interests. Hetta had never heard Mrs Hurtle's name till she had given herself away, and had declared to all her friends that she had given herself away to this man, who was so unworthy of her. The more Roger thought of this, the more angry he was with Paul Montague, and the more convinced that that man had done him an injury which he could never forgive.

But his grief extended even beyond that. Though he was never tired of swearing to himself that he would not forgive Paul Montague, yet there was present to him a feeling that an injury was being done to the man, and that he was in some sort responsible for that injury. He had declined to tell Hetta any part of the story about Mrs Hurtle,—actuated by a feeling that he ought not to betray the trust put in him by a man who was at the time his friend; and he had told nothing. But no one knew so well as he did the fact that all the attention latterly given by Paul to the American woman had by no means been the effect of love, but had come from a feeling on Paul's part that he could not desert the woman he had once loved, when she asked him for his kindness. If Hetta could know everything exactly,—if she could look back and read the state of Paul's mind as he, Roger, could read it,—then she would probably forgive the man, or perhaps tell herself that there was nothing for her to forgive. Roger was anxious that Hetta's anger should burn hot,—because of the injury done to himself. He thought that there were ample reasons why Paul Montague should be punished,—why Paul should be utterly expelled from among them, and allowed to go his own course. But it was not right that the man should be punished on false grounds. It seemed to Roger now that he was doing an injustice to his enemy by refraining from telling all that he knew.

As to the girl's misery in losing her lover, much as he loved her, true as it was that he was willing to devote himself and all that he had to her happiness, I do not think that at the present moment he was disturbed in that direction. It is hardly natural, perhaps, that a man should love a woman with such devotion as to wish to make her happy by giving her to another man. Roger told himself that Paul would be an unsafe husband, a fickle husband,—one who might be carried hither and thither both in his circumstances and his feelings,—and that it would be better for Hetta that she should not marry him; but at the same time he was unhappy as he reflected that he himself was a party to a certain amount of deceit.

And yet he had said not a word. He had referred Hetta to the man himself. He thought that he knew, and he did indeed accurately know, the state of Hetta's mind. She was wretched because she thought that while her lover was winning her love, while she herself was willingly allowing him to win her love, he was dallying with another woman, and making to that other woman promises the same as those he made to her. This was not true. Roger knew that it was not true. But when he tried to quiet his conscience by saying that they must fight it out among themselves, he felt himself to be uneasy under that assurance.

His life at Carbury, at this time, was very desolate. He had become tired of the priest, who, in spite of various repulses, had never for a moment relaxed his efforts to convert his friend. Roger had told him once that he must beg that religion might not be made the subject of further conversation between them. In answer to this, Father Barham had declared that he would never consent to remain as an intimate associate with any man on those terms. Roger had persisted in his stipulation, and the priest had then suggested that it was his host's intention to banish him from Carbury Hall. Roger had made no reply, and the priest had of course been banished. But even this added to his misery. Father Barham was a gentleman, was a good man, and in great penury. To ill-treat such a one, to expel such a one from his house, seemed to Roger to be an abominable cruelty. He was unhappy with himself about the priest, and yet he could not bid the man come back to him. It was already being said of him among his neighbours, at Eardly, at Caversham, and at the Bishop's palace, that he either had become or was becoming a Roman Catholic, under the priest's influence. Mrs Yeld had even taken upon herself to write to him a most affectionate letter, in which she said very little as to any evidence that had reached her as to Roger's defection, but dilated at very great length on the abominations of a certain lady who is supposed to indulge in gorgeous colours.

He was troubled, too, about old Daniel Ruggles, the farmer at Sheep's Acre, who had been so angry because his niece would not marry John Crumb. Old Ruggles, when abandoned by Ruby and accused by his neighbours of personal cruelty to the girl, had taken freely to that source of consolation which he found to be most easily within his reach. Since Ruby had gone he had been drunk every day, and was making himself generally a scandal and a nuisance. His landlord had interfered with his usual kindness, and the old man had always declared that his niece and John Crumb were the cause of it all; for now, in his maudlin misery, he attributed as much blame to the lover as he did to the girl. John Crumb wasn't in earnest. If he had been in earnest he would have gone after her to London at once. No;—he wouldn't invite Ruby to come back. If Ruby would come back, repentant, full of sorrow,—and hadn't been and made a fool of herself in the meantime,— then he'd think of taking her back. In the meantime, with circumstances in their present condition, he evidently thought that he could best face the difficulties of the world by an unfaltering adhesion to gin, early in the day and all day long. This, too, was a grievance to Roger Carbury.

But he did not neglect his work, the chief of which at the present moment was the care of the farm which he kept in his own hands. He was making hay at this time in certain meadows down by the river side; and was standing by while the men were loading a cart, when he saw John Crumb approaching across the field. He had not seen John since the eventful journey to London; nor had he seen him in London; but he knew well all that had occurred,—how the dealer in pollard had thrashed his cousin, Sir Felix, how he had been locked up by the police and then liberated,—and how he was now regarded in Bungay as a hero, as far as arms were concerned, but as being very 'soft' in the matter of love. The reader need hardly be told that Roger was not at all disposed to quarrel with Mr Crumb, because the victim of Crumb's heroism had been his own cousin. Crumb had acted well, and had never said a word about Sir Felix since his return to the country. No doubt he had now come to talk about his love,—and in order that his confessions might not be made before all the assembled haymakers, Roger Carbury hurried to meet him. There was soon evident on Crumb's broad face a whole sunshine of delight. As Roger approached him he began to laugh aloud, and to wave a bit of paper that he had in his hands. 'She's a coomin; she's a coomin,' were the first words he uttered. Roger knew very well that in his friend's mind there was but one 'she' in the world, and that the name of that she was Ruby Ruggles.

