CHAPTER LXXIX.

THE BREHGERT CORRESPONDENCE.

Mr. Longestaffe had brought his daughter down to Caversham on a

Wednesday. During the Thursday and Friday she had passed a very sad

time, not knowing whether she was or was not engaged to marry Mr.

Brehgert. Her father had declared to her that he would break off

the match, and she believed that he had seen Mr. Brehgert with that

purpose. She had certainly given no consent, and had never hinted to

any one of the family an idea that she was disposed to yield. But

she felt that, at any rate with her father, she had not adhered to

her purpose with tenacity, and that she had allowed him to return

to London with a feeling that she might still be controlled. She

was beginning to be angry with Mr. Brehgert, thinking that he had

taken his dismissal from her father without consulting her. It was

necessary that something should be settled, something known. Life

such as that she was leading now would drive her mad. She had all the

disadvantages of the Brehgert connection and none of the advantages.

She could not comfort herself with thinking of the Brehgert wealth

and the Brehgert houses, and yet she was living under the general

ban of Caversham on account of her Brehgert associations. She was

beginning to think that she herself must write to Mr. Brehgert,--only

she did not know what to say to him.

But on the Saturday morning she got a letter from Mr. Brehgert.

It was handed to her as she was sitting at breakfast with her

sister,--who at that moment was triumphant with a present of

gooseberries which had been sent over from Toodlam. The Toodlam

gooseberries were noted throughout Suffolk, and when the letters were

being brought in Sophia was taking her lover's offering from the

basket with her own fair hands. "Well!" Georgey had exclaimed, "to

send a pottle of gooseberries to his lady love across the country!

Who but George Whitstable would do that?"

"I dare say you get nothing but gems and gold," Sophy retorted. "I

don't suppose that Mr. Brehgert knows what a gooseberry is." At that

moment the letter was brought in, and Georgiana knew the writing. "I

suppose that's from Mr. Brehgert," said Sophy.

"I don't think it matters much to you who it's from." She tried to be

composed and stately, but the letter was too important to allow of

composure, and she retired to read it in privacy.

The letter was as follows:--

MY DEAR GEORGIANA,

Your father came to me the day after I was to have met you

at Lady Monogram's party. I told him then that I would not

write to you till I had taken a day or two to consider

what he said to me;--and also that I thought it better

that you should have a day or two to consider what he

might say to you. He has now repeated what he said at our

first interview, almost with more violence; for I must say

that I think he has allowed himself to be violent when it

was surely unnecessary.

The long and short of it is this. He altogether

disapproves of your promise to marry me. He has given

three reasons;--first that I am in trade; secondly that

I am much older than you, and have a family; and thirdly

that I am a Jew. In regard to the first I can hardly

think that he is earnest. I have explained to him that my

business is that of a banker; and I can hardly conceive it

to be possible that any gentleman in England should object

to his daughter marrying a banker, simply because the man

is a banker. There would be a blindness of arrogance in

such a proposition of which I think your father to be

incapable. This has merely been added in to strengthen his

other objections.

As to my age, it is just fifty-one. I do not at all think

myself too old to be married again. Whether I am too old

for you is for you to judge,--as is also that question of

my children who, of course, should you become my wife will

be to some extent a care upon your shoulders. As this is

all very serious you will not, I hope, think me wanting in

gallantry if I say that I should hardly have ventured to

address you if you had been quite a young girl. No doubt

there are many years between us;--and so I think there

should be. A man of my age hardly looks to marry a woman

of the same standing as himself. But the question is one

for the lady to decide,--and you must decide it now.

As to my religion, I acknowledge the force of what your

father says,--though I think that a gentleman brought up

with fewer prejudices would have expressed himself in

language less likely to give offence. However I am a man

not easily offended; and on this occasion I am ready to

take what he has said in good part. I can easily conceive

that there should be those who think that the husband and

wife should agree in religion. I am indifferent to it

myself. I shall not interfere with you if you make me

happy by becoming my wife, nor, I suppose, will you with

me. Should you have a daughter or daughters I am quite

willing that they should be brought up subject to your

influence.

