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There is no eternity for nations. Individuals may be punished hereafter; nations are punished here. In the first years of the Nineteenth Century, Englishmen were mad on war; and though wise men warned them of the ruin that stalks after war, no one believed their report. The treasure that would have now fed the starving population of England, had been spent in killing Frenchmen. Bad harvests followed the war years, taxation was increased, wages were lowered and lowered, credit was gone, trade languished, hunger or scrimping carefulness was in every household. For the iniquitous Corn Laws of 1815, forbidding the importation of foreign grain, had raised English wheat to eighty shillings a quarter. And how were working men to buy bread at such a price? No wonder, they clamoured for a House of Commons that should represent their case, and repeal Acts that could only benefit one class, and inflict ruin and misery on all others.
A feeling therefore of intense anxiety pervaded the country on the Second of November,–the day on which the King was to open Parliament. No one could work; every one was waiting for the King’s speech. He was as yet very popular; it was his first message to his people; and they openly begged him for some word of hope–some expression of sympathy for Reform. He went in great state to Westminster, and was cheered by the city as he went. “Will Your Majesty say a word for the poor? God bless Your Majesty! Stand by Reform!” Such expressions assailed him on every hand; they were the prayers of a people wronged and suffering, yet disposed to be patient and loyal, and to seek Reform only to spare themselves and the country the ruth and ruin of Revolution.
Richmoor House was on the way of the royal procession, and Kate was there to watch it. A little later, a great company began to assemble in its rooms; for the Duke had promised to bring, or to send, the earliest news of the event. There was however an intense restlessness among these splendidly attired men and women. They could not separate Reform from Revolution; and the French Revolution was yet red and bloody in their memories. They still heard the thunder of those famous “Three Days of July,” and there was constantly before their eyes, the heir of forty kings finding in a British palace an ignominious shelter. Not only was this the case, but French noblemen, in poverty and exile, were earning precarious livings all around; and English noblemen and ladies looked forward with terror to a similar fate, if the Reformers obtained their desire. Indeed, Sir Robert Inglis had boldly prophesied, “Reform would sweep the House of Lords clear in ten years.”
No wonder then the company waiting in Richmoor House were restless and anxious. Kate did not permit herself to speak, and Mrs. Atheling had very prudently remained in her own home. She had told the Squire she “must say what she thought, if she died for it!” and the Squire had answered, “To be sure, Maude. That is thy right; only, for goodness’ sake, say it in thy own house!” But though Kate knew she would follow her mother’s example, if she was brought to catechism on the subject, she did not have much fear of such a result; there were too many older ladies present, all of them desirous to express the hatreds and hopes of their class.
Yet it was these emotional, expressional women that Annabel Vyner naturally joined. She stood among them like a splendid incarnation of its spirit. She hoped vehemently that “Earl Grey and Lord John Russell would be beheaded as traitors;” she declared she would “go with delight to Tower Hill and see the axe fall.” She flashed into contempt, when she spoke of Mr. Brougham. “Botany Bay and hard labour might do for him; and as for the waiting crowds in the streets, the proper thing was to shoot them down, like rabid animals.” She wondered “the Duke of Wellington did not do so.” These sentiments were vivified by the passion that blazed in her black eyes and flushed her brown face crimson, and by the gown of bright yellow Chinese crape which she wore; for it fluttered and waved with her impetuous movements, and made a kind of luminous atmosphere around her.
“What a superb creature!” exclaimed Mr. Disraeli to the Hon. Mrs. Norton. And Mrs. Norton put up her glass and looked at Annabel critically.
“Superb indeed–to look at. Would you like to live with her?”
“It would be exciting.”
“More so than your ‘Vivian Grey,’ which I have just read. It is the book of the year.”
“No, that honour belongs to a little volume of poems by a young man called Tennyson. Get it; you will read every word it contains.”