'I am delighted to hear it,' said Roger. 'She has made it up with her grandfather?'

'Don't know now't about grandfeyther. She have made it up wi' me. Know'd she would when I'd polish'd t'other un off a bit;—know'd she would.'

'Has she written to you, then?'

'Well, squoire,—she ain't; not just herself. I do suppose that isn't the way they does it. But it's all as one.' And then Mr Crumb thrust Mrs Hurtle's note into Roger Carbury's hand.

Roger certainly was not predisposed to think well or kindly of Mrs Hurtle. Since he had first known Mrs Hurtle's name, when Paul Montague had told the story of his engagement on his return from America, Roger had regarded her as a wicked, intriguing, bad woman. It may, perhaps, be confessed that he was prejudiced against all Americans, looking upon Washington much as he did upon Jack Cade or Wat Tyler; and he pictured to himself all American women as being loud, masculine, and atheistical. But it certainly did seem that in this instance Mrs Hurtle was endeavouring to do a good turn from pure charity. 'She is a lady,' Crumb began to explain, 'who do be living with Mrs Pipkin; and she is a lady as is a lady.'

Roger could not fully admit the truth of this assertion; but he explained that he, too, knew something of Mrs Hurtle, and that he thought it probable that what she said of Ruby might be true. 'True, squoire,' said Crumb, laughing with his whole face. 'I ha' nae a doubt it's true. What's again its being true? When I had dropped into t'other fellow, of course she made her choice. It was me as was to blame, because I didn't do it before. I ought to ha' dropped into him when I first heard as he was arter her. It's that as girls like. So, squoire, I'm just going again to Lon'on right away.'

Roger suggested that old Ruggles would, of course, receive his niece; but as to this John expressed his supreme indifference. The old man was nothing to him. Of course he would like to have the old man's money; but the old man couldn't live for ever, and he supposed that things would come right in time. But this he knew,—that he wasn't going to cringe to the old man about his money. When Roger observed that it would be better that Ruby should have some home to which she might at once return, John adverted with a renewed grin to all the substantial comforts of his own house. It seemed to be his idea, that on arriving in London he would at once take Ruby away to church and be married to her out of hand. He had thrashed his rival, and what cause could there now be for delay?

But before he left the field he made one other speech to the squire. 'You ain't a'taken it amiss, squoire, 'cause he was coosin to yourself?'

'Not in the least, Mr Crumb.'

'That's koind now. I ain't a done the yong man a ha'porth o' harm, and I don't feel no grudge again him, and when me and Ruby's once spliced, I'm darned if I don't give 'un a bottle of wine the first day as he'll come to Bungay.'

Roger did not feel himself justified in accepting this invitation on the part of Sir Felix; but he renewed his assurance that he, on his own part, thought that Crumb had behaved well in that matter of the street encounter, and he expressed a strong wish for the immediate and continued happiness of Mr and Mrs John Crumb.

'Oh, ay, we'll be 'appy, squoire,' said Crumb as he went exulting out of the field.

On the day after this Roger Carbury received a letter which disturbed him very much, and to which he hardly knew whether to return any answer, or what answer. It was from Paul Montague, and was written by him but a few hours after he had left his letter for Hetta with his own hands, at the door of her mother's house. Paul's letter to Roger was as follows:—

MY DEAR ROGER,—

Though I know that you have cast me off from you I cannot write to you in any other way, as any other way would be untrue. You can answer me, of course, as you please, but I do think that you will owe me an answer, as I appeal to you in the name of justice.

You know what has taken place between Hetta and myself. She had accepted me, and therefore I am justified in feeling sure that she must have loved me. But she has now quarrelled with me altogether, and has told me that I am never to see her again. Of course I don't mean to put up with this. Who would? You will say that it is no business of yours. But I think that you would not wish that she should be left under a false impression, if you could put her right.

Somebody has told her the story of Mrs Hurtle. I suppose it was Felix, and that he had learned it from those people at Islington. But she has been told that which is untrue. Nobody knows and nobody can know the truth as you do. She supposes that I have willingly been passing my time with Mrs Hurtle during the last two months, although during that very time I have asked for and received the assurance of her love. Now, whether or no I have been to blame about Mrs Hurtle,—as to which nothing at present need be said,—it is certainly the truth that her coming to England was not only not desired by me, but was felt by me to be the greatest possible misfortune. But after all that had passed I certainly owed it to her not to neglect her;—and this duty was the more incumbent on me as she was a foreigner and unknown to any one. I went down to Lowestoft with her at her request, having named the place to her as one known to myself, and because I could not refuse her so small a favour. You know that it was so, and you know also, as no one else does, that whatever courtesy I have shown to Mrs Hurtle in England, I have been constrained to show her.

