CHAPTER LXXII.

"ASK HIMSELF."

Roger Carbury when he received the letter from Hetta's mother

desiring him to tell her all that he knew of Paul Montague's

connection with Mrs. Hurtle found himself quite unable to write a

reply. He endeavoured to ask himself what he would do in such a case

if he himself were not personally concerned. What advice in this

emergency would he give to the mother and what to the daughter, were

he himself uninterested? He was sure that, as Hetta's cousin and

acting as though he were Hetta's brother, he would tell her that

Paul Montague's entanglement with that American woman should have

forbidden him at any rate for the present to offer his hand to any

other lady. He thought that he knew enough of all the circumstances

to be sure that such would be his decision. He had seen Mrs. Hurtle

with Montague at Lowestoft, and had known that they were staying

together as friends at the same hotel. He knew that she had come

to England with the express purpose of enforcing the fulfilment of

an engagement which Montague had often acknowledged. He knew that

Montague made frequent visits to her in London. He had, indeed, been

told by Montague himself that, let the cost be what it might, the

engagement should be and in fact had been broken off. He thoroughly

believed the man's word, but put no trust whatever in his firmness.

And, hitherto, he had no reason whatever for supposing that Mrs.

Hurtle had consented to be abandoned. What father, what elder brother

would allow a daughter or a sister to become engaged to a man

embarrassed by such difficulties? He certainly had counselled

Montague to rid himself of the trammels by which he had surrounded

himself;--but not on that account could he think that the man in his

present condition was fit to engage himself to another woman.

All this was clear to Roger Carbury. But then it had been equally

clear to him that he could not, as a man of honour, assist his own

cause by telling a tale,--which tale had become known to him as the

friend of the man against whom it would have to be told. He had

resolved upon that as he left Montague and Mrs. Hurtle together upon

the sands at Lowestoft. But what was he to do now? The girl whom he

loved had confessed her love for the other man,--that man, who in

seeking the girl's love, had been as he thought so foul a traitor

to himself! That he would hold himself as divided from the man by a

perpetual and undying hostility he had determined. That his love for

the woman would be equally perpetual he was quite sure. Already there

were floating across his brain ideas of perpetuating his name in the

person of some child of Hetta's,--but with the distinct understanding

that he and the child's father should never see each other. No more

than twenty-four hours had intervened between the receipt of Paul's

letter and that from Lady Carbury,--but during those four-and-twenty

hours he had almost forgotten Mrs. Hurtle. The girl was gone from

him, and he thought only of his own loss and of Paul's perfidy. Then

came the direct question as to which he was called upon for a direct

answer. Did he know anything of facts relating to the presence of

a certain Mrs. Hurtle in London which were of a nature to make it

inexpedient that Hetta should accept Paul Montague as her betrothed

lover? Of course he did. The facts were all familiar to him. But

how was he to tell the facts? In what words was he to answer such

a letter? If he told the truth as he knew it how was he to secure

himself against the suspicion of telling a story against his rival in

order that he might assist himself, or at any rate, punish the rival?

As he could not trust himself to write an answer to Lady Carbury's

letter he determined that he would go to London. If he must tell the

story he could tell it better face to face than by any written words.

So he made the journey, arrived in town late in the evening, and

knocked at the door in Welbeck Street between ten and eleven on the

morning after the unfortunate meeting which took place between Sir

Felix and John Crumb. The page when he opened the door looked as a

page should look when the family to which he is attached is suffering

from some terrible calamity. "My lady" had been summoned to the

hospital to see Sir Felix who was,--as the page reported,--in a very

bad way indeed. The page did not exactly know what had happened, but

supposed that Sir Felix had lost most of his limbs by this time. Yes;

Miss Carbury was up-stairs; and would no doubt see her cousin, though

she, too, was in a very bad condition; and dreadfully put about. That

poor Hetta should be "put about" with her brother in the hospital and

her lover in the toils of an abominable American woman was natural

enough.

"What's this about Felix?" asked Roger. The new trouble always has

precedence over those which are of earlier date.

"Oh Roger, I am so glad to see you. Felix did not come home last

night, and this morning there came a man from the hospital in the

city to say that he is there."

"What has happened to him?"

"Somebody,--somebody has,--beaten him," said Hetta whimpering. Then

she told the story as far as she knew it. The messenger from the

hospital had declared that the young man was in no danger and that

none of his bones were broken, but that he was terribly bruised about

the face, that his eyes were in a frightful condition, sundry of his

teeth knocked out, and his lips cut open. But, the messenger had

gone on to say, the house surgeon had seen no reason why the young

gentleman should not be taken home. "And mamma has gone to fetch

him," said Hetta.