“I am wedded to my idols,–Byron and Scott and Keble. I am much interested at present in those ‘Imaginary Conversations’ which that queer Mr. Landor has given us. They are worth reading, I assure you.”
“But why read them? Listen to the ‘Conversations’ around us! They are of Revolution, Civil War, Exile, and the Headsman. Could anything be more ‘Imaginary’?”
“Who can tell? Here comes Richmoor. He may be able to prognosticate. What a murmur of voices! What invisible movement! Can you divine the news from the messenger’s face?”
“He thinks that he brings good news. He may be fatally wrong.”
The Duke certainly thought that he brought good news. He was much excited. He came forward with his hands extended, palms upward.
“The King stands by us!” he cried. “God save the King!”
Twenty voices called out at once, “What did he say?”
“He said plainly that in spite of the public opinion expressed so loudly in recent elections, Reform would have no sanction from the Government. I only stayed until the end of the royal speech. Yet in some way rumours of its purport must have reached the street. In the neighbourhood, there was much agitation, and even anger.”
Then Kate slipped away from the excited throng. Piers had evidently remained for the discussion on the King’s speech; and it might be midnight when the House adjourned. The winter day was fast darkening; she ordered her chairmen, and the pretty sedan was brought into the vestibule for her. She had no fear, though the very gloom and silence of the waiting crowd was more indicative of danger than noise or threats would have been. When she reached Hyde Park corner, however, angry faces pressed around a little too close, and she was alarmed. Then she threw back her hood and looked out calmly at the crowd, and immediately a clear voice cried out, “It is Edgar Atheling’s sister! Take good care of her!” And there was a cheer and a cry, and about twenty men closed round the chair, and saw it safely to its destination.
Then Cecil North stepped to the door and opened it. “I knew it was you, Mr. North!” cried Kate. “I knew your voice. How kind of you to come all the way with me! How glad mother will be to see you!”
“I cannot wait a moment, Miss Atheling. Can you give me any news?”
“Yes. The King says the Government will not sanction Reform.”
“Who told you this?”
“The Duke of Richmoor–not an hour ago.”
“Then ‘good-night.’ I am afraid there will be trouble.”
Mrs. Atheling and Kate were afraid also. The murmur of the crowd grew louder and louder as the tenor of the King’s speech became known; and many a time they wished themselves in the safety and solitude of their Yorkshire home. So they talked, and watched, and listened until the night was far advanced. Then they heard the firm, strong step of the Squire on the pavement; and his imperative voice in denial of something said by a group of men whom he passed. In a few minutes he entered the drawing-room with an angry light in his eyes, and the manner of a man exasperated by opposition.
“Whatever is it, John? Is there trouble already?” asked Mrs. Atheling.
“Plenty of it, and like to be more. The King has spoken like a fool.”
“John Atheling! His Majesty!”
“His Imbecility! I tell you what, Maude, there has been enough said to-day, and to-night, to set all the dogs of civil war loose. Give me a bit of eating, and I will tell thee and Kitty what a lot of idiots are met together in Westminster.”
The Squire always wanted a deal of waiting upon; and in a few minutes his valet was bringing him easy slippers and a loose coat, and two handmaidens serving a tray, bearing game pastry, and fruit tarts, and clotted cream. But he would take neither wine, nor strong ale,–
“Water is all a man wants that gets himself stirred up in the House of Commons,” he said. “And if I had been in the Lords’ House, I would have needed nothing but a strait-jacket.”
He had hardly sat down to eat, when Piers Exham came in. No one could have been more welcome, and the young man’s troubled face brightened in the sunshine of Kate’s smile, and in the honest kindness of the Squire’s greeting. “I was just going to tell Mrs. Atheling all I knew about to-night’s blundering,” he said; “but now we will have your report first, for you have seen the Duke, I’ll warrant.”
“Indeed, Squire, the Duke is not dissatisfied–though the general opinion is, that the Duke of Wellington has committed an egregious mistake.”
