Part 53 (1/2)
”You love Violet Effingham!” said Lady Laura. And as she spoke the look of her countenance towards him was so changed that he became at once aware that from her no a.s.sistance might be expected. His eyes were not opened in any degree to the second reason above given for Lady Laura's opposition to his wishes, but he instantly perceived that she would still cling to that destination of Violet's hand which had for years past been the favourite scheme of her life. ”Have you not always known, Mr. Finn, what have been our hopes for Violet?”
Phineas, though he had perceived his mistake, felt that he must go on with his cause. Lady Laura must know his wishes sooner or later, and it was as well that she should learn them in this way as in any other. ”Yes;--but I have known also, from your brother's own lips,--and indeed from yours also, Lady Laura,--that Chiltern has been three times refused by Miss Effingham.”
”What does that matter? Do men never ask more than three times?”
”And must I be debarred for ever while he prosecutes a hopeless suit?”
”Yes;--you of all men.”
”Why so, Lady Laura?”
”Because in this matter you have been his chosen friend,--and mine.
We have told you everything, trusting to you. We have believed in your honour. We have thought that with you, at any rate, we were safe.” These words were very bitter to Phineas, and yet when he had written his letter at Loughton, he had intended to be so perfectly honest, chivalrously honest! Now Lady Laura spoke to him and looked at him as though he had been most basely false--most untrue to that n.o.ble friends.h.i.+p which had been lavished upon him by all her family.
He felt that he would become the prey of her most injurious thoughts unless he could fully explain his ideas, and he felt, also, that the circ.u.mstances did not admit of his explaining them. He could not take up the argument on Violet's side, and show how unfair it would be to her that she should be debarred from the homage due to her by any man who really loved her, because Lord Chiltern chose to think that he still had a claim,--or at any rate a chance. And Phineas knew well of himself,--or thought that he knew well,--that he would not have interfered had there been any chance for Lord Chiltern. Lord Chiltern had himself told him more than once that there was no such chance.
How was he to explain all this to Lady Laura? ”Mr. Finn,” said Lady Laura, ”I can hardly believe this of you, even when you tell it me yourself.”
”Listen to me, Lady Laura, for a moment.”
”Certainly, I will listen. But that you should come to me for a.s.sistance! I cannot understand it. Men sometimes become harder than stones.”
”I do not think that I am hard.” Poor blind fool! He was still thinking only of Violet, and of the accusation made against him that he was untrue to his friends.h.i.+p for Lord Chiltern. Of that other accusation which could not be expressed in open words he understood nothing,--nothing at all as yet.
”Hard and false,--capable of receiving no impression beyond the outside husk of the heart.”
”Oh, Lady Laura, do not say that. If you could only know how true I am in my affection for you all.”
”And how do you show it?--by coming in between Oswald and the only means that are open to us of reconciling him to his father;--means that have been explained to you exactly as though you had been one of ourselves. Oswald has treated you as a brother in the matter, telling you everything, and this is the way you would repay him for his confidence!”
”Can I help it, that I have learnt to love this girl?”
”Yes, sir,--you can help it. What if she had been Oswald's wife;--would you have loved her then? Do you speak of loving a woman as if it were an affair of fate, over which you have no control? I doubt whether your pa.s.sions are so strong as that. You had better put aside your love for Miss Effingham. I feel a.s.sured that it will never hurt you.” Then some remembrance of what had pa.s.sed between him and Lady Laura Standish near the falls of the Linter, when he first visited Scotland, came across his mind. ”Believe me,” she said with a smile, ”this little wound in your heart will soon be cured.”
He stood silent before her, looking away from her, thinking over it all. He certainly had believed himself to be violently in love with Lady Laura, and yet when he had just now entered her drawing-room, he had almost forgotten that there had been such a pa.s.sage in his life.
And he had believed that she had forgotten it,--even though she had counselled him not to come to Loughlinter within the last nine months! He had been a boy then, and had not known himself;--but now he was a man, and was proud of the intensity of his love. There came upon him some pa.s.sing throb of pain from his shoulder, reminding him of the duel, and he was proud also of that. He had been willing to risk everything,--life, prospects, and position,--sooner than abandon the slight hope which was his of possessing Violet Effingham. And now he was told that this wound in his heart would soon be cured, and was told so by a woman to whom he had once sung a song of another pa.s.sion. It is very hard to answer a woman in such circ.u.mstances, because her womanhood gives her so strong a ground of vantage! Lady Laura might venture to throw in his teeth the fickleness of his heart, but he could not in reply tell her that to change a love was better than to marry without love,--that to be capable of such a change showed no such inferiority of nature as did the capacity for such a marriage. She could hit him with her argument; but he could only remember his, and think how violent might be the blow he could inflict,--if it were not that she were a woman, and therefore guarded. ”You will not help me then?” he said, when they had both been silent for a while.
”Help you? How should I help you?”
”I wanted no other help than this,--that I might have had an opportunity of meeting Violet here, and of getting from her some answer.”
”Has the question then never been asked already?” said Lady Laura.
To this Phineas made no immediate reply. There was no reason why he should show his whole hand to an adversary. ”Why do you not go to Lady Baldock's house?” continued Lady Laura. ”You are admitted there.
You know Lady Baldock. Go and ask her to stand your friend with her niece. See what she will say to you. As far as I understand these matters, that is the fair, honourable, open way in which gentlemen are wont to make their overtures.”
”I would make mine to none but to herself,” said Phineas.
”Then why have you made it to me, sir?” demanded Lady Laura.
”I have come to you as I would to my sister.”