There was a plain-speaking in this which made Georgiana look round

the room as though to see whether any one was watching her as she

read it.

But no doubt your father objects to me specially because

I am a Jew. If I were an atheist he might, perhaps, say

nothing on the subject of religion. On this matter as well

as on others it seems to me that your father has hardly

kept pace with the movements of the age. Fifty years ago

whatever claim a Jew might have to be as well considered

as a Christian, he certainly was not so considered.

Society was closed against him, except under special

circumstances, and so were all the privileges of high

position. But that has been altered. Your father does not

admit the change; but I think he is blind to it, because

he does not wish to see.

I say all this more as defending myself than as combating

his views with you. It must be for you and for you alone

to decide how far his views shall govern you. He has told

me, after a rather peremptory fashion, that I have behaved

badly to him and to his family because I did not go to

him in the first instance when I thought of obtaining

the honour of an alliance with his daughter. I have been

obliged to tell him that in this matter I disagree with

him entirely, though in so telling him I endeavoured to

restrain myself from any appearance of warmth. I had not

the pleasure of meeting you in his house, nor had I any

acquaintance with him. And again, at the risk of being

thought uncourteous, I must say that you are to a certain

degree emancipated by age from that positive subordination

to which a few years ago you probably submitted without a

question. If a gentleman meets a lady in society, as I met

you in the home of our friend Mr. Melmotte, I do not think

that the gentleman is to be debarred from expressing his

feelings because the lady may possibly have a parent. Your

father, no doubt with propriety, had left you to be the

guardian of yourself, and I cannot submit to be accused of

improper conduct because, finding you in that condition, I

availed myself of it.

And now, having said so much, I must leave the question to

be decided entirely by yourself. I beg you to understand

that I do not at all wish to hold you to a promise merely

because the promise has been given. I readily acknowledge

that the opinion of your family should be considered by

you, though I will not admit that I was bound to consult

that opinion before I spoke to you. It may well be that

your regard for me or your appreciation of the comforts

with which I may be able to surround you, will not suffice

to reconcile you to such a breach from your own family as

your father, with much repetition, has assured me will be

inevitable. Take a day or two to think of this and turn it

well over in your mind. When I last had the happiness of

speaking to you, you seemed to think that your parents

might raise objections, but that those objections would

give way before an expression of your own wishes. I was

flattered by your so thinking; but, if I may form any

judgment from your father's manner, I must suppose that

you were mistaken. You will understand that I do not say

this as any reproach to you. Quite the contrary. I think

your father is irrational; and you may well have failed to

anticipate that he should be so.

As to my own feelings they remain exactly as they were

when I endeavoured to explain them to you. Though I do not

find myself to be too old to marry, I do think myself too

old to write love letters. I have no doubt you believe me

when I say that I entertain a most sincere affection for

you; and I beseech you to believe me in saying further

that should you become my wife it shall be the study of my

life to make you happy.

It is essentially necessary that I should allude to one

other matter, as to which I have already told your father

what I will now tell you. I think it probable that within

this week I shall find myself a loser of a very large sum

of money through the failure of a gentleman whose bad

treatment of me I will the more readily forgive because

he was the means of making me known to you. This you must

understand is private between you and me, though I have

thought it proper to inform your father. Such loss, if it

fall upon me, will not interfere in the least with the

income which I have proposed to settle upon you for your

use after my death; and, as your father declares that in

the event of your marrying me he will neither give to you

nor bequeath to you a shilling, he might have abstained

from telling me to my face that I was a bankrupt merchant

when I myself told him of my loss. I am not a bankrupt

merchant nor at all likely to become so. Nor will this

loss at all interfere with my present mode of living. But

I have thought it right to inform you of it, because, if

it occur,--as I think it will,--I shall not deem it right

to keep a second establishment probably for the next two

or three years. But my house at Fulham and my stables

there will be kept up just as they are at present.