“I shouldn’t wonder. Wellington does not know the difference between a field-marshal and a Cabinet Minister. What did he say?”
“He said that as long as he held any office in the Government, he would resist Reform. He said there was no need of Reform; that we had the best government in the world. The Duke of Devonshire, whom I have just seen, told me that this statement produced a feeling of the utmost dismay, even in the calm atmosphere of the House of Lords.”
“Calm!” interrupted the Squire. “You had better say, Incurable prosiness.”
“Wellington noticed the suppressed excitement, the murmur, and the movement, and asked Devonshire in a whisper, ‘What can I have said to cause such great disturbance?’ And Devonshire shrugged his shoulders and answered candidly, ‘You have announced the fall of your government, that is all.’”
“Wellington considers the nation as a mutinous regiment,” answered the Squire. “He thinks the arguments for Reformers ought to be cannon balls; but Englishmen will not endure a military government.”
“It would be better than a mob government, Squire. Remember France.”
“Englishmen are not Frenchmen,” said Kate. “You ought to remember that , Piers. Englishmen are the most fair, just, reasonable, brave, loyal, honourable people on the face of the earth!”
“Well done, Kitty!” cried the Squire. “It takes a little lass like thee to find adjectives plenty enough, and good enough, for thy own. My word! I wish thou couldst tell the Duke of Wellington what thou thinkest of his fellow-citizens. He would happen trust them more, and treat them better.”
“There is Mr. Peel too,” she continued. “Both he and the Duke of Wellington are always down on the people. And yet the Duke has led these same people from one victory to another; and Mr. Peel is one of the people. His father was a day-labourer, and he ought to be proud of it; William Cobbett is, and William Cobbett is a greater man than Robert Peel.”
“Now then, Kitty, that is far enough; for thou art wrong already. Cobbett isn’t a greater man than Peel; he isn’t a great man at all, he is only a clever man. But the man for my money is Henry Brougham. He drives the world before him. He is a multitude. He had just one idea to-day,–Reform and again Reform. He played that tune finely to the House, and they danced to it like a miracle. Much good it will do them!”
“He was scarcely decent,” said Piers. “He gave notice, as you must have heard, in the most aggressive manner that he should bring ‘Reform’ to an immediate issue.”
“Yes,” answered the Squire. “There is doubtless a big battle before us. But, mark my words, it will not be with Wellington and Peel. They signed their own resignation this afternoon.”
“That is what my father thinks,” said Piers.
“If Wellington could only have held his tongue!” said the Squire, bitterly.
“And if Daniel O’Connell would only cease making fun of the Government.”
“That man! He is nobody!”
“You mistake, Squire. His buffoonery is fatal to our party. I tell you that Ridicule is the lightning that kills. Has not Aristophanes tossed his enemies for the scorn and laughter of a thousand cities for a thousand years? I fear O’Connell’s satire and joking, far more than I fear Grey’s statesmanship, or Durham’s popularity.”
Then Piers turned to Kate, and asked if she had seen the royal procession. And she told him about her visit, and about Mr. North’s interference for her safety, and his escort of her home. Piers was much annoyed at this incident. He begged her not to venture into the streets until public feeling had abated, or was controlled, and asked with singular petulance, “Who is this Mr. North? He plays the mysterious Knight very well. He interferes too much.”
“I was grateful for his interference.”
“Why did you not remain at Richmoor until I returned? I expected it, Kate.”
“I was afraid; and I knew my mother would be anxious–and I felt so sad among strangers. You know, Piers, I have always lived among my own people–among those who loved me.”
This little bit of conversation had taken place while the tray was being removed, and the Squire and Mrs. Atheling were talking about the engagements for the next day, so that definite orders might be given concerning the carriage and horses. The movements of the servants had enabled Piers and Kate, quite naturally, to withdraw a little from the fireside group; and when Kate made her tender assertion, about living with those who loved her, Piers’s heart was full to overflowing. This girl of sweet nature, with her innocent beauty and ingenuous expressions, possessed his noblest feelings. He clasped her hands in his, and said,–
“Oh, Kate! I loved you when you were only twelve years old; I love you now beyond all measure of words. And you love me? Speak, Dear One!”
