CHAPTER II.

THE CARBURY FAMILY.

Something of herself and condition Lady Carbury has told the reader

in the letters given in the former chapter, but more must be added.

She has declared she had been cruelly slandered; but she has also

shown that she was not a woman whose words about herself could be

taken with much confidence. If the reader does not understand so much

from her letters to the three editors they have been written in vain.

She has been made to say that her object in work was to provide for

the need of her children, and that with that noble purpose before

her she was struggling to make for herself a career in literature.

Detestably false as had been her letters to the editors, absolutely

and abominably foul as was the entire system by which she was

endeavouring to achieve success, far away from honour and honesty as

she had been carried by her ready subserviency to the dirty things

among which she had lately fallen, nevertheless her statements about

herself were substantially true. She had been ill-treated. She had

been slandered. She was true to her children,--especially devoted to

one of them,--and was ready to work her nails off if by doing so she

could advance their interests.

She was the widow of one Sir Patrick Carbury, who many years since

had done great things as a soldier in India, and had been thereupon

created a baronet. He had married a young wife late in life and,

having found out when too late that he had made a mistake, had

occasionally spoilt his darling and occasionally ill used her. In

doing each he had done it abundantly. Among Lady Carbury's faults

had never been that of even incipient,--not even of sentimental

infidelity to her husband. When as a very lovely and penniless girl

of eighteen she had consented to marry a man of forty-four who had

the spending of a large income, she had made up her mind to abandon

all hope of that sort of love which poets describe and which young

people generally desire to experience. Sir Patrick at the time of

his marriage was red-faced, stout, bald, very choleric, generous in

money, suspicious in temper, and intelligent. He knew how to govern

men. He could read and understand a book. There was nothing mean

about him. He had his attractive qualities. He was a man who might

be loved;--but he was hardly a man for love. The young Lady Carbury

had understood her position and had determined to do her duty. She

had resolved before she went to the altar that she would never allow

herself to flirt and she had never flirted. For fifteen years things

had gone tolerably well with her,--by which it is intended that the

reader should understand that they had so gone that she had been able

to tolerate them. They had been home in England for three or four

years, and then Sir Patrick had returned with some new and higher

appointment. For fifteen years, though he had been passionate,

imperious, and often cruel, he had never been jealous. A boy and

a girl had been born to them, to whom both father and mother had

been over indulgent;--but the mother, according to her lights, had

endeavoured to do her duty by them. But from the commencement of her

life she had been educated in deceit, and her married life had seemed

to make the practice of deceit necessary to her. Her mother had run

away from her father, and she had been tossed to and fro between

this and that protector, sometimes being in danger of wanting any

one to care for her, till she had been made sharp, incredulous,

and untrustworthy by the difficulties of her position. But she was

clever, and had picked up an education and good manners amidst the

difficulties of her childhood,--and had been beautiful to look at.

To marry and have the command of money, to do her duty correctly, to

live in a big house and be respected, had been her ambition,--and

during the first fifteen years of her married life she was successful

amidst great difficulties. She would smile within five minutes of

violent ill-usage. Her husband would even strike her,--and the first

effort of her mind would be given to conceal the fact from all the

world. In latter years he drank too much, and she struggled hard

first to prevent the evil, and then to prevent and to hide the ill

effects of the evil. But in doing all this she schemed, and lied, and

lived a life of manoeuvres. Then, at last, when she felt that she

was no longer quite a young woman, she allowed herself to attempt to

form friendships for herself, and among her friends was one of the

other sex. If fidelity in a wife be compatible with such friendship,

if the married state does not exact from a woman the necessity of

debarring herself from all friendly intercourse with any man except

her lord, Lady Carbury was not faithless. But Sir Carbury became

jealous, spoke words which even she could not endure, did things

which drove even her beyond the calculations of her prudence,--and

she left him. But even this she did in so guarded a way that, as to

every step she took, she could prove her innocence. Her life at that

period is of little moment to our story, except that it is essential

that the reader should know in what she had been slandered. For

a month or two all hard words had been said against her by her

husband's friends, and even by Sir Patrick himself. But gradually

the truth was known, and after a year's separation they came again

together and she remained the mistress of his house till he died. She

brought him home to England, but during the short period left to him

of life in his old country he had been a worn-out, dying invalid.