I have now told you everything which I think it is

necessary you should know, in order that you may determine

either to adhere to or to recede from your engagement.

When you have resolved you will let me know,--but a day or

two may probably be necessary for your decision. I hope I

need not say that a decision in my favour will make me a

happy man.

I am, in the meantime, your affectionate friend,

EZEKIEL BREHGERT.

This very long letter puzzled Georgey a good deal, and left her, at

the time of reading it, very much in doubt as to what she would do.

She could understand that it was a plain-spoken and truth-telling

letter. Not that she, to herself, gave it praise for those virtues;

but that it imbued her unconsciously with a thorough belief. She

was apt to suspect deceit in other people;--but it did not occur to

her that Mr. Brehgert had written a single word with an attempt to

deceive her. But the single-minded genuine honesty of the letter was

altogether thrown away upon her. She never said to herself, as she

read it, that she might safely trust herself to this man, though he

were a Jew, though greasy and like a butcher, though over fifty and

with a family, because he was an honest man. She did not see that the

letter was particularly sensible;--but she did allow herself to be

pained by the total absence of romance. She was annoyed at the first

allusion to her age, and angry at the second; and yet she had never

supposed that Brehgert had taken her to be younger than she was.

She was well aware that the world in general attributes more years

to unmarried women than they have lived, as a sort of equalising

counter-weight against the pretences which young women make on the

other side, or the lies which are told on their behalf. Nor had she

wished to appear peculiarly young in his eyes. But, nevertheless,

she regarded the reference to be uncivil,--perhaps almost

butcher-like,--and it had its effect upon her. And then the allusion

to the "daughter or daughters" troubled her. She told herself that it

was vulgar,--just what a butcher might have said. And although she

was quite prepared to call her father the most irrational, the most

prejudiced, and most ill-natured of men, yet she was displeased that

Mr. Brehgert should take such a liberty with him. But the passage

in Mr. Brehgert's letter which was most distasteful to her was that

which told her of the loss which he might probably incur through his

connection with Melmotte. What right had he to incur a loss which

would incapacitate him from keeping his engagements with her? The

town-house had been the great persuasion, and now he absolutely had

the face to tell her that there was to be no town-house for three

years. When she read this she felt that she ought to be indignant,

and for a few moments was minded to sit down without further

consideration and tell the man with considerable scorn that she would

have nothing more to say to him.

But on that side too there would be terrible bitterness. How would

she have fallen from her greatness when, barely forgiven by her

father and mother for the vile sin which she had contemplated, she

should consent to fill a common bridesmaid place at the nuptials of

George Whitstable! And what would then be left to her in life? This

episode of the Jew would make it quite impossible for her again

to contest the question of the London house with her father. Lady

Pomona and Mrs. George Whitstable would be united with him against

her. There would be no "season" for her, and she would be nobody

at Caversham. As for London, she would hardly wish to go there!

Everybody would know the story of the Jew. She thought that she could

have plucked up courage to face the world as the Jew's wife, but not

as the young woman who had wanted to marry the Jew and had failed.

How would her future life go with her, should she now make up her

mind to retire from the proposed alliance? If she could get her

father to take her abroad at once, she would do it; but she was not

now in a condition to make any terms with her father. As all this

gradually passed through her mind, she determined that she would so

far take Mr. Brehgert's advice as to postpone her answer till she had

well considered the matter.

She slept upon it, and the next day she asked her mother a few

questions. "Mamma, have you any idea what papa means to do?"

"In what way, my dear?" Lady Pomona's voice was not gracious, as

she was free from that fear of her daughter's ascendancy which had

formerly affected her.

"Well;--I suppose he must have some plan."

"You must explain yourself. I don't know why he should have any

particular plan."

"Will he go to London next year?"

"That will depend upon money, I suppose. What makes you ask?"

