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

if I gave you to understand that I felt myself to be coerced to this conclusion simply by your qualified assent to your parents’ views. It is evident to me from your letter that you would not wish to be my wife unless I can supply you with a house in town as well as with one in the country. But this for the present is out of my power. I would not have allowed my losses to interfere with your settlement because I had stated a certain income; and must therefore to a certain extent have compromised my children. But I should not have been altogether happy till I had replaced them in their former position, and must therefore have abstained from increased expenditure till I had done so. But of course I have no right to ask you to share with me the discomfort of a single home. I may perhaps add that I had hoped that you would have looked to your happiness to another source, and that I will bear my disappointment as best I may.

As you may perhaps under these circumstances be unwilling that I should wear the ring you gave me, I return it by post. I trust you will be good enough to keep the trifle you were pleased to accept from me, in remembrance of one who will always wish you well.

Yours sincerely,

Ezekiel Brehgert.

And so it was all over! Georgey, when she read this letter, was very indignant at her lover’s conduct. She did not believe that her own letter had at all been of a nature to warrant it. She had regarded herself as being quite sure of him, and only so far doubting herself, as to be able to make her own terms because of such doubts. And now the Jew had rejected her! She read this last letter over and over again, and the more she read it the more she felt that in her heart of hearts she had intended to marry him. There would have been inconveniences no doubt, but they would have been less than the sorrow on the other side. Now she saw nothing before her but a long vista of Caversham dullness, in which she would be trampled upon by her father and mother, and scorned by Mr. and Mrs. George Whitstable.

She got up and walked about the room thinking of vengeance. But what vengeance was possible to her? Everybody belonging to her would take the part of the Jew in that which he had now done. She could not ask Dolly to beat him; nor could she ask her father to visit him with the stern frown of paternal indignation. There could be no revenge. For a time⁠—only for a few seconds⁠—she thought that she would write to Mr. Brehgert and tell him that she had not intended to bring about this termination of their engagement. This, no doubt, would have been an appeal to the Jew for mercy;⁠—and she could not quite descend to that. But she would keep the watch and chain he had given her, and which somebody had told her had not cost less than a hundred and fifty guineas. She could not wear them, as people would know whence they had come; but she might exchange them for jewels which she could wear.

At lunch she said nothing to her sister, but in the course of the afternoon she thought it best to inform her mother. “Mamma,” she said, “as you and papa take it so much to heart, I have broken off everything with Mr. Brehgert.”

“Of course it must be broken off,” said Lady Pomona. This was very ungracious⁠—so much so that Georgey almost flounced out of the room. “Have you heard from the man?” asked her ladyship.

“I have written to him, and he has answered me; and it is all settled. I thought that you would have said something kind to me.” And the unfortunate young woman burst out into tears.

“It was so dreadful,” said Lady Pomona;⁠—“so very dreadful. I never heard of anything so bad. When young what’s-his-name married the tallow-chandler’s daughter I thought it would have killed me if it had been Dolly; but this was worse than that. Her father was a methodist.”

“They had neither of them a shilling of money,” said Georgey through her tears.

“And your papa says this man was next door to a bankrupt. But it’s all over?”

“Yes, mamma.”

“And now we must all remain here at Caversham till people forget it. It has been very hard upon George Whitstable, because of course everybody has known it through the county. I once thought he would have been off, and I really don’t know that we could have said anything.” At that moment Sophy entered the room. “It’s all over between Georgiana and the⁠—man,” said Lady Pomona, who hardly saved herself from stigmatising him by a further reference to his religion.

“I knew it would be,” said Sophia.

“Of course it could never have really taken place,” said their mother.

“And now I beg that nothing more may be said about it,” said Georgiana. “I suppose, mamma, you will write to papa?”

“You must send him back his watch and chain, Georgey,” said Sophia.

“What business is that of yours?”

“Of course she must. Her papa would not let her keep it.”

To such a miserable depth of humility had the younger Miss Longestaffe been brought by her ill-considered intimacy with the Melmottes! Georgiana, when she looked back on this miserable episode in her life, always attributed her grief to the scandalous breach of compact of which her father had been guilty.

LXXX Ruby Prepares for Service

Our poor old honest friend John Crumb was taken away to durance vile after his performance in the street with Sir Felix, and was locked up for the remainder of the night. This indignity did not sit so heavily on his spirits as it might have done on those of a quicker nature. He was aware that he had not