"That's John Crumb," said Roger. Hetta had never heard of John Crumb,

and simply stared into her cousin's face. "You have not been told

about John Crumb? No;--you would not hear of him."

"Why should John Crumb beat Felix like that?"

"They say, Hetta, that women are the cause of most troubles that

occur in the world." The girl blushed up to her eyes, as though the

whole story of Felix's sin and folly had been told to her. "If it be

as I suppose," continued Roger, "John Crumb has considered himself to

be aggrieved and has thus avenged himself."

"Did you--know of him before?"

"Yes indeed;--very well. He is a neighbour of mine and was in love

with a girl, with all his heart; and he would have made her his wife

and have been good to her. He had a home to offer her, and is an

honest man with whom she would have been safe and respected and

happy. Your brother saw her and, though he knew the story, though

he had been told by myself that this honest fellow had placed his

happiness on the girl's love, he thought,--well, I suppose he thought

that such a pretty thing as this girl was too good for John Crumb."

"But Felix has been going to marry Miss Melmotte!"

"You're old-fashioned, Hetta. It used to be the way,--to be off with

the old love before you are on with the new; but that seems to be all

changed now. Such fine young fellows as there are now can be in love

with two at once. That I fear is what Felix has thought;--and now he

has been punished."

"You know all about it then?"

"No;--I don't know. But I think it has been so. I do know that John

Crumb had threatened to do this thing, and I felt sure that sooner or

later he would be as good as his word. If it has been so, who is to

blame him?"

Hetta as she heard the story hardly knew whether her cousin, in his

manner of telling the story, was speaking of that other man, of that

stranger of whom she had never heard, or of himself. He would have

made her his wife and have been good to her. He had a home to offer

her. He was an honest man with whom she would have been safe and

respected and happy! He had looked at her while speaking as though it

were her own case of which he spoke. And then, when he talked of the

old-fashioned way, of being off with the old love before you are on

with the new, had he not alluded to Paul Montague and this story of

the American woman? But, if so, it was not for Hetta to notice it

by words. He must speak more plainly than that before she could be

supposed to know that he alluded to her own condition. "It is very

shocking," she said.

"Shocking;--yes. One is shocked at it all. I pity your mother, and I

pity you."

"It seems to me that nothing ever will be happy for us," said Hetta.

She was longing to be told something of Mrs. Hurtle, but she did not

as yet dare to ask the question.

"I do not know whether to wait for your mother or not," said he after

a short pause.

"Pray wait for her if you are not very busy."

"I came up only to see her, but perhaps she would not wish me to be

here when she brings Felix back to the house."

"Indeed she will. She would like you always to be here when there are

troubles. Oh, Roger, I wish you could tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"She has written to you;--has she not?"

"Yes; she has written to me."

"And about me?"

"Yes;--about you, Hetta. And, Hetta, Mr. Montague has written to me

also."

"He told me that he would," whispered Hetta.

"Did he tell you of my answer?"

"No;--he has told me of no answer. I have not seen him since."

"You do not think that it can have been very kind, do you? I also

have something of the feeling of John Crumb, though I shall not

attempt to show it after the same fashion."

"Did you not say the girl had promised to love that man?"

"I did not say so;--but she had promised. Yes, Hetta; there is a

difference. The girl then was fickle and went back from her word.

You never have done that. I am not justified in thinking even a hard

thought of you. I have never harboured a hard thought of you. It is

not you that I reproach. But he,--he has been if possible more false

than Felix."

"Oh, Roger, how has he been false?"

Still he was not wishful to tell her the story of Mrs. Hurtle. The

treachery of which he was speaking was that which he had thought had

been committed by his friend towards himself. "He should have left

the place and never have come near you," said Roger, "when he found

how it was likely to be with him. He owed it to me not to take the

cup of water from my lips."

How was she to tell him that the cup of water never could have

touched his lips? And yet if this were the only falsehood of which

he had to tell, she was bound to let him know that it was so. That

horrid story of Mrs. Hurtle;--she would listen to that if she could

hear it. She would be all ears for that. But she could not admit that

her lover had sinned in loving her. "But, Roger," she said--"it would

have been the same."

"You may think so. You may feel it. You may know it. I at any rate

will not contradict you when you say that it must have been so. But

he didn't feel it. He didn't know it. He was to me as a younger

brother,--and he has robbed me of everything. I understand, Hetta,

what you mean. I should never have succeeded! My happiness would have

been impossible if Paul had never come home from America. I have told

myself so a hundred times, but I cannot therefore forgive him. And I

won't forgive him, Hetta. Whether you are his wife, or another man's,

or whether you are Hetta Carbury on to the end, my feeling to you

will be the same. While we both live, you must be to me the dearest

creature living. My hatred to him--"

"Oh, Roger, do not say hatred."