I appeal to you to let Hetta know that this is true. She had made me understand that not only her mother and brother, but you also, are well acquainted with the story of my acquaintance with Mrs Hurtle. Neither Lady Carbury nor Sir Felix has ever known anything about it. You, and you only, have known the truth. And now, though at the present you are angry with me, I call upon you to tell Hetta the truth as you know it. You will understand me when I say that I feel that I am being destroyed by a false representation. I think that you, who abhor a falsehood, will see the justice of setting me right, at any rate as far as the truth can do so. I do not want you to say a word for me beyond that.

Yours always,

PAUL MONTAGUE.

'What business is all that of mine?' This, of course, was the first feeling produced in Roger's mind by Montague's letter. If Hetta had received any false impression, it had not come from him. He had told no stories against his rival, whether true or false. He had been so scrupulous that he had refused to say a word at all. And if any false impression had been made on Hetta's mind, either by circumstances or by untrue words, had not Montague deserved any evil that might fall upon him? Though every word in Montague's letter might be true, nevertheless, in the end, no more than justice would be done him, even should he be robbed at last of his mistress under erroneous impressions. The fact that he had once disgraced himself by offering to make Mrs Hurtle his wife, rendered him unworthy of Hetta Carbury. Such, at least, was Roger Carbury's verdict as he thought over all the circumstances. At any rate, it was no business of his to correct these wrong impressions.

And yet he was ill at ease as he thought of it all. He did believe that every word in Montague's letter was true. Though he had been very indignant when he met Roger and Mrs Hurtle together on the sands at Lowestoft, he was perfectly convinced that the cause of their coming there had been precisely that which Montague had stated. It took him two days to think over all this, two days of great discomfort and unhappiness. After all, why should he be a dog in the manger? The girl did not care for him,—looked upon him as an old man to be regarded in a fashion altogether different from that in which she regarded Paul Montague. He had let his time for love-making go by, and now it behoved him, as a man, to take the world as he found it, and not to lose himself in regrets for a kind of happiness which he could never attain. In such an emergency as this he should do what was fair and honest, without reference to his own feelings. And yet the passion which dominated John Crumb altogether, which made the mealman so intent on the attainment of his object as to render all other things indifferent to him for the time, was equally strong with Roger Carbury. Unfortunately for Roger, strong as his passion was, it was embarrassed by other feelings. It never occurred to Crumb to think whether he was a fit husband for Ruby, or whether Ruby, having a decided preference for another man, could be a fit wife for him. But with Roger there were a thousand surrounding difficulties to hamper him. John Crumb never doubted for a moment what he should do. He had to get the girl, if possible, and he meant to get her whatever she might cost him. He was always confident though sometimes perplexed. But Roger had no confidence. He knew that he should never win the game. In his sadder moments he felt that he ought not to win it. The people around him, from old fashion, still called him the young squire! Why;—he felt himself at times to be eighty years old,—so old that he was unfitted for intercourse with such juvenile spirits as those of his neighbour the bishop, and of his friend Hepworth. Could he, by any training, bring himself to take her happiness in hand, altogether sacrificing his own?

In such a mood as this he did at last answer his enemy's letter,—and he answered it as follows:—

I do not know that I am concerned to meddle in your affairs at all. I have told no tale against you, and I do not know that I have any that I wish to tell in your favour, or that I could so tell if I did wish. I think that you have behaved badly to me, cruelly to Mrs Hurtle, and disrespectfully to my cousin. Nevertheless, as you appeal to me on a certain point for evidence which I can give, and which you say no one else can give, I do acknowledge that, in my opinion, Mrs Hurtle's presence in England has not been in accordance with your wishes, and that you accompanied her to Lowestoft, not as her lover but as an old friend whom you could not neglect.

ROGER CARBURY.

Paul Montague, Esq.

You are at liberty to show this letter to Miss Carbury, if you please; but if she reads part she should read the whole!

There was more perhaps of hostility in this letter than of that spirit of self-sacrifice to which Roger intended to train himself; and so he himself felt after the letter had been dispatched.



CHAPTER LXXXVIII - THE INQUEST

Melmotte had been found dead on Friday morning, and late on the evening of the same day Madame Melmotte and Marie were removed to lodgings far away from the scene of the tragedy, up at Hampstead. Herr Croll had known of the place, and at Lord Nidderdale's instance had busied himself in the matter, and had seen that the rooms were made instantly ready for the widow of his late employer. Nidderdale himself had assisted them in their departure; and the German, with the poor woman's maid, with the jewels also, which had been packed according to Melmotte's last orders to his wife, followed the carriage which took the mother and the daughter. They did not start till nine o'clock in the evening, and Madame Melmotte at the moment would fain have been allowed to rest one other night in Bruton Street. But Lord Nidderdale, with one hardly uttered word, made Marie understand that the inquest would be held early on the following morning, and Marie was imperious with her mother and carried her point. So the poor woman was taken away from Mr Longestaffe's residence, and never again saw the grandeur of her own house in Grosvenor Square, which she had not visited since the night on which she had helped to entertain the Emperor of China.