“I love none but thee!”
The next moment she was standing before her father and mother. Piers held her hand. He was talking to them in low but eager tones, yet she did not realise a word, until he said,–
“Give her to me, my friends. We have loved each other for many years. We shall love each other for ever. She is the wife of my soul. Without her, I can only half live.” Then bending to Kate, he asked her fondly, “Do you love me, Kate? Do you love me? Ask your heart about it. Tell us truly, do you love me?”
Then she lifted her sweet eyes to her lover, her father, and her mother, and answered, “I love Piers with all my heart.”
The Squire was much troubled and affected. “This is taking a bit of advantage, Piers,” he said. “There is a time for everything, and this is not my time for giving my little girl away.”
“Speak for us, Mrs. Atheling,” said Piers.
“Nay, I think the Squire is quite right,” she replied. “Love isn’t worth much if Duty does not stand with it.”
“And there is far more, Piers,” continued the Squire, “in such a marriage as you propose than a girl’s and a lover’s ‘yes.’ When the country has settled a bit, we will talk about love and wedding. I can’t say more for my life, can I, Mother?”
“It is enough,” answered Mrs. Atheling. “Why, we might have a civil war, and what not! To choose a proper mate is good enough; but it is quite as important to choose a proper time for mating. Now then, this is not a proper time, when everything is at ups-and-downs, and this way and that way, and great public events, that no one can foretell, crowding one on the neck of the other. Let things be as they are, children. If you only knew it, you are in the Maytime of your lives. I wouldn’t hurry it over, if I was you. It won’t come back again.”
Then Kate kissed her father, and her mother, and her lover; and Piers kissed Kate, and Mrs. Atheling, and put his hand into the Squire’s hand; and the solemn joy of betrothal was there, though it was not openly admitted.
In truth the Squire was much troubled at events coming to any climax. He would not suffer his daughter to enter into an engagement not openly acknowledged and approved by both families; and yet he was aware that at the present time the Duke would consider any subject–not public or political–as an interruption, perhaps as an intrusion. Besides which, the Squire’s own sense of honour and personal pride made him averse to force an affair so manifestly to the preferment of his daughter. It looked like taking advantage of circumstances–of presuming upon a kindness; in fact, the more Squire Atheling thought of the alliance, the less he was disposed to sanction it. Under no circumstances, could he give Kate such a fortune as the heir of a great Dukedom had a right to expect. She must enter the Richmoor family at a disadvantage–perhaps even on sufferance.
“No! by the Lord Harry, no!” he exclaimed. “I’ll have none of the Duke’s toleration on any matter. I am sorry I took his seat. I wish Edgar was here–he ought to be here, looking after his mother and sister, instead of setting up rogues on Glasgow Green against their King and Country! Of course, there is Love to reckon with, and Love does wonders–but it is money that makes marriage.”
With such reflections, and many others growing out of them, the Squire hardened his heart, and strengthened his personal sense of dignity, until he almost taught himself to believe the Duke had already wounded it. In this temper he was quite inclined to severely blame his wife for not “putting a stop to the nonsense when it first began.”
“John,” she answered, “we are both of a piece in that respect.”
“On my honour, Mother.”
“Don’t say it, John. You used to laugh at the little lass going off with Edgar and Piers fishing. You used to tease her about the gold brooch Piers gave her. Many a time you have called her to me, ‘the little Duchess.’”
“Wilt thou be quiet?”
“I am only reminding thee.”
“Thou needest not. I wish thou wouldst remind thy son that he has a sister that he might look after a bit.”
“I can look after Kate without his help. He is doing far better business than hanging around Dukes.”
“If thou wantest a quarrel this morning, Maude, I’m willing to give thee one. I say, Edgar ought to be here.”