But the scandal of her great misfortune had followed her, and some

people were never tired of reminding others that in the course of her

married life Lady Carbury had run away from her husband, and had been

taken back again by the kind-hearted old gentleman.

Sir Patrick had left behind him a moderate fortune, though by no

means great wealth. To his son, who was now Sir Felix Carbury, he had

left £1,000 a year; and to his widow as much, with a provision that

after her death the latter sum should be divided between his son

and daughter. It therefore came to pass that the young man, who had

already entered the army when his father died, and upon whom devolved

no necessity of keeping a house, and who in fact not unfrequently

lived in his mother's house, had an income equal to that with which

his mother and his sister were obliged to maintain a roof over their

head. Now Lady Carbury, when she was released from her thraldom

at the age of forty, had no idea at all of passing her future

life amidst the ordinary penances of widowhood. She had hitherto

endeavoured to do her duty, knowing that in accepting her position

she was bound to take the good and the bad together. She had

certainly encountered hitherto much that was bad. To be scolded,

watched, beaten, and sworn at by a choleric old man till she was at

last driven out of her house by the violence of his ill-usage; to be

taken back as a favour with the assurance that her name would for

the remainder of her life be unjustly tarnished; to have her flight

constantly thrown in her face; and then at last to become for a year

or two the nurse of a dying debauchee, was a high price to pay for

such good things as she had hitherto enjoyed. Now at length had come

to her a period of relaxation--her reward, her freedom, her chance of

happiness. She thought much about herself, and resolved on one or two

things. The time for love had gone by, and she would have nothing

to do with it. Nor would she marry again for convenience. But she

would have friends,--real friends; friends who could help her,--and

whom possibly she might help. She would, too, make some career for

herself, so that life might not be without an interest to her. She

would live in London, and would become somebody at any rate in some

circle. Accident at first rather than choice had thrown her among

literary people, but that accident had, during the last two years,

been supported and corroborated by the desire which had fallen upon

her of earning money. She had known from the first that economy

would be necessary to her,--not chiefly or perhaps not at all from a

feeling that she and her daughter could not live comfortably together

on a thousand a year,--but on behalf of her son. She wanted no luxury

but a house so placed that people might conceive of her that she

lived in a proper part of the town. Of her daughter's prudence she

was as well convinced as of her own. She could trust Henrietta in

everything. But her son, Sir Felix, was not very trustworthy. And yet

Sir Felix was the darling of her heart.

At the time of the writing of the three letters, at which our story

is supposed to begin, she was driven very hard for money. Sir Felix

was then twenty-five, had been in a fashionable regiment for four

years, had already sold out, and, to own the truth at once, had

altogether wasted the property which his father had left him. So much

the mother knew,--and knew, therefore, that with her limited income

she must maintain not only herself and daughter, but also the

baronet. She did not know, however, the amount of the baronet's

obligations;--nor, indeed, did he, or any one else. A baronet,

holding a commission in the Guards, and known to have had a fortune

left him by his father, may go very far in getting into debt; and Sir

Felix had made full use of all his privileges. His life had been in

every way bad. He had become a burden on his mother so heavy,--and

on his sister also,--that their life had become one of unavoidable

embarrassments. But not for a moment had either of them ever

quarrelled with him. Henrietta had been taught by the conduct of both

father and mother that every vice might be forgiven in a man and in

a son, though every virtue was expected from a woman, and especially

from a daughter. The lesson had come to her so early in life that she

had learned it without the feeling of any grievance. She lamented

her brother's evil conduct as it affected him, but she pardoned it

altogether as it affected herself. That all her interests in life

should be made subservient to him was natural to her; and when she

found that her little comforts were discontinued, and her moderate

expenses curtailed because he, having eaten up all that was his

own, was now eating up also all that was his mother's, she never

complained. Henrietta had been taught to think that men in that rank

of life in which she had been born always did eat up everything.