On Saturday morning the inquest was held. There was not the slightest doubt as to any one of the incidents of the catastrophe. The servants, the doctor, and the inspector of police between them, learned that he had come home alone, that nobody had been near him during the night, that he had been found dead, and that he had undoubtedly been poisoned by prussic acid. It was also proved that he had been drunk in the House of Commons, a fact to which one of the clerks of the House, very much against his will, was called upon to testify. That he had destroyed himself there was no doubt,—nor was there any doubt as to the cause.

In such cases as this it is for the jury to say whether the unfortunate one who has found his life too hard for endurance, and has rushed away to see whether he could not find an improved condition of things elsewhere, has or has not been mad at the moment. Surviving friends are of course anxious for a verdict of insanity, as in that case no further punishment is exacted. The body can be buried like any other body, and it can always be said afterwards that the poor man was mad. Perhaps it would be well that all suicides should be said to have been mad, for certainly the jurymen are not generally guided in their verdicts by any accurately ascertained facts. If the poor wretch has, up to his last days, been apparently living a decent life; if he be not hated, or has not in his last moments made himself specially obnoxious to the world at large, then he is declared to have been mad. Who would be heavy on a poor clergyman who has been at last driven by horrid doubts to rid himself of a difficulty from which he saw no escape in any other way? Who would not give the benefit of the doubt to the poor woman whose lover and lord had deserted her? Who would remit to unhallowed earth the body of the once beneficent philosopher who has simply thought that he might as well go now, finding himself powerless to do further good upon earth? Such, and such like, have of course been temporarily insane, though no touch even of strangeness may have marked their conduct up to their last known dealings with their fellow-mortals. But let a Melmotte be found dead, with a bottle of prussic acid by his side—a man who has become horrid to the world because of his late iniquities, a man who has so well pretended to be rich that he has been able to buy and to sell properties without paying for them, a wretch who has made himself odious by his ruin to friends who had taken him up as a pillar of strength in regard to wealth, a brute who had got into the House of Commons by false pretences, and had disgraced the House by being drunk there,—and, of course, he will not be saved by a verdict of insanity from the cross roads, or whatever scornful grave may be allowed to those who have killed themselves with their wits about them. Just at this moment there was a very strong feeling against Melmotte, owing perhaps as much to his having tumbled over poor Mr Beauchamp in the House of Commons as to the stories of the forgeries he had committed, and the virtue of the day vindicated itself by declaring him to have been responsible for his actions when he took the poison. He was felo de se, and therefore carried away to the cross roads—or elsewhere. But it may be imagined, I think, that during that night he may have become as mad as any other wretch, have been driven as far beyond his powers of endurance as any other poor creature who ever at any time felt himself constrained to go. He had not been so drunk but that he knew all that happened, and could foresee pretty well what would happen. The summons to attend upon the Lord Mayor had been served upon him. There were some, among them Croll and Mr Brehgert, who absolutely knew that he had committed forgery. He had no money for the Longestaffes, and he was well aware what Squercum would do at once. He had assured himself long ago,—he had assured himself indeed not very long ago,—that he would brave it all like a man. But we none of us know what load we can bear, and what would break our backs. Melmotte's back had been so utterly crushed that I almost think that he was mad enough to have justified a verdict of temporary insanity.

But he was carried away, no one knew whither, and for a week his name was hateful. But after that, a certain amount of whitewashing took place, and, in some degree, a restitution of fame was made to the manes of the departed. In Westminster he was always odious. Westminster, which had adopted him, never forgave him. But in other districts it came to be said of him that he had been more sinned against than sinning; and that, but for the jealousy of the old stagers in the mercantile world, he would have done very wonderful things. Marylebone, which is always merciful, took him up quite with affection, and would have returned his ghost to Parliament could his ghost have paid for committee rooms. Finsbury delighted for a while to talk of the great Financier, and even Chelsea thought that he had been done to death by ungenerous tongues. It was, however, Marylebone alone that spoke of a monument.

Mr Longestaffe came back to his house, taking formal possession of it a few days after the verdict. Of course he was alone. There had been no further question of bringing the ladies of the family up to town; and Dolly altogether declined to share with his father the honour of encountering the dead man's spirit. But there was very much for Mr Longestaffe to do, and very much also for his son. It was becoming a question with both of them how far they had been ruined by their connection with the horrible man. It was clear that they could not get back the title-deeds of the Pickering property without paying the amount which had been advanced upon them, and it was equally clear that they could not pay that sum unless they were enabled to do so by funds coming out of the Melmotte estate. Dolly, as he sat smoking upon the stool in Mr Squercum's office, where he now passed a considerable portion of his time, looked upon himself as a miracle of ill-usage.

'By George, you know, I shall have to go to law with the governor. There's nothing else for it; is there, Squercum?'

Squercum suggested that they had better wait till they found what pickings there might be out of the Melmotte estate. He had made inquiries too about that, and had been assured that there must be property, but property so involved and tied up as to make it impossible to lay hands upon it suddenly. 'They say that the things in the square, and the plate, and the carriages and horses, and all that, ought to fetch between twenty and thirty thousand. There were a lot of jewels, but the women have taken them,' said Squercum.

'By George, they ought to be made to give up everything. Did you ever hear of such a thing;—the very house pulled down,—my house; and all done without a word from me in the matter? I don't suppose such a thing was ever known before, since properties were properties.' Then he uttered sundry threats against the Bideawhiles, in reference to whom he declared his intention of 'making it very hot for them.'

