The Coryston Family by Mrs. Humphry Ward (best free e book reader TXT) 📕

family that has fought for its convictions."

At this the younger lady shot a satiric glance at the elder, which for the moment interrupted a carefully prepared sentence.

Enid was thinking of a casual remark of her father's made that morning at breakfast: "Oh yes, the Corystons are an old family. They were Whigs as long as there were any bones to pick on that side. Then Pitt bought the first Lord Coryston--in his earliest batch of peers--with the title and a fat post--something to do with the navy. That was the foundation of their money--then came the Welsh coal--et cetera."

But she kept her recollections to herself. Lady Coryston went on:

"We have stood for generations for certain principles. We are proud of them. My husband died in them. I have devoted my life to them. They are the principles of the Conservative party. Our eldest son, as of course you know, departed from them. My dear husband did not flinch; and instead of leaving the estates to Coryston, he left them to me--as trustee for the political faith he believed in; that faith of which your father has been--excuse my frankness, it is really best for us both--and is now--the principal enemy! I then had to decide, when I was left a widow, to whom the estates were to go on my death. Painful as it was, I decided that my trust did not allow me to leave them to Coryston. I made Arthur my heir three months ago."

"How very interesting!" said the listener, behind the fan. Lady Coryston could not see her face.

"But it is only fair to him and to you," Arthur's mother continued, with increased deliberation, "that I should say frankly, now that this crisis has arisen, that if you and Arthur marry, it is impossible that Arthur should inherit his father's estates. A fresh disposition of them will have to be made."

Enid Glenwilliam dropped the fan and looked up. Her color had gone.

"Because--Lady Coryston--I am my father's daughter?"

"Because you would bring into our family principles wholly at variance with our traditions--and I should be false to my trust if I allowed it." The conscious dignity of pose and voice fitted the solemnity of these final words.

There was a slight pause.

"Then--if Arthur married me--he would be a pauper?" said the girl, bending forward.

"He has a thousand a year."

"That's very disturbing! I shall have to consider everything again."

Lady Coryston moved nervously.

"I don't understand you."

"What I _couldn't_ have done, Lady Coryston--would have been to come into Arthur's family as in any way dependent on his mother!"

The girl's eyes shone. Lady Coryston had also paled.

"I couldn't of course expect that you would have any friendly feeling toward me," she said, after a moment.

"No--you couldn't--you couldn't indeed!"

Enid Glenwilliam sprang up, entered the summer-house, and stood over her visitor, lightly leaning forward, her hands supporting her on a rustic table that stood between them, her breath fluttering.

"Yes--perhaps now I could marry him--perhaps now I could!" she repeated. "So long as I wasn't your dependent--so long as we had a free life of our own--and knew exactly where we stood, with nothing to fear or to hope--the situation might be faced. We might hope, too--father and I--to bring _our_ ideas and _our_ principles to bear upon Arthur. I believe he would adopt them. He has never had any ideas of his own. You have made him take yours! But of course it seems inconceivable to you that we should set any store by _our_ principles. You think all I want is money. Well, I am like anybody else. I know the value of money. I like money and luxury, and pretty things. I have been sorely tempted to let Arthur marry me as he has once or twice proposed, at the nearest registry office, and present you next day with the _fait accompli_--to take or leave. I believe you would have surrendered to the _fait accompli_--yes, I believe you would! Arthur was convinced that, after sulking a little, you would forgive him. Well, but then--I looked forward--to the months--or years--in which I should be courting--flattering--propitiating you--giving up my own ideas, perhaps, to take yours--turning my back on my father--on my old friends--on my party--for _money_! Oh yes, I should be quite capable of it. At least, I dare say I should. And I just funked it! I had the grace--the conscience--to funk it. I apologize for the slang--I can't express it any other way. And now you come and say: 'Engage yourself to him--and I'll disinherit him _at once_. That makes the thing look clean and square!--that tempts the devil in one, or the angel--I don't know which. I like Arthur. I should get a great many social advantages by marrying him, whatever you may do or say; and a thousand a year to me looks a great deal more than it does to you. But then, you see, my father began life as a pit-boy--Yes, I think it might be done!"

The speaker raised herself to her full height, and stood with her hands behind her, gazing at Lady Coryston.

In the eyes of that poor lady the Chancellor's daughter had suddenly assumed the aspect of some glittering, avenging fate. At last Lady Coryston understood something of the power, the spell, there was in this girl for whom her son had deserted her; at last she perceived, despairingly perceived, her strange beauty. The long thin mouth, now breathing scorn, the short chin, and prominent cheekbones denied Enid Glenwilliam any conventional right indeed to that great word. But the loveliness of the eyes and hair, of the dark brows, sustaining the broad and delicate forehead, the pale rose and white of the skin, the setting of the head, her wonderful tallness and slenderness, these, instinct as the whole woman was, at the moment, with a passion of defiance, made of her a dazzling and formidable creature. Lady Coryston beheld her father in her; she seemed to feel the touch, the terror of Glenwilliam.