The mother's feeling was less noble,--or perhaps, it might better

be said, more open to censure. The boy, who had been beautiful as a

star, had ever been the cynosure of her eyes, the one thing on which

her heart had rivetted itself. Even during the career of his folly

she had hardly ventured to say a word to him with the purport of

stopping him on his road to ruin. In everything she had spoilt him

as a boy, and in everything she still spoilt him as a man. She was

almost proud of his vices, and had taken delight in hearing of doings

which if not vicious of themselves had been ruinous from their

extravagance. She had so indulged him that even in her own presence

he was never ashamed of his own selfishness or apparently conscious

of the injustice which he did to others.

From all this it had come to pass that that dabbling in literature

which had been commenced partly perhaps from a sense of pleasure in

the work, partly as a passport into society, had been converted into

hard work by which money if possible might be earned. So that Lady

Carbury when she wrote to her friends, the editors, of her struggles

was speaking the truth. Tidings had reached her of this and the other

man's success, and,--coming near to her still,--of this and that

other woman's earnings in literature. And it had seemed to her that,

within moderate limits, she might give a wide field to her hopes. Why

should she not add a thousand a year to her income, so that Felix

might again live like a gentleman and marry that heiress who, in Lady

Carbury's look-out into the future, was destined to make all things

straight! Who was so handsome as her son? Who could make himself more

agreeable? Who had more of that audacity which is the chief thing

necessary to the winning of heiresses? And then he could make his

wife Lady Carbury. If only enough money might be earned to tide over

the present evil day, all might be well.

The one most essential obstacle to the chance of success in all

this was probably Lady Carbury's conviction that her end was to

be obtained not by producing good books, but by inducing certain

people to say that her books were good. She did work hard at what

she wrote,--hard enough at any rate to cover her pages quickly;

and was, by nature, a clever woman. She could write after a glib,

common-place, sprightly fashion, and had already acquired the knack

of spreading all she knew very thin, so that it might cover a vast

surface. She had no ambition to write a good book, but was painfully

anxious to write a book that the critics should say was good. Had Mr.

Broune, in his closet, told her that her book was absolutely trash,

but had undertaken at the same time to have it violently praised in

the "Breakfast Table," it may be doubted whether the critic's own

opinion would have even wounded her vanity. The woman was false from

head to foot, but there was much of good in her, false though she

was.

Whether Sir Felix, her son, had become what he was solely by bad

training, or whether he had been born bad, who shall say? It is

hardly possible that he should not have been better had he been taken

away as an infant and subjected to moral training by moral teachers.

And yet again it is hardly possible that any training or want of

training should have produced a heart so utterly incapable of feeling

for others as was his. He could not even feel his own misfortunes

unless they touched the outward comforts of the moment. It seemed

that he lacked sufficient imagination to realise future misery though

the futurity to be considered was divided from the present but by

a single month, a single week,--but by a single night. He liked to

be kindly treated, to be praised and petted, to be well fed and

caressed; and they who so treated him were his chosen friends. He

had in this the instincts of a horse, not approaching the higher

sympathies of a dog. But it cannot be said of him that he had

ever loved any one to the extent of denying himself a moment's

gratification on that loved one's behalf. His heart was a stone. But

he was beautiful to look at, ready-witted, and intelligent. He was

very dark, with that soft olive complexion which so generally gives

to young men an appearance of aristocratic breeding. His hair, which

was never allowed to become long, was nearly black, and was soft

and silky without that taint of grease which is so common with

silken-headed darlings. His eyes were long, brown in colour, and

were made beautiful by the perfect arch of the perfect eyebrow. But

perhaps the glory of the face was due more to the finished moulding

and fine symmetry of the nose and mouth than to his other features.

On his short upper lip he had a moustache as well formed as his

eyebrows, but he wore no other beard. The form of his chin too was

perfect, but it lacked that sweetness and softness of expression,

indicative of softness of heart, which a dimple conveys. He was about

five feet nine in height, and was as excellent in figure as in face.