"My hostility to him can make no difference in my feeling to you. I

tell you that should you become his wife you will still be my love.

As to not coveting,--how is a man to cease to covet that which he has

always coveted? But I shall be separated from you. Should I be dying,

then I should send for you. You are the very essence of my life. I

have no dream of happiness otherwise than as connected with you. He

might have my whole property and I would work for my bread, if I

could only have a chance of winning you to share my toils with me."

But still there was no word of Mrs. Hurtle. "Roger," she said, "I

have given it all away now. It cannot be given twice."

"If he were unworthy would your heart never change?"

"I think--never. Roger, is he unworthy?"

"How can you trust me to answer such a question? He is my enemy. He

has been ungrateful to me as one man hardly ever is to another. He

has turned all my sweetness to gall, all my flowers to bitter weeds;

he has choked up all my paths. And now you ask me whether he is

unworthy! I cannot tell you."

"If you thought him worthy you would tell me," she said, getting up

and taking him by the arm.

"No;--I will tell you nothing. Go to some one else, not to me;" and

he tried with gentleness but tried ineffectually to disengage himself

from her hold.

"Roger, if you knew him to be good you would tell me,--because you

yourself are so good. Even though you hated him you would say so.

It would not be you to leave a false impression even against your

enemies. I ask you because, however it may be with you, I know I can

trust you. I can be nothing else to you, Roger; but I love you as a

sister loves, and I come to you as a sister comes to a brother. He

has my heart. Tell me;--is there any reason why he should not also

have my hand?"

"Ask himself, Hetta."

"And you will tell me nothing? You will not try to save me though you

know that I am in danger? Who is--Mrs. Hurtle?"

"Have you asked him?"

"I had not heard her name when he parted from me. I did not even know

that such a woman lived. Is it true that he has promised to marry

her? Felix told me of her, and told me also that you knew. But I

cannot trust Felix as I would trust you. And mamma says that it is

so;--but mamma also bids me ask you. There is such a woman?"

"There is such a woman certainly."

"And she has been,--a friend of Paul's?"

"Whatever be the story, Hetta, you shall not hear it from me. I will

say neither evil nor good of the man except in regard to his conduct

to myself. Send for him and ask him to tell you the story of Mrs.

Hurtle as it concerns himself. I do not think he will lie, but if he

lies you will know that he is lying."

"And that is all?"

"All that I can say, Hetta. You ask me to be your brother; but I

cannot put myself in the place of your brother. I tell you plainly

that I am your lover, and shall remain so. Your brother would

welcome the man whom you would choose as your husband. I can never

welcome any husband of yours. I think if twenty years were to pass

over us, and you were still Hetta Carbury, I should still be your

lover,--though an old one. What is now to be done about Felix,

Hetta?"

"Ah,--what can be done? I think sometimes that it will break mamma's

heart."

"Your mother makes me angry by her continual indulgence."

"But what can she do? You would not have her turn him into the

street?"

"I do not know that I would not. For a time it might serve him

perhaps. Here is the cab. Here they are. Yes; you had better go down

and let your mother know that I am here. They will perhaps take him

up to bed, so that I need not see him."

Hetta did as she was bid, and met her mother and her brother in the

hall. Felix having the full use of his arms and legs was able to

descend from the cab, and hurry across the pavement into the house,

and then, without speaking a word to his sister, hid himself in the

dining-room. His face was strapped up with plaister so that not a

feature was visible; and both his eyes were swollen and blue; part of

his beard had been cut away, and his physiognomy had altogether been

so treated that even the page would hardly have known him. "Roger is

up-stairs, mamma," said Hetta in the hall.

"Has he heard about Felix;--has he come about that?"

"He has heard only what I have told him. He has come because of your

letter. He says that a man named Crumb did it."

"Then he does know. Who can have told him? He always knows

everything. Oh, Hetta, what am I to do? Where shall I go with this

wretched boy?"

"Is he hurt, mamma?"

"Hurt;--of course he is hurt; horribly hurt. The brute tried to kill

him. They say that he will be dreadfully scarred for ever. But oh,

Hetta;--what am I to do with him? What am I to do with myself and

you?"