Bewilderment and unaccustomed weakness overtook Lady Coryston. It was some moments before, under the girl's threatening eyes, she could speak at all. Then she said, with difficulty:

"You may marry my son, Miss Glenwilliam--but you do not love him! That is perfectly plain. You are prepared none the less, apparently, to wreck his happiness and mine, in order--"

"I don't love him? Ah! that's another story altogether! Do I love him? I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. I don't believe I am as capable of falling in love as other girls are--or say they are. I like him, and get on with him--and I might marry him; I might--have--married him," she repeated, slowly, "partly to have the sweetness, Lady Coryston, of punishing you for the slight you offered my father!--and partly for other things. But you see--now I come to think of it--there is some one else to be considered--"

The girl dropped into a chair, and looked across the table at her visitor, with a sudden change of mood and voice.

"You say you won't have it, Lady Coryston. Well, that doesn't decide it for me--and it wouldn't decide it for Arthur. But there's some one else won't have it."

A pause. Miss Glenwilliam took up the fan again and played with it--considering.

"My father came to my room last night," she said, at last, "in order to speak to me about it. 'Enid,' he said, 'don't marry that man! He's a good enough fellow--but he'll drive a wedge into our life. We can't find a use for him--you and I. He'll divide us, my girl--and it isn't worth it--you don't love him!' And we had a long talk--and at last I told him--I wouldn't--I _wouldn't_! So you see, Lady Coryston, if I don't marry your son, it's not because you object--but because my father--whom you insulted--doesn't wish me to enter your family--doesn't approve of a marriage with your son--and has persuaded me against it."

Lady Coryston stared into the face of the speaker, and quailed before the flash of something primitive and savage in the eyes that met her own. Under the sting of it, however, she found a first natural and moving word, as she slowly rose from her seat.

"You love your father, Miss Glenwilliam. You might remember that I, too, love my son--and there was never a rough word between us till he knew you."

She wavered a little, gathering up her dress. And the girl perceived that she had grown deadly white, and was suddenly ashamed of her own vehemence. She too rose.

"I'm sorry, Lady Coryston. I've been a brute. But when I think of my father, and those who hate him, I see red. I had no business to say some of the things I have said. But it's no good apologizing. Let me, however, just say this: Please be careful, Lady Coryston, about your son. He's in love with me--and I'm very, _very_ sorry for him. Let me write to him first--before you speak to him. I'll write--as kindly as I can. But I warn you--it'll hurt him--and he may visit it on you--for all I can say. When will he be at Coryston?"

"To-night."

"I will send a letter over to-morrow morning. Is your car waiting?"

They moved across the lawn together, not speaking a word. Lady Coryston entered the car. Enid Glenwilliam made her a low bow, almost a curtsey, which the elder lady acknowledged; and the car started.

Enid came back to the summer-house, sat down by the table, and buried her face in her hands.

After a little while a hurried step was heard approaching the summer-house. She looked up and saw her father. The Chancellor's burly form filled up the door of the little house. His dark, gipsy face looked down with amusement upon his daughter.

"Well, Enid, how did you get through? Did she trample on you--did she scratch and spit? I wager she got as good as she gave? Why, what's the matter, my girl? Are you upset?"

Enid got up, struggling for composure.

"I--I behaved like a perfect fiend."

"Did you?" The Chancellor's laughter filled the summer-house. "The old harridan! At last somebody has told her the truth. The idea of her breaking in upon you here!--to threaten you, I suppose, with all sorts of pains and penalties, if you married her precious son. You gave her what for. Why, Enid, what's the matter--don't be a fool, my dear! You don't regret him?"

"No." He put his arm tenderly round her, and she leaned against him. Suddenly she drew herself up and kissed him.

"I shall never marry, father. It's you and I, isn't it, against the world?"

"Half the world," said Glenwilliam, laughing. "There's a jolly big half on our side, my dear, and lots of good fellows in it for you to marry." He looked at her with proud affection.

She shook her head, slipped her hand in his, and they walked back to the house together.


CHAPTER XIV

The state of mind in which Lady Coryston drove home from the Atherstones' cottage would have seemed to most people unreasonable. She had obtained--apparently--everything for which she had set out, and yet there she was, smarting and bruised through all her being, like one who has suffered intolerable humiliation and defeat. A woman of her type and class is so well sheltered as a rule from the roughnesses of life, so accustomed to the deference of their neighbors, that to be handled as Enid Glenwilliam had handled her victim, destroys