It was admitted by men and clamorously asserted by women that no man

had ever been more handsome than Felix Carbury, and it was admitted

also that he never showed consciousness of his beauty. He had given

himself airs on many scores;--on the score of his money, poor fool,

while it lasted; on the score of his title; on the score of his army

standing till he lost it; and especially on the score of superiority

in fashionable intellect. But he had been clever enough to dress

himself always with simplicity and to avoid the appearance of thought

about his outward man. As yet the little world of his associates had

hardly found out how callous were his affections,--or rather how

devoid he was of affection. His airs and his appearance, joined with

some cleverness, had carried him through even the viciousness of

his life. In one matter he had marred his name, and by a moment's

weakness had injured his character among his friends more than he had

done by the folly of three years. There had been a quarrel between

him and a brother officer, in which he had been the aggressor; and,

when the moment came in which a man's heart should have produced

manly conduct, he had first threatened and had then shown the white

feather. That was now a year since, and he had partly outlived the

evil;--but some men still remembered that Felix Carbury had been

cowed, and had cowered.

It was now his business to marry an heiress. He was well aware that

it was so, and was quite prepared to face his destiny. But he lacked

something in the art of making love. He was beautiful, had the

manners of a gentleman, could talk well, lacked nothing of audacity,

and had no feeling of repugnance at declaring a passion which he did

not feel. But he knew so little of the passion, that he could hardly

make even a young girl believe that he felt it. When he talked of

love, he not only thought that he was talking nonsense, but showed

that he thought so. From this fault he had already failed with one

young lady reputed to have £40,000, who had refused him because, as

she naively said, she knew "he did not really care." "How can I show

that I care more than by wishing to make you my wife?" he had asked.

"I don't know that you can, but all the same you don't care," she

said. And so that young lady escaped the pit-fall. Now there was

another young lady, to whom the reader shall be introduced in time,

whom Sir Felix was instigated to pursue with unremitting diligence.

Her wealth was not defined, as had been the £40,000 of her

predecessor, but was known to be very much greater than that. It was,

indeed, generally supposed to be fathomless, bottomless, endless.

It was said that in regard to money for ordinary expenditure, money

for houses, servants, horses, jewels, and the like, one sum was

the same as another to the father of this young lady. He had great

concerns;--concerns so great that the payment of ten or twenty

thousand pounds upon any trifle was the same thing to him,--as to men

who are comfortable in their circumstances it matters little whether

they pay sixpence or ninepence for their mutton chops. Such a man

may be ruined at any time; but there was no doubt that to any one

marrying his daughter during the present season of his outrageous

prosperity he could give a very large fortune indeed. Lady Carbury,

who had known the rock on which her son had been once wrecked, was

very anxious that Sir Felix should at once make a proper use of the

intimacy which he had effected in the house of this topping Croesus

of the day.

And now there must be a few words said about Henrietta Carbury. Of

course she was of infinitely less importance than her brother, who

was a baronet, the head of that branch of the Carburys, and her

mother's darling; and, therefore, a few words should suffice. She

also was very lovely, being like her brother; but somewhat less

dark and with features less absolutely regular. But she had in her

countenance a full measure of that sweetness of expression which

seems to imply that consideration of self is subordinated to

consideration for others. This sweetness was altogether lacking to

her brother. And her face was a true index of her character. Again,

who shall say why the brother and sister had become so opposite to

each other; whether they would have been thus different had both been

taken away as infants from their father's and mother's training, or

whether the girl's virtues were owing altogether to the lower place

which she had held in her parent's heart? She, at any rate, had

not been spoilt by a title, by the command of money, and by the

temptations of too early acquaintance with the world. At the present

time she was barely twenty-one years old, and had not seen much of

London society. Her mother did not frequent balls, and during the

last two years there had grown upon them a necessity for economy

which was inimical to many gloves and costly dresses. Sir Felix went

out of course, but Hetta Carbury spent most of her time at home with

her mother in Welbeck Street. Occasionally the world saw her, and

when the world did see her the world declared that she was a charming

girl. The world was so far right.

But for Henrietta Carbury the romance of life had already commenced

in real earnest. There was another branch of the Carburys, the head

branch, which was now represented by one Roger Carbury, of Carbury

Hall. Roger Carbury was a gentleman of whom much will have to be

said, but here, at this moment, it need only be told that he was

passionately in love with his cousin Henrietta. He was, however,

nearly forty years old, and there was one Paul Montague whom

Henrietta had seen.