The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

“Oh, mamma, do you mean me?” said Hetta, rushing across the room, and throwing herself close to her mother’s side on the sofa. “Mamma, say that you do not mean me.”

“It concerns you as well as me and him. I wish I were childless.”

“Oh, mamma, do not be cruel to me! Am I not good to you? Do I not try to be a comfort to you?”

“Then marry your cousin, Roger Carbury, who is a good man, and who can protect you. You can, at any rate, find a home for yourself, and a friend for us. You are not like Felix. You do not get drunk and gamble⁠—because you are a woman. But you are stiff-necked, and will not help me in my trouble.”

“Shall I marry him, mamma, without loving him?”

“Love! Have I been able to love? Do you see much of what you call love around you? Why should you not love him? He is a gentleman, and a good man⁠—softhearted, of a sweet nature, whose life would be one effort to make yours happy. You think that Felix is very bad.”

“I have never said so.”

“But ask yourself whether you do not give as much pain, seeing what you could do for us if you would. But it never occurs to you to sacrifice even a fantasy for the advantage of others.”

Hetta retired from her seat on the sofa, and when her mother again went upstairs she turned it all over in her mind. Could it be right that she should marry one man when she loved another? Could it be right that she should marry at all, for the sake of doing good to her family? This man, whom she might marry if she would⁠—who did in truth worship the ground on which she trod⁠—was, she well knew, all that her mother had said. And he was more than that. Her mother had spoken of his soft heart, and his sweet nature. But Hetta knew also that he was a man of high honour and a noble courage. In such a condition as was hers now he was the very friend whose advice she could have asked⁠—had he not been the very lover who was desirous of making her his wife. Hetta felt that she could sacrifice much for her mother. Money, if she had it, she could have given, though she left herself penniless. Her time, her inclinations, her very heart’s treasure, and, as she thought, her life, she could give. She could doom herself to poverty, and loneliness, and heartrending regrets for her mother’s sake. But she did not know how she could give herself into the arms of a man she did not love.

“I don’t know what there is to explain,” said Felix to his mother. She had asked him why he had not gone to Liverpool, whether he had been interrupted by Melmotte himself, whether news had reached him from Marie that she had been stopped, or whether⁠—as might have been possible⁠—Marie had changed her own mind. But he could not bring himself to tell the truth, or any story bordering on the truth. “It didn’t come off,” he said, “and of course that knocked me off my legs. Well; yes. I did take some champagne when I found how it was. A fellow does get cut up by that kind of thing. Oh, I heard it at the club⁠—that the whole thing was off. I can’t explain anything more. And then I was so mad, I can’t tell what I was after. I did get the ticket. There it is. That shows I was in earnest. I spent the £30 in getting it. I suppose the change is there. Don’t take it, for I haven’t another shilling in the world.” Of course he said nothing of Marie’s money, or of that which he had himself received from Melmotte. And as his mother had heard nothing of these sums she could not contradict what he said. She got from him no further statement, but she was sure that there was a story to be told which would reach her ears sooner or later.

That evening, about nine o’clock, Mr. Broune called in Welbeck Street. He very often did call now, coming up in a cab, staying for a cup of tea, and going back in the same cab to the office of his newspaper. Since Lady Carbury had, so devotedly, abstained from accepting his offer, Mr. Broune had become almost sincerely attached to her. There was certainly between them now more of the intimacy of real friendship than had ever existed in earlier days. He spoke to her more freely about his own affairs, and even she would speak to him with some attempt at truth. There was never between them now even a shade of lovemaking. She did not look into his eyes, nor did he hold her hand. As for kissing her⁠—he thought no more of it than of kissing the maidservant. But he spoke to her of the things that worried him⁠—the unreasonable exactions of proprietors, and the perilous inaccuracy of contributors. He told her of the exceeding weight upon his shoulders, under which an Atlas would have succumbed. And he told her something too of his triumphs;⁠—how he had had this fellow bowled over in punishment for some contradiction, and that man snuffed out for daring to be an enemy. And he expatiated on his own virtues, his justice and clemency. Ah⁠—if men and women only knew his good nature and his patriotism;⁠—how he had spared the rod here, how he had made the fortune of a man there, how he had saved the country millions by the steadiness of his adherence to some grand truth! Lady Carbury delighted in all this and repaid him by flattery, and little confidences of her own. Under his teaching she had almost made up her mind to give up Mr. Alf. Of nothing was Mr. Broune