her the mother of a future Marquis. Her face, though handsome, was quite impassive, showing nothing of her sorrows or her joys; and her voice was equally under control. No one had ever imagined, not even her husband, that she felt acutely that one blow of fortune. Though Hampstead's politics had been to her abominable, treasonable, blasphemous, she treated him with an extreme courtesy. If there were anything that he wished about the house she would have it done for him. She would endeavour to interest herself about his hunting. And she would pay him a great respect—to him most onerous—as being second in all things to the Marquis. Though a Republican blasphemous rebel—so she thought of him—he was second to the Marquis. She would fain have taught her little boys to respect him—as the future head of the family—had he not been so accustomed to romp with them, to pull them out of their little beds, and toss them about in their night-shirts, that they loved him much too well for respect. It was in vain that their mother strove to teach them to call him Hampstead.
Lady Frances had never been specially in her way, but to Lady Frances the stepmother had been perhaps harder than to the stepson, of whose presence as an absolute block to her ambition she was well aware. Lady Frances had no claim to a respect higher than that which was due to her own children. Primogeniture had done nothing for her. She was a Marquis's daughter, but her mother had been only the offspring of a commoner. There was perhaps something of conscience in her feelings towards the two. As Lord Hampstead was undoubtedly in her way, it occurred to her to think that she should not on that account be inimical to him. Lady Frances was not in her way—and therefore was open to depreciation and dislike without wounds to her conscience; and then, though Hampstead was abominable because of his Republicanism, his implied treason, and blasphemy, yet he was entitled to some excuse as being a man. These things were abominable no doubt in him, but more pardonably abominable than they would be in a woman. Lady Frances had never declared herself to be a Republican or a disbeliever, much less a rebel—as, indeed, had neither Lord Hampstead. In the presence of her stepmother she was generally silent on matters of political or religious interest. But she was supposed to sympathise with her brother, and was known to be far from properly alive to aristocratic interests. There was never quarrelling between the two, but there was a lack of that friendship which may subsist between a stepmother of thirty-eight and a stepdaughter of twenty-one. Lady Frances was tall and slender, with quiet speaking features, dark in colour, with blue eyes, and hair nearly black. In appearance she was the very opposite of her stepmother, moving quickly and achieving grace as she did so, without a thought, by the natural beauty of her motions. The dignity was there, but without a thought given to it. Not even did the little lords, her brothers, chuck their books and toys about with less idea of demeanour. But the Marchioness never arranged a scarf or buttoned a glove without feeling that it was her duty to button her glove and arrange her scarf as became the Marchioness of Kingsbury.
The stepmother wished no evil to Lady Frances—only that she should be married properly and taken out of the way. Any stupid Earl or mercurial Viscount would have done, so long as the blood and the money had been there. Lady Frances had been felt to be dangerous, and the hope was that the danger might be got rid of by a proper marriage. But not by such a marriage as this!
When that accidental calling of the name was first heard and the following avowal made, the Marchioness declared her immediate feelings by a look. It was so that Arthur may have looked when he first heard that his Queen was sinful—so that Cæsar must have felt when even Brutus struck him. For though Lady Frances had been known to be blind to her own greatness, still this—this at any rate was not suspected. "You cannot mean it!" the Marchioness had at last said.
"I certainly mean it, mamma." Then the Marchioness, with one hand guarding her raiment, and with the other raised high above her shoulder, in an agony of supplication to those deities who arrange the fates of ducal houses, passed slowly out of the room. It was necessary that she should bethink herself before another word was spoken.
For some time after that very few words passed between her and the sinner. A dead silence best befitted the occasion;—as, when a child soils her best frock, we put her in the corner with a scolding; but when she tells a fib we quell her little soul within her by a terrible quiescence. To be eloquently indignant without a word is within the compass of the thoughtfully stolid. It was thus that Lady Frances was at first treated by her stepmother. She was, however, at once taken up to London, subjected to the louder anger of her father, and made to prepare for the Saxon Alps. At first, indeed, her immediate destiny was not communicated to her. She was to be taken abroad;—and, in so taking her, it was felt to be well to treat her as the policeman does his prisoner, whom he thinks to be the last person who need be informed as to the whereabouts of the prison. It did leak out quickly, because the Marquis had a castle or château of his own in Saxony;—but that was only an accident.
The Marchioness still said little on the matter—unless in what she might say to her husband in the secret recesses of marital discussion; but before she departed she found it expedient to express herself on one occasion to Lord Hampstead. "Hampstead," she said, "this is a terrible blow that has fallen upon us."
"I was surprised myself. I do not know that I should call it exactly a blow."
"Not a blow! But of course you mean that it will come to nothing."
"What I meant was, that though I regard the proposition as inexpedient—"
"Inexpedient!"
"Yes;—I think it inexpedient certainly; but there is nothing in it that shocks me."
"Nothing that shocks you!"
"Marriage in itself is a good thing."
"Hampstead, do not talk to me in that way."
"But I think it is. If it be good for a young man to marry it must be good for a young woman also. The one makes the other necessary."
"But not for such as your sister—and him—together. You are speaking in that way simply to torment me."
"I can only speak as I think. I do agree that it would be inexpedient. She would to a certain extent lose the countenance of her friends—"
"Altogether!"
"Not altogether—but to some extent. A certain class of people—not the best worth knowing—might be inclined to drop her. However foolish her own friends may be we owe something—even to their folly."
"Her friends are not foolish—her proper friends."
"I quite agree with that; but then so many of them are improper."
"Hampstead!"
"I am afraid that I don't make myself quite clear. But never mind. It would be inexpedient. It would go against the grain with my father, who ought to be consulted."
"I should think so."
"I quite agree with you. A father ought to be consulted, even though a daughter be of age, so as to be enabled by law to do as she likes with herself. And then there would be money discomforts."
"She would not have a shilling."
"Not but what I should think it my duty to put that right if there were any real distress." Here spoke the heir, who was already in possession of much, and upon whom the whole property of the family was entailed. "Nevertheless if I can prevent it—without quarrelling either with one or the other, without saying a hard word—I shall do so."
"It will be your bounden duty."
"It is always a man's bounden duty to do what is right. The difficulty is in seeing the way." After this
