The Dukes Children | Page 6

during those few days of
acute illness. Why should not the girl have the man if he were lovable?
And the Duchess referred to her own early days when she had loved,
and to the great ruin that had come upon her heart when she had been
severed from the man she loved. 'Not but that it has been all for the
best,' she had said. 'Not but that Plantagenet has been to me all that a
husband should be. Only if she can be spared what I suffered, let her be
spared.' Even when these things had been said to her, Mrs Finn had
found herself unable to ask questions. She could not bring herself to
inquire whether the girl had in truth given her heart to his young
Tregear. The one was nineteen and the other as yet but two-and-twenty!
But though she asked no questions, she almost knew that it must be so.
And she knew also that the father was, as yet, quite in the dark on the
matter. How was it possible that in such circumstances she should
assume the part of the girl's confidential friend and monitress? Were
she to do so she must immediately tell the father everything. In such a
position no one could be a better friend than Lady Cantrip, and Mrs
Finn had already almost made up her mind that, should Lady Cantrip
occupy the place, she would tell her ladyship all that had passed
between herself and the Duchess on the subject.
Of what hopes she might have, or what fears, about her girl, the
Duchess had said no word to her husband. But when she had believed
that the things of the world were fading away from her, and when he
was sitting by her bedside,--dumb, because at such a moment he knew
not how to express the tenderness of his heart,--holding her hand, and
trying so to listen to her words, that he might collect and remember
every wish, she had murmured something about the ultimate division of
the great wealth with which she herself had been endowed. She had
never, she said, even tried to remember what arrangements had been
made by lawyers, but she hoped that Mary might be so circumstanced,

that if her happiness depended on marrying a poor man, want of money
need not prevent it. The Duke suspecting nothing, believing this to be a
not unnatural question expression of maternal interest, had assured her
that Mary's fortune would be ample.
Mrs Finn made the proposition to Lady Mary in respect to Lady
Cantrip's invitation. Lady Mary was very like her mother, especially in
having exactly her mother's tone of voice, her quick manner of speech,
and her sharp intelligence. She had also her mother's eyes, large and
round, and almost blue, full of life and full of courage, eyes which
never seemed to quail, and her mother's dark brown hair, never long but
very copious in its thickness. She was, however, taller than her mother,
and very much more graceful in her movement. And she could already
assume a personal dignity of manner which had never been within her
mother's reach. She had become aware of a certain brusqueness of
speech in her mother, a certain aptitude to say sharp things without
thinking whether the sharpness was becoming to the position which she
held, and taking advantage of the example, the girl had already learned
that she might gain more than she would lose by controlling her words.
'Papa wants me to go to Lady Cantrip,' she said.
'I think he would like it,--just for the present, Lady Mary.'
Though there had been the closest possible intimacy between the
Duchess and Mrs Finn, this had hardly been so as to the intercourse
between Mrs Finn and the children. Of Mrs Finn it must be
acknowledged that she was, perhaps fastidiously, afraid of appearing to
take advantage of her friendship with the Duke's family. She would tell
herself that though circumstances had compelled her to be the closest
and nearest friend of a Duchess, still her natural place was not among
dukes and their children, and therefore in her intercourse with the girl
she did not at first assume the manner and bearing which her position
in the house would seem to warrant. Hence the 'Lady Mary'.
'Why does he want to send me away, Mrs Finn?'
'It is not true that he wants to send you away, but that he thinks it will

be better for you to be with some friend. Here you must be so much
alone.'
'Why don't you stay? But I suppose Mr Finn wants you to be back in
London.'
'It is not that only, or, to speak the truth, not that at all. Mr Finn could
come here