On this occasion Roger was saved from the annoyance of any personal

intercourse with his cousin Felix. The unfortunate one was made as

comfortable as circumstances would permit in the parlour, and Lady

Carbury then went up to her cousin in the drawing-room. She had

learned the truth with some fair approach to accuracy, though Sir

Felix himself had of course lied as to every detail. There are some

circumstances so distressing in themselves as to make lying almost

a necessity. When a young man has behaved badly about a woman, when

a young man has been beaten without returning a blow, when a young

man's pleasant vices are brought directly under a mother's eyes, what

can he do but lie? How could Sir Felix tell the truth about that rash

encounter? But the policeman who had brought him to the hospital had

told all that he knew. The man who had thrashed the baronet had been

called Crumb, and the thrashing had been given on the score of a

young woman called Ruggles. So much was known at the hospital, and so

much could not be hidden by any lies which Sir Felix might tell. And

when Sir Felix swore that a policeman was holding him while Crumb

was beating him, no one believed him. In such cases the liar does

not expect to be believed. He knows that his disgrace will be made

public, and only hopes to be saved from the ignominy of declaring it

with his own words.

"What am I to do with him?" Lady Carbury said to her cousin. "It is

no use telling me to leave him. I can't do that. I know he is bad.

I know that I have done much to make him what he is." As she said

this the tears were running down her poor worn cheeks. "But he is my

child. What am I to do with him now?"

This was a question which Roger found it almost impossible to answer.

If he had spoken his thoughts he would have declared that Sir

Felix had reached an age at which, if a man will go headlong to

destruction, he must go headlong to destruction. Thinking as he did

of his cousin he could see no possible salvation for him. "Perhaps I

should take him abroad," he said.

"Would he be better abroad than here?"

"He would have less opportunity for vice, and fewer means of running

you into debt."

Lady Carbury, as she turned this counsel in her mind, thought of all

the hopes which she had indulged,--her literary aspirations, her

Tuesday evenings, her desire for society, her Brounes, her Alfs, and

her Bookers, her pleasant drawing-room, and the determination which

she had made that now in the afternoon of her days she would become

somebody in the world. Must she give it all up and retire to the

dreariness of some French town because it was no longer possible that

she should live in London with such a son as hers? There seemed to be

a cruelty in this beyond all cruelties that she had hitherto endured.

This was harder even than those lies which had been told of her when

almost in fear of her life she had run from her husband's house. But

yet she must do even this if in no other way she and her son could

be together. "Yes," she said, "I suppose it would be so. I only wish

that I might die, so that were an end of it."

"He might go out to one of the Colonies," said Roger.

"Yes;--be sent away that he might kill himself with drink in the

bush, and so be got rid of. I have heard of that before. Wherever he

goes I shall go."

As the reader knows, Roger Carbury had not latterly held this cousin

of his in much esteem. He knew her to be worldly and he thought her

to be unprincipled. But now, at this moment, her exceeding love for

the son whom she could no longer pretend to defend, wiped out all her

sins. He forgot the visit made to Carbury under false pretences, and

the Melmottes, and all the little tricks which he had detected, in

his appreciation of an affection which was pure and beautiful. "If

you like to let your house for a period," he said, "mine is open to

you."

"But, Felix?"

"You shall take him there. I am all alone in the world. I can make a

home for myself at the cottage. It is empty now. If you think that

would save you you can try it for six months."

"And turn you out of your own house? No, Roger. I cannot do that.

And, Roger;--what is to be done about Hetta?" Hetta herself had

retreated, leaving Roger and her mother alone together, feeling sure

that there would be questions asked and answered in her absence

respecting Mrs. Hurtle, which her presence would prevent. She wished

it could have been otherwise--that she might have been allowed to

hear it all herself--as she was sure that the story coming through

her mother would not savour so completely of unalloyed truth as if

told to her by her cousin Roger.

"Hetta can be trusted to judge for herself," he said.

"How can you say that when she has just accepted this young man? Is

it not true that he is even now living with an American woman whom he

has promised to marry?"

"No;--that is not true."

"What is true, then? Is he not engaged to the woman?"

Roger hesitated a moment. "I do not know that even that is true. When

last he spoke to me about it he declared that the engagement was at

an end. I have told Hetta to ask himself. Let her tell him that she

has heard of this woman from you, and that it behoves her to know the

truth. I do not love him, Lady Carbury. He has no longer any place

in my friendship. But I think that if Hetta asks him simply what is

the nature of his connexion with Mrs. Hurtle, he will tell her the

truth."

Roger did not again see Hetta before he left the house, nor did

he see his cousin Felix at all. He had now done all that he could

do by his journey up to London, and he returned on that day back

to Carbury. Would it not be better for him, in spite of the

protestations which he had made, to dismiss the whole family from

his mind? There could be no other love for him. He must be desolate

and alone. But he might then save himself from a world of cares,

and might gradually teach himself to live as though there were no

such woman as Hetta Carbury in the world. But no! He would not

allow himself to believe that this could be right. The very fact of

his love made it a duty to him,--made it almost the first of his

duties,--to watch over the interests of her he loved and of those who

belonged to her.

But among those so belonging he did not recognise Paul Montague.