“What for? He is doing work that we will all be proud enough of some day. Thou oughtest to be helping him, instead of abusing him. I want thee to open this morning’s Times , and read the speech he made in Glasgow City Hall. Thou couldst not have made such a speech to save thy life.”
“Say, I would not have made it, and then thou wilt say the very truth.”
“Read it.”
“Not I.”
“Thou darest not. Thou knowest it would make thee turn round and vote with the Reformers.”
“Roast the Reformers! I wish I could! I would not have believed thou couldst have said such a thing, Maude. How darest thou even think of thy husband as a turncoat? Why, in politics, it is the unpardonable sin.”
“It is nothing of the kind. Not it! It is far worse to stick to a sin, than to turn from it. If I was the biggest of living Tories, and I found out I was wrong, I would stand up before all England and turn my coat in the sight of everybody. I would that. When I read thy name against Mr. Brougham bringing up Reform, I’ll swear I could have cried for it!”
“I wouldn’t wonder. All the fools are not dead yet. But I hear Kitty and her lover coming. I wonder what they are talking and laughing about?”
“Thou hadst better not ask them. I’ll warrant, Piers is telling her the same sort of nonsense, thou usedst to tell me; and they will both of them, believe it, no doubt.”
At these words Piers and Kate entered the room together. They were going for a gallop in the Park; and they looked so handsome, and so happy, that neither the Squire nor Mrs. Atheling could say a word to dash their pleasure. The Squire, indeed, reminded Piers that the House met at two o’clock; and Piers asked blankly, like a man who neither knew, nor cared anything about the House, “Does it?” With the words on his lips, he turned to Kate, and smiling said, “Let us make haste, my dear. The morning is too fine to lose.” And hand in hand, they said a hasty, joyful “good-bye” and disappeared. The father and mother watched them down the street until they were out of sight. As they turned away from the window, their eyes met, and Mrs. Atheling smiled. The Squire looked abashed and disconcerted.
“Why didst not thou put a stop to such nonsense, John?” she asked.
Fortunately at this moment a servant entered to tell the Squire his horse was waiting, and this interruption, and a rather effusive parting, let him handsomely out of an embarrassing answer.
Then Mrs. Atheling wrote a long letter to her son, and looked after the ways of her household, and knit a few rounds on her husband’s hunting stocking, and as she did so thought of Kate’s future, and got tired of trying to settle it, and so left it, as a scholar leaves a difficult problem, for the Master to solve. And when she had reached this point Kate came into the room. She had removed her habit, and the joyous look which had been so remarkable two hours before was all gone. The girl was dashed and weary, and her mother asked her anxiously, “If she was sick?”
“No,” she answered; “but I have been annoyed, and my heart is heavy, and I am tired.”
“Who or what annoyed you, child?”
“I will tell you. Piers and I had a glorious ride, and were coming slowly home, when suddenly the Richmoor liveries came in sight. I saw the instant change on Piers’s face, and I saw Annabel slightly push the Duchess and say something. And the Duchess drew her brows together as we passed each other, and though she bowed, I could see that she was angry and astonished. As for Annabel, she laughed a little, scornful laugh, and threw me a few words which I could not catch. It was a most unpleasant meeting; after it Piers was very silent. I felt as if I had done something wrong, and yet I was indignant at myself for the feeling.”
“What did Piers say?”
“He said nothing that pleased me. He fastened his eyes on Annabel,–who was marvellously dressed in rose-coloured velvet and minever,–and she clapped her small hands together and nodded to him in a familiar way, and, bending slightly forward, passed on. And after that he did not talk much. All his love-making was over, and I thought he was glad when we reached home. I think Annabel will certainly take my lover from me.”
“You mean that she has made up her mind to be Duchess of Richmoor?”
“Yes.”
“Well, my dear Kate, a beautiful woman is strong, and money is stronger; but True Love conquers all .”