It was an annoyance added to the elder Mr Longestaffe that the management of Melmotte's affairs fell at last almost exclusively into the hands of Mr Brehgert. Now Brehgert, in spite of his many dealings with Melmotte, was an honest man, and, which was perhaps of as much immediate consequence, both an energetic and a patient man. But then he was the man who had wanted to marry Georgiana Longestaffe, and he was the man to whom Mr Longestaffe had been particularly uncivil. Then there arose necessities for the presence of Mr Brehgert in the house in which Melmotte had lately lived and had died. The dead man's papers were still there,—deeds, documents, and such letters as he had not chosen to destroy;—and these could not be moved quite at once. 'Mr Brehgert must of course have access to my private room, as long as it is necessary,—absolutely necessary,' said Mr Longestaffe in answer to a message which was brought to him; 'but he will of course see the expediency of relieving me from such intrusion as soon as possible.' But he soon found it preferable to come to terms with the rejected suitor, especially as the man was singularly good-natured and forbearing after the injuries he had received.

All minor debts were to be paid at once; an arrangement to which Mr Longestaffe cordially agreed, as it included a sum of L300 due to him for the rent of his house in Bruton Street. Then by degrees it became known that there would certainly be a dividend of not less than fifty per cent. payable on debts which could be proved to have been owing by Melmotte, and perhaps of more;—an arrangement which was very comfortable to Dolly, as it had been already agreed between all the parties interested that the debt due to him should be satisfied before the father took anything. Mr Longestaffe resolved during these weeks that he remained in town that, as regarded himself and his own family, the house in London should not only not be kept up, but that it should be absolutely sold, with all its belongings, and that the servants at Caversham should be reduced in number and should cease to wear powder. All this was communicated to Lady Pomona in a very long letter, which she was instructed to read to her daughters. 'I have suffered great wrongs,' said Mr Longestaffe, 'but I must submit to them, and as I submit so must my wife and children. If our son were different from what he is the sacrifice might probably be made lighter. His nature I cannot alter, but from my daughters I expect cheerful obedience.' From what incidents of his past life he was led to expect cheerfulness at Caversham it might be difficult to say; but the obedience was there. Georgey was for the time broken down; Sophia was satisfied with her nuptial prospects, and Lady Pomona had certainly no spirits left for a combat. I think the loss of the hair-powder afflicted her most; but she said not a word even about that.

But in all this the details necessary for the telling of our story are anticipated. Mr Longestaffe had remained in London actually over the 1st of September, which in Suffolk is the one great festival of the year, before the letter was written to which allusion has been made. In the meantime he saw much of Mr Brehgert, and absolutely formed a kind of friendship for that gentleman, in spite of the abomination of his religion,—so that on one occasion he even condescended to ask Mr Brehgert to dine alone with him in Bruton Street. This, too, was in the early days of the arrangement of the Melmotte affairs, when Mr Longestaffe's heart had been softened by that arrangement with reference to the rent. Mr Brehgert came, and there arose a somewhat singular conversation between the two gentlemen as they sat together over a bottle of Mr Longestaffe's old port wine. Hitherto not a word had passed between them respecting the connection which had once been proposed, since the day on which the young lady's father had said so many bitter things to the expectant bridegroom. But in this evening Mr Brehgert, who was by no means a coward in such matters and whose feelings were not perhaps painfully fine, spoke his mind in a way that at first startled Mr Longestaffe. The subject was introduced by a reference which Brehgert had made to his own affairs. His loss would be, at any rate, double that which Mr Longestaffe would have to bear;— but he spoke of it in an easy way, as though it did not sit very near his heart. 'Of course there's a difference between me and you,' he said. Mr Longestaffe bowed his head graciously, as much as to say that there was of course a very wide difference. 'In our affairs,' continued Brehgert, 'we expect gains, and of course look for occasional losses. When a gentleman in your position sells a property he expects to get the purchase-money.'

'Of course he does, Mr Brehgert. That's what made it so hard.'

'I can't even yet quite understand how it was with him, or why he took upon himself to spend such an enormous deal of money here in London. His business was quite irregular, but there was very much of it, and some of it immensely profitable. He took us in completely.'

'I suppose so.'

'It was old Mr Todd that first took to him;—but I was deceived as much as Todd, and then I ventured on a speculation with him outside of our house. The long and short of it is that I shall lose something about sixty thousand pounds.'

'That's a large sum of money.'

'Very large;—so large as to affect my daily mode of life. In my correspondence with your daughter, I considered it to be my duty to point out to her that it would be so. I do not know whether she told you.'

This reference to his daughter for the moment altogether upset Mr Longestaffe. The reference was certainly most indelicate, most deserving of censure; but Mr Longestaffe did not know how to pronounce his censure on the spur of the moment, and was moreover at the present time so very anxious for Brehgert's assistance in the arrangement of his affairs that, so to say, he could not afford to quarrel with the man. But he assumed something more than his normal dignity as he asserted that his daughter had never mentioned the fact.

'It was so,' said Brehgert

'No doubt;'—and Mr Longestaffe assumed a great deal of dignity.

