Part 31 (2/2)
”No; not me. And of course I don't believe a word of it. I suppose Barrington Erle made up the story. Are you going out of town next week, Mr. Finn?” The week next to this was Easter-week. ”I heard you were going into Northamptons.h.i.+re.”
”From Lady Laura?”
”Yes;--from Lady Laura.”
”I intend to spend three days with Lord Chiltern at Willingford. It is an old promise. I am going to ride his horses,--that is, if I am able to ride them.”
”Take care what you are about, Mr. Finn;--they say his horses are so dangerous!”
”I'm rather good at falling, I flatter myself.”
”I know that Lord Chiltern rides anything he can sit, so long as it is some animal that n.o.body else will ride. It was always so with him.
He is so odd; is he not?”
Phineas knew, of course, that Lord Chiltern had more than once asked Violet Effingham to be his wife,--and he believed that she, from her intimacy with Lady Laura, must know that he knew it. He had also heard Lady Laura express a very strong wish that, in spite of these refusals, Violet might even yet become her brother's wife. And Phineas also knew that Violet Effingham was becoming, in his own estimation, the most charming woman of his acquaintance. How was he to talk to her about Lord Chiltern?
”He is odd,” said Phineas; ”but he is an excellent fellow,--whom his father altogether misunderstands.”
”Exactly,--just so; I am so glad to hear you say that,--you who have never had the misfortune to have anything to do with a bad set. Why don't you tell Lord Brentford? Lord Brentford would listen to you.”
”To me?”
”Yes;--of course he would,--for you are just the link that is wanting. You are Chiltern's intimate friend, and you are also the friend of big-wigs and Cabinet Ministers.”
”Lord Brentford would put me down at once if I spoke to him on such a subject.”
”I am sure he would not. You are too big to be put down, and no man can really dislike to hear his son well spoken of by those who are well spoken of themselves. Won't you try, Mr. Finn?” Phineas said that he would think of it,--that he would try if any fit opportunity could be found. ”Of course you know how intimate I have been with the Standishes,” said Violet; ”that Laura is to me a sister, and that Oswald used to be almost a brother.”
”Why do not you speak to Lord Brentford;--you who are his favourite?”
”There are reasons, Mr. Finn. Besides, how can any girl come forward and say that she knows the disposition of any man? You can live with Lord Chiltern, and see what he is made of, and know his thoughts, and learn what is good in him, and also what is bad. After all, how is any girl really to know anything of a man's life?”
”If I can do anything, Miss Effingham, I will,” said Phineas.
”And then we shall all of us be so grateful to you,” said Violet, with her sweetest smile.
Phineas, retreating from this conversation, stood for a while alone, thinking of it. Had she spoken thus of Lord Chiltern because she did love him or because she did not? And the sweet commendations which had fallen from her lips upon him,--him, Phineas Finn,--were they compatible with anything like a growing partiality for himself, or were they incompatible with any such feeling? Had he most reason to be comforted or to be discomfited by what had taken place? It seemed hardly possible to his imagination that Violet Effingham should love such a n.o.body as he. And yet he had had fair evidence that one standing as high in the world as Violet Effingham would fain have loved him could she have followed the dictates of her heart. He had trembled when he had first resolved to declare his pa.s.sion to Lady Laura,--fearing that she would scorn him as being presumptuous. But there had been no cause for such fear as that. He had declared his love, and she had not thought him to be presumptuous. That now was ages ago,--eight months since; and Lady Laura had become a married woman. Since he had become so warmly alive to the charms of Violet Effingham he had determined, with stern propriety, that a pa.s.sion for a married woman was disgraceful. Such love was in itself a sin, even though it was accompanied by the severest forbearance and the most rigid propriety of conduct. No;--Lady Laura had done wisely to check the growing feeling of partiality which she had admitted; and now that she was married, he would be as wise as she. It was clear to him that, as regarded his own heart, the way was open to him for a new enterprise. But what if he were to fail again, and be told by Violet, when he declared his love, that she had just engaged herself to Lord Chiltern!
”What were you and Violet talking about so eagerly?” said Lady Laura to him, with a smile that, in its approach to laughter, almost betrayed its mistress.
”We were talking about your brother.”
”You are going to him, are you not?”
”Yes; I leave London on Sunday night;--but only for a day or two.”
”Has he any chance there, do you think?”
”What, with Miss Effingham?”
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