"Of course I have been very cruelly circumstanced. Everybody must

see that. I'm sure you do, mamma. The long and the short of it is

this;--if I give up my engagement, will he take us abroad for a

year?"

"Why should he?"

"You can't suppose that I should be very comfortable in England. If

we are to remain here at Caversham, how am I to hope ever to get

settled?"

"Sophy is doing very well."

"Oh, mamma, there are not two George Whitstables;--thank God." She

had meant to be humble and supplicating, but she could not restrain

herself from the use of that one shaft. "I don't mean but what Sophy

may be very happy, and I am sure that I hope she will. But that won't

do me any good. I should be very unhappy here."

"I don't see how you are to find any one to marry you by going

abroad," said Lady Pomona, "and I don't see why your papa is to be

taken away from his own home. He likes Caversham."

"Then I am to be sacrificed on every side," said Georgey, stalking

out of the room. But still she could not make up her mind what letter

she would write to Mr. Brehgert, and she slept upon it another night.

On the next day after breakfast she did write her letter, though when

she sat down to her task she had not clearly made up her mind what

she would say. But she did get it written, and here it is.

Caversham,

Monday.

MY DEAR MR. BREHGERT,

As you told me not to hurry, I have taken a little time

to think about your letter. Of course it would be very

disagreeable to quarrel with papa and mamma and everybody.

And if I do do so, I'm sure somebody ought to be very

grateful. But papa has been very unfair in what he has

said. As to not asking him, it could have been of no good,

for of course he would be against it. He thinks a great

deal of the Longestaffe family, and so, I suppose, ought

I. But the world does change so quick that one doesn't

think of anything now as one used to do. Anyway, I don't

feel that I'm bound to do what papa tells me just because

he says it. Though I'm not quite so old as you seem to

think, I'm old enough to judge for myself,--and I mean to

do so. You say very little about affection, but I suppose

I am to take all that for granted.

I don't wonder at papa being annoyed about the loss of the

money. It must be a very great sum when it will prevent

your having a house in London,--as you agreed. It does

make a great difference, because, of course, as you have

no regular place in the country, one could only see one's

friends in London. Fulham is all very well now and then,

but I don't think I should like to live at Fulham all the

year through. You talk of three years, which would be

dreadful. If as you say it will not have any lasting

effect, could you not manage to have a house in town? If

you can do it in three years, I should think you could do

it now. I should like to have an answer to this question.

I do think so much about being the season in town!

As for the other parts of your letter, I knew very well

beforehand that papa would be unhappy about it. But I

don't know why I'm to let that stand in my way when so

very little is done to make me happy. Of course you will

write to me again, and I hope you will say something

satisfactory about the house in London.

Yours always sincerely,

GEORGIANA LONGESTAFFE.

It probably never occurred to Georgey that Mr. Brehgert would under

any circumstances be anxious to go back from his engagement. She so

fully recognised her own value as a Christian lady of high birth and

position giving herself to a commercial Jew, that she thought that

under any circumstances Mr. Brehgert would be only too anxious to

stick to his bargain. Nor had she any idea that there was anything

in her letter which could probably offend him. She thought that she

might at any rate make good her claim to the house in London; and

that as there were other difficulties on his side, he would yield to

her on this point. But as yet she hardly knew Mr. Brehgert. He did

not lose a day in sending to her a second letter. He took her letter

with him to his office in the city, and there answered it without a

moment's delay.

No. 7, St. Cuthbert's Court, London,

Tuesday, July 16, 18--.

MY DEAR MISS LONGESTAFFE,

You say it would be very disagreeable to you to quarrel

with your papa and mamma; and as I agree with you, I will

take your letter as concluding our intimacy. I should not,

however, be dealing quite fairly with you or with myself

if I gave you to understand that I felt myself to be

coerced to this conclusion simply by your qualified assent

to your parents' views. It is evident to me from your

letter that you would not wish to be my wife unless I can

supply you with a house in town as well as with one in the

country. But this for the present is out of my power. I

would not have allowed my losses to interfere with your

settlement because I had stated a certain income; and

must therefore to a certain extent have compromised my

children. But I should not have been altogether happy till

I had replaced them in their former position, and must

therefore have abstained from increased expenditure till

I had done so. But of course I have no right to ask you

to share with me the discomfort of a single home. I may

perhaps add that I had hoped that you would have looked to

your happiness to another source, and that I will bear my

disappointment as best I may.