'Yes; it was so. I had promised your daughter when she was good enough to listen to the proposition which I made to her, that I would maintain a second house when we should be married.'

'It was impossible,' said Mr Longestaffe,—meaning to assert that such hymeneals were altogether unnatural and out of the question.

'It would have been quite possible as things were when that proposition was made. But looking forward to the loss which I afterwards anticipated from the affairs of our deceased friend, I found it to be prudent to relinquish my intention for the present, and I thought myself bound to inform Miss Longestaffe.'

'There were other reasons,' muttered Mr Longestaffe, in a suppressed voice, almost in a whisper,—in a whisper which was intended to convey a sense of present horror and a desire for future reticence.

'There may have been; but in the last letter which Miss Longestaffe did me the honour to write to me,—a letter with which I have not the slightest right to find any fault,—she seemed to me to confine herself almost exclusively to that reason.'

'Why mention this now, Mr Brehgert; why mention this now? The subject is painful.'

'Just because it is not painful to me, Mr Longestaffe; and because I wish that all they who have heard of the matter should know that it is not painful. I think that throughout I behaved like a gentleman.' Mr Longestaffe, in an agony, first shook his head twice, and then bowed it three times, leaving the Jew to take what answer he could from so dubious an oracle. 'I am sure.' continued Brehgert, 'that I behaved like an honest man; and I didn't quite like that the matter should be passed over as if I was in any way ashamed of myself.'

'Perhaps on so delicate a subject the less said the soonest mended.'

'I've nothing more to say, and I've nothing at all to mend.' Finishing the conversation with this little speech Brehgert arose to take his leave, making some promise at the time that he would use all the expedition in his power to complete the arrangement of the Melmotte affairs.

As soon as he was gone Mr Longestaffe opened the door and walked about the room and blew out long puffs of breath, as though to cleanse himself from the impurities of his late contact. He told himself that he could not touch pitch and not be defiled! How vulgar had the man been, how indelicate, how regardless of all feeling, how little grateful for the honour which Mr Longestaffe had conferred upon him by asking him to dinner! Yes;—yes! A horrid Jew! Were not all Jews necessarily an abomination? Yet Mr Longestaffe was aware that in the present crisis of his fortunes he could not afford to quarrel with Mr Brehgert.



CHAPTER LXXXIX - 'THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE'

It was a long time now since Lady Carbury's great historical work on the Criminal Queens of the World had been completed and given to the world. Any reader careful as to dates will remember that it was as far back as in February that she had solicited the assistance of certain of her literary friends who were connected with the daily and weekly press. These gentlemen had responded to her call with more or less zealous aid, so that the 'Criminal Queens' had been regarded in the trade as one of the successful books of the season. Messrs. Leadham and Loiter had published a second, and then, very quickly, a fourth and fifth edition; and had been able in their advertisements to give testimony from various criticisms showing that Lady Carbury's book was about the greatest historical work which had emanated from the press in the present century. With this object a passage was extracted even from the columns of the 'Evening Pulpit,'—which showed very great ingenuity on the part of some young man connected with the establishment of Messrs. Leadham and Loiter. Lady Carbury had suffered something in the struggle. What efforts can mortals make as to which there will not be some disappointment? Paper and print cannot be had for nothing, and advertisements are very costly. An edition may be sold with startling rapidity, but it may have been but a scanty edition. When Lady Carbury received from Messrs. Leadham and Loiter their second very moderate cheque, with the expression of a fear on their part that there would not probably be a third,—unless some unforeseen demand should arise,—she repeated to herself those well-known lines from the satirist,—

'Oh, Amos Cottle, for a moment think What meagre profits spread from pen and ink.'

But not on that account did she for a moment hesitate as to further attempts. Indeed she had hardly completed the last chapter of her 'Criminal Queens' before she was busy on another work; and although the last six months had been to her a period of incessant trouble, and sometimes of torture, though the conduct of her son had more than once forced her to declare to herself that her mind would fail her, still she had persevered. From day to day, with all her cares heavy upon her, she had sat at her work, with a firm resolve that so many lines should be always forthcoming, let the difficulty of making them be what it might. Messrs. Leadham and Loiter had thought that they might be justified in offering her certain terms for a novel,—terms not very high indeed, and those contingent on the approval of the manuscript by their reader. The smallness of the sum offered, and the want of certainty, and the pain of the work in her present circumstances, had all been felt by her to be very hard. But she had persevered, and the novel was now complete.

It cannot with truth be said of her that she had had any special tale to tell. She had taken to the writing of a novel because Mr Loiter had told her that upon the whole novels did better than anything else. She would have written a volume of sermons on the same encouragement, and have gone about the work exactly after the same fashion. The length of her novel had been her first question. It must be in three volumes, and each volume must have three hundred pages. But what fewest number of words might be supposed sufficient to fill a page? The money offered was too trifling to allow of very liberal measure on her part. She had to live, and if possible to write another novel,—and, as she hoped, upon better terms,—when this should be finished. Then what should be the name of her novel; what the name of her hero; and above all what the name of her heroine? It must be a love story of course; but she thought that she would leave the complications of the plot to come by chance,—and they did come. 'Don't let it end unhappily, Lady Carbury,' Mr Loiter had said, 'because though people like it in a play, they hate it in a book. And whatever you do, Lady Carbury, don't be historical. Your historical novel, Lady Carbury, isn't worth a—' Mr Loiter stopping himself suddenly, and remembering that he was addressing himself to a lady, satisfied his energy at last by the use of the word 'straw.' Lady Carbury had followed these instructions with accuracy.

