The Dukes Children | Page 7

if that were suitable. Or for a week or two he might do very
well without me. But there are other reasons. There is no one whom
your mother respected more than Lady Cantrip.'
'I never heard her speak a word about Lady Cantrip.'
'Both he and she are your father's intimate friends.'
'Does Papa want to be--alone here?'
'It is you, not himself, of whom he is thinking.'
'Therefore, I must think of him. Mrs Finn, I do not wish him to be alone.
I am sure it would be better that I should stay with him.'
'He feels that it would not be well that you should live without the
companionship of some lady.'
'Then let him find some lady. You would be the best, because he knows
you so well. I, however, am not afraid of being alone. I am sure he
ought not to be here quite by himself. If he bids me go, I must go, and
then of course I shall go where he sends me; but I won't say that I think
it best that I should go, and certainly I do not want to go to Lady
Cantrip.' This she said with great decision, as though the matter was
one on which she had altogether made up her mind. Then she added, in
a lower voice: 'Why doesn't papa speak to me about it?'
'He is thinking only of what may be best for you.'
'It would be best for me to stay near him. Whom else has he got?'
All this Mrs Finn repeated to the Duke as closely as she could, and then

of course the father was obliged to speak to his daughter.
'Don't send me away, papa,' she said at once.
'You life here, Mary, will be inexpressibly sad.'
'It must be sad anywhere. I cannot go to college like Gerald, or live
anywhere just like Silverbridge.'
'Do you envy them that?'
'Sometimes, papa. Only I shall think of more of poor mama by being
alone, and I should like to be thinking of her always.' He shook his
head mournfully. 'I do not mean that I shall always be unhappy, as I am
now.'
'No, dear; you are too young for that. It is only the old who suffer in
that way.'
'You will suffer less if I am with you; won't you, papa? I do not want to
go to Lady Cantrip. I hardly remember her at all.'
'She is very good.'
'Oh, yes. That is what they used to say to mamma about Lady
Midlothian. Papa, do not send me to Lady Cantrip.'
Of course it was decided that she should not go to Lady Cantrip at once,
or to Mrs Jeffrey Palliser, and, after a short interval of doubt, it was
decided also that Mrs Finn should remain at Matching for at least a
fortnight. The Duke declared that he would be glad to see Mr Finn, but
she knew in his present mood the society of any one man to whom he
would feel himself called upon to devote his time, would be a burden to
him, and she plainly said that Mr Finn had better not come to Matching
at present. 'There are old occasions,' she said, 'which will enable you to
bear with me as you will with your butler or your groom, but you are
not as yet quite able to make yourself happy with company.' This he
bore with perfect equanimity, and then, as it were, handed over his

daughter to Mrs Finn's care.
Very quickly there came a close intimacy between Mrs Finn and Lady
Mary. For a day or two the elder woman, though the place she filled
was one of absolute confidence, rather resisted than encouraged the
intimacy. She always remembered that the girl was the daughter of a
great duke, and that her position in the house had sprung from
circumstances which would not, perhaps, in the eyes of the world at
large, have recommended her for such a friendship. She knew,--the
reader may possibly know--that nothing had ever been purer, nothing
more disinterested than her friendship. But she knew also--no one knew
better--that the judgement of men and women does not always run
parallel with facts. She entertained, too, a conviction with regard to
herself, that hard words and hard judgements were to be expected from
the world,--and were to be accepted by her without any strong feeling
of injustice,--because she had been elevated by chance to the
possession of more good things than she merited. She weighed all this
with a very fine balance, and even after the encouragement she had
received from the Duke, was intent on confining herself to some
position about the girl inferior to that which such a friend as Lady