As you may perhaps under these circumstances be unwilling

that I should wear the ring you gave me, I return it by

post. I trust you will be good enough to keep the trifle

you were pleased to accept from me, in remembrance of one

who will always wish you well.

Yours sincerely,

EZEKIEL BREHGERT.

And so it was all over! Georgey, when she read this letter, was very

indignant at her lover's conduct. She did not believe that her own

letter had at all been of a nature to warrant it. She had regarded

herself as being quite sure of him, and only so far doubting herself,

as to be able to make her own terms because of such doubts. And now

the Jew had rejected her! She read this last letter over and over

again, and the more she read it the more she felt that in her heart

of hearts she had intended to marry him. There would have been

inconveniences no doubt, but they would have been less than the

sorrow on the other side. Now she saw nothing before her but a long

vista of Caversham dullness, in which she would be trampled upon by

her father and mother, and scorned by Mr. and Mrs. George Whitstable.

She got up and walked about the room thinking of vengeance. But what

vengeance was possible to her? Everybody belonging to her would take

the part of the Jew in that which he had now done. She could not ask

Dolly to beat him; nor could she ask her father to visit him with the

stern frown of paternal indignation. There could be no revenge. For

a time,--only for a few seconds,--she thought that she would write to

Mr. Brehgert and tell him that she had not intended to bring about

this termination of their engagement. This, no doubt, would have been

an appeal to the Jew for mercy;--and she could not quite descend to

that. But she would keep the watch and chain he had given her, and

which somebody had told her had not cost less than a hundred and

fifty guineas. She could not wear them, as people would know whence

they had come; but she might exchange them for jewels which she could

wear.

At lunch she said nothing to her sister, but in the course of the

afternoon she thought it best to inform her mother. "Mamma," she

said, "as you and papa take it so much to heart, I have broken off

everything with Mr. Brehgert."

"Of course it must be broken off," said Lady Pomona. This was very

ungracious,--so much so that Georgey almost flounced out of the room.

"Have you heard from the man?" asked her ladyship.

"I have written to him, and he has answered me; and it is all

settled. I thought that you would have said something kind to me."

And the unfortunate young woman burst out into tears.

"It was so dreadful," said Lady Pomona;--"so very dreadful. I never

heard of anything so bad. When young what's-his-name married the

tallow-chandler's daughter I thought it would have killed me if

it had been Dolly; but this was worse than that. Her father was a

methodist."

"They had neither of them a shilling of money," said Georgey through

her tears.

"And your papa says this man was next door to a bankrupt. But it's

all over?"

"Yes, mamma."

"And now we must all remain here at Caversham till people forget

it. It has been very hard upon George Whitstable, because of course

everybody has known it through the county. I once thought he would

have been off, and I really don't know that we could have said

anything." At that moment Sophy entered the room. "It's all over

between Georgiana and the--man," said Lady Pomona, who hardly saved

herself from stigmatising him by a further reference to his religion.

"I knew it would be," said Sophia.

"Of course it could never have really taken place," said their

mother.

"And now I beg that nothing more may be said about it," said

Georgiana. "I suppose, mamma, you will write to papa?"

"You must send him back his watch and chain, Georgey," said Sophia.

"What business is that of yours?"

"Of course she must. Her papa would not let her keep it."

To such a miserable depth of humility had the younger Miss

Longestaffe been brought by her ill-considered intimacy with the

Melmottes! Georgiana, when she looked back on this miserable episode

in her life, always attributed her grief to the scandalous breach of

compact of which her father had been guilty.