The name for the story had been the great thing. It did not occur to the authoress that, as the plot was to be allowed to develop itself and was, at this moment when she was perplexed as to the title, altogether uncreated, she might as well wait to see what appellation might best suit her work when its purpose should have declared itself. A novel, she knew well, was most unlike a rose, which by any other name will smell as sweet. 'The Faultless Father,' 'The Mysterious Mother,' 'The Lame Lover,'—such names as that she was aware would be useless now. 'Mary Jane Walker,' if she could be very simple, would do, or 'Blanche De Veau,' if she were able to maintain throughout a somewhat high-stilted style of feminine rapture. But as she considered that she could best deal with rapid action and strange coincidences, she thought that something more startling and descriptive would better suit her purpose. After an hour's thought a name did occur to her, and she wrote it down, and with considerable energy of purpose framed her work in accordance with her chosen title, 'The Wheel of Fortune!' She had no particular fortune in her mind when she chose it, and no particular wheel;—but the very idea conveyed by the words gave her the plot which she wanted. A young lady was blessed with great wealth, and lost it all by an uncle, and got it all back by an honest lawyer, and gave it all up to a distressed lover, and found it all again in a third volume. And the lady's name was Cordinga, selected by Lady Carbury as never having been heard before either in the world of fact or in that of fiction.

And now with all her troubles thick about her,—while her son was still hanging about the house in a condition that would break any mother's heart, while her daughter was so wretched and sore that she regarded all those around her as her enemies, Lady Carbury finished her work, and having just written the last words in which the final glow of enduring happiness was given to the young married heroine whose wheel had now come full round, sat with the sheets piled at her right hand. She had allowed herself a certain number of weeks for the task, and had completed it exactly in the time fixed. As she sat with her hand near the pile, she did give herself credit for her diligence. Whether the work might have been better done she never asked herself. I do not think that she prided herself much on the literary merit of the tale. But if she could bring the papers to praise it, if she could induce Mudie to circulate it, if she could manage that the air for a month should be so loaded with 'The Wheel of Fortune,' as to make it necessary for the reading world to have read or to have said that it had read the book,—then she would pride herself very much upon her work.

As she was so sitting on a Sunday afternoon, in her own room, Mr Alf was announced. According to her habit, she expressed warm delight at seeing him. Nothing could be kinder than such a visit just at such a time,—when there was so very much to occupy such a one as Mr Alf! Mr Alf, in his usual mildly satirical way, declared that he was not peculiarly occupied just at present. 'The Emperor has left Europe at last,' he said. 'Poor Melmotte poisoned himself on Friday, and the inquest sat yesterday. I don't know that there is anything of interest to-day.' Of course Lady Carbury was intent upon her book, rather even than on the exciting death of a man whom she had herself known. Oh, if she could only get Mr Alf! She had tried it before, and had failed lamentably. She was well aware of that; and she had a deep-seated conviction that it would be almost impossible to get Mr Alf. But then she had another deep-seated conviction, that that which is almost impossible may possibly be done. How great would be the glory, how infinite the service! And did it not seem as though Providence had blessed her with this special opportunity, sending Mr Alf to her just at the one moment at which she might introduce the subject of her novel without seeming premeditation?

'I am so tired,' she said, affecting to throw herself back as though stretching her arms out for ease.

'I hope I am not adding to your fatigue,' said Mr Alf. 'Oh dear no. It is not the fatigue of the moment, but of the last six months. Just as you knocked at the door, I had finished the novel at which I have been working, oh, with such diligence!'

'Oh;—a novel! When is it to appear, Lady Carbury?'

'You must ask Leadham and Loiter that question. I have done my part of the work. I suppose you never wrote a novel, Mr Alf?'

'I? Oh dear no; I never write anything.'

'I have sometimes wondered whether I have hated or loved it the most. One becomes so absorbed in one's plot and one's characters! One loves the loveable so intensely, and hates with such fixed aversion those who are intended to be hated. When the mind is attuned to it, one is tempted to think that it is all so good. One cries at one's own pathos, laughs at one's own humour, and is lost in admiration at one's own sagacity and knowledge.'

'How very nice!'

'But then there comes the reversed picture, the other side of the coin. On a sudden everything becomes flat, tedious, and unnatural. The heroine who was yesterday alive with the celestial spark is found to-day to be a lump of motionless clay. The dialogue that was so cheery on the first perusal is utterly uninteresting at a second reading. Yesterday I was sure that there was my monument,' and she put her hand upon the manuscript; 'to-day I feel it to be only too heavy for a gravestone!'

'One's judgement about one's self always does vacillate,' said Mr Alf in a tone as phlegmatic as were the words.

'And yet it is so important that one should be able to judge correctly of one's own work! I can at any rate trust myself to be honest, which is more perhaps than can be said of all the critics.'

'Dishonesty is not the general fault of the critics, Lady Carbury,—at least not as far as I have observed the business. It is incapacity. In what little I have done in the matter, that is the sin which I have striven to conquer. When we want shoes we go to a professed shoemaker; but for criticism we have certainly not gone to professed critics. I think that when I gave up the "Evening Pulpit," I left upon it a staff of writers who are entitled to be regarded as knowing their business.'

'You given up the "Pulpit"?' asked Lady Carbury with astonishment, readjusting her mind at once, so that she might perceive whether any and if so what advantage might be taken of Mr Alf's new position. He was no longer editor, and therefore his heavy sense of responsibility would no longer exist;—but he must still have influence. Might he not be persuaded to do one act of real friendship? Might she not succeed if she would come down from her high seat, sink on the ground before him, tell him the plain truth, and beg for a favour as a poor struggling woman?

'Yes, Lady Carbury, I have given it up. It was a matter of course that I should do so when I stood for Parliament. Now that the new member has so suddenly vacated his seat, I shall probably stand again.'

'And you are no longer an editor?'

'I have given it up, and I suppose I have now satisfied the scruples of those gentlemen who seemed to think that I was committing a crime against the Constitution in attempting to get into Parliament while I was managing a newspaper. I never heard such nonsense. Of course I know where it came from.'

'Where did it come from?'

'Where should it come from but the "Breakfast Table"? Broune and I have been very good friends, but I do think that of all the men I know he is the most jealous.'

'That is so little,' said Lady Carbury. She was really very fond of Mr Broune, but at the present moment she was obliged to humour Mr Alf.

'It seems to me that no man can be better qualified to sit in Parliament than an editor of a newspaper,—that is if he is capable as an editor.'

'No one, I think, has ever doubted that of you.'

'The only question is whether he be strong enough for the double work. I have doubted about myself, and have therefore given up the paper. I almost regret it.'

'I dare say you do,' said Lady Carbury, feeling intensely anxious to talk about her own affairs instead of his. 'I suppose you still retain an interest in the paper?'

'Some pecuniary interest;—nothing more.'

'Oh, Mr Alf,—you could do me such a favour!'

'Can I? If I can, you may be sure I will.' False-hearted, false-tongued man! Of course he knew at the moment what was the favour Lady Carbury intended to ask, and of course he had made up his mind that he would not do as he was asked.

'Will you?' And Lady Carbury clasped her hands together as she poured forth the words of her prayer. 'I never asked you to do anything for me as long as you were editing the paper. Did I? I did not think it right, and I would not do it. I took my chance like others, and I am sure you must own that I bore what was said of me with a good grace. I never complained. Did I?'

'Certainly not.'

'But now that you have left it yourself,—if you would have the "Wheel of Fortune" done for me,—really well done!'

'The "Wheel of Fortune"!'

'That is the name of my novel,' said Lady Carbury, putting her hand softly upon the manuscript. 'Just at this moment it would be the making of a fortune for me! And oh, Mr Alf, if you could but know how I want such assistance!'

'I have nothing further to do with the editorial management, Lady Carbury.'

'Of course you could get it done. A word from you would make it certain. A novel is different from an historical work, you know. I have taken so much pains with it.'

'Then no doubt it will be praised on its own merits.'

'Don't say that, Mr Alf. The "Evening Pulpit" is like,—oh, it is like,—like,—like the throne of heaven! Who can be justified before it? Don't talk about its own merits, but say that you will have it done. It couldn't do any man any harm, and it would sell five hundred copies at once,—that is if it were done really con amore.' Mr Alf looked at her almost piteously, and shook his head. 'The paper stands so high, it can't hurt it to do that kind of thing once. A woman is asking you, Mr Alf. It is for my children that I am struggling. The thing is done every day of the week, with much less noble motives.'

'I do not think that it has ever been done by the "Evening Pulpit."'

'I have seen books praised.'

'Of course you have.'

'I think I saw a novel spoken highly of.'

Mr Alf laughed. 'Why not? You do not suppose that it is the object of the "Pulpit" to cry down novels?'

'I thought it was; but I thought you might make an exception here. I would be so thankful;—so grateful.'

'My dear Lady Carbury, pray believe me when I say that I have nothing to do with it. I need not preach to you sermons about literary virtue.'

'Oh, no,' she said, not quite understanding what he meant.

'The sceptre has passed from my hands, and I need not vindicate the justice of my successor.'

'I shall never know your successor.'

'But I must assure you that on no account should I think of meddling with the literary arrangement of the paper. I would not do it for my sister.' Lady Carbury looked greatly pained. 'Send the book out, and let it take its chance. How much prouder you will be to have it praised because it deserves praise, than to know that it has been eulogized as a mark of friendship.'

'No, I shan't,' said Lady Carbury. 'I don't believe that anything like real selling praise is ever given to anybody, except to friends. I don't know how they manage it, but they do.' Mr Alf shook his head. 'Oh yes; that is all very well from you. Of course you have been a dragon of virtue; but they tell me that the authoress of the "New Cleopatra" is a very handsome woman.' Lady Carbury must have been worried much beyond her wont, when she allowed herself so far to lose her temper as to bring against Mr Alf the double charge of being too fond of the authoress in question, and of having sacrificed the justice of his columns to that improper affection.