FLORENCE’S REQUEST.

Thus it was arranged that Florence should be left in Mr. Anderson’s way.  Mr. Anderson, as Sir Magnus had said, was not always out riding.  There were moments in which even he was off duty.  And Sir Magnus contrived to ride a little earlier than usual so that he should get back while the carriage was still out on its rounds.  Lady Mountjoy certainly did her duty, taking Mrs. Mountjoy with her daily, and generally Miss Abbott, so that Florence was, as it were, left to the mercies of Mr. Anderson.  She could, of course, shut herself up in her bedroom, but things had not as yet become so bad as that.  Mr. Anderson had not made himself terrible to her.  She did not, in truth, fear Mr. Anderson at all, who was courteous in his manner and complimentary in his language, and she came at this time to the conclusion that if Mr. Anderson continued his pursuit of her she would tell him the exact truth of the case.  As a gentleman, and as a young man, she thought that he would sympathize with her.  The one enemy whom she did dread was Lady Mountjoy.  She too had felt that her aunt could “take her skin off her,” as Sir Magnus had said.  She had not heard the words, but she knew that it was so, and her dislike to Lady Mountjoy was in proportion.  It cannot be said that she was afraid.  She did not intend to leave her skin in her aunt’s hands.  For every inch of skin taken she resolved to have an inch in return.  She was not acquainted with the expressive mode of language which Sir Magnus had adopted, but she was prepared for all such attacks.  For Sir Magnus himself, since he had given up the letter to her, she did feel some regard.

Behind the British minister’s house, which, though entitled to no such name, was generally called the Embassy, there was a large garden, which, though not much used by Sir Magnus or Lady Mountjoy, was regarded as a valuable adjunct to the establishment.  Here Florence betook herself for exercise, and here Mr. Anderson, having put off the muddy marks of his riding, found her one afternoon.  It must be understood that no young man was ever more in earnest than Mr. Anderson.  He, too, looking through the glass which had been prepared for him by Sir Magnus, thought that he saw in the not very far distant future a Mrs. Hugh Anderson driving a pair of gray ponies along the boulevard and he was much pleased with the sight.  It reached to the top of his ambition.  Florence was to his eyes really the sort of a girl whom a man in his position ought to marry.  A secretary of legation in a small foreign capital cannot do with a dowdy wife, as may a clerk, for instance, in the Foreign Office.  A secretary of legation, ­the second secretary, he told himself, ­was bound, if he married at all, to have a pretty and distinguee wife.  He knew all about the intricacies which had fallen in a peculiar way into his own hand.  Mr. Blow might have married a South Sea Islander, and would have been none the worse as regarded his official duties.  Mr. Blow did not want the services of a wife in discovering and reporting all the secrets of the Belgium iron trade.  There was no intricacy in that, no nicety.  There was much of what, in his lighter moments, Mr. Anderson called “sweat.”  He did not pretend to much capacity for such duties; but in his own peculiar walk he thought that he was great.  But it was very fatiguing, and he was sure that a wife was necessary to him.  There were little niceties which none but a wife could perform.  He had a great esteem for Sir Magnus.  Sir Magnus was well thought of by all the court, and by the foreign minister at Brussels.  But Lady Mountjoy was really of no use.  The beginning and the end of it all with her was to show herself in a carriage.  It was incumbent upon him, Anderson, to marry.

He was loving enough, and very susceptible.  He was too susceptible, and he knew his own fault, and he was always on guard against it, ­as behooved a young man with such duties as his.  He was always falling in love, and then using his diplomatic skill in avoiding the consequences.  He had found out that though one girl had looked so well under waxlight she did not endure the wear and tear of the day.  Another could not be always graceful, or, though she could talk well enough during a waltz, she had nothing to say for herself at three o’clock in the morning.  And he was driven to calculate that he would be wrong to marry a girl without a shilling.  “It is a kind of thing that a man cannot afford to do unless he’s sure of his position,” he had said on such an occasion to Montgomery Arbuthnot, alluding especially to his brother’s state of health.  When Mr. Anderson spoke of not being sure of his position he was always considered to allude to his brother’s health.  In this way he had nearly got his little boat on to the rocks more than once, and had given some trouble to Sir Magnus.  But now he was quite sure.  “It’s all there all round,” he had said to Arbuthnot more than once.  Arbuthnot said that it was there ­“all round, all round.”  Waxlight and daylight made no difference to her.  She was always graceful.  “Nobody with an eye in his head can doubt that,” said Anderson.  “I should think not, by Jove!” replied Arbuthnot.  “And for talking, ­you never catch her out; never.”  “I never did, certainly,” said Arbuthnot, who, as third secretary, was obedient and kind-hearted.  “And then look at her money.  Of course a fellow wants something to help him on.  My position is so uncertain that I cannot do without it.”  “Of course not.”  “Now, with some girls it’s so deuced hard to find out.  You hear that a girl has got money, but when the time comes it depends on the life of a father who doesn’t think of dying; ­damme, doesn’t think of it.”

“Those fellows never do,” said Arbuthnot.  “But here, you see, I know all about it.  When she’s twenty-four, ­only twenty-four, ­she’ll have ten thousand pounds of her own.  I hate a mercenary fellow.”  “Oh yes; that’s beastly.”  “Nobody can say that of me.  Circumstanced as I am, I want something to help to keep the pot boiling.  She has got it, ­quite as much as I want, ­quite, and I know all about it without the slightest doubt in the world.”  For the small loan of fifteen hundred pounds Sir Magnus paid the full value of the interest and deficient security.  “Sir Magnus tells me that if I’ll only stick to her I shall be sure to win.  There’s some fellow in England has just touched her heart, ­just touched it, you know.”  “I understand,” said Arbuthnot, looking very wise.  “He is not a fellow of very much account,” said Anderson; “one of those handsome fellows without conduct and without courage.”  “I’ve known lots of ’em,” said Arbuthnot.  “His name is Annesley,” said Anderson.  “I never saw him in my life, but that’s what Sir Magnus says.  He has done something awfully disreputable.  I don’t quite understand what it is, but it’s something which ought to make him unfit to be her husband.  Nobody knows the world better than Sir Magnus, and he says that it is so.”  “Nobody does know the world better than Sir Magnus,” said Arbuthnot.  And so that conversation was brought to an end.

One day soon after this he caught her walking in the garden.  Her mother and Miss Abbot were still out with Lady Mountjoy in the carriage, and Sir Magnus had retired after the fatigue of his ride to sleep for half an hour before dinner.  “All alone, Miss Mountjoy?” he said.

“Yes, alone, Mr. Anderson.  I’m never in better company.”

“So I think; but then if I were here you wouldn’t be all alone, would you?”

“Not if you were with me.”

“That’s what I mean.  But yet two people may be alone, as regards the world at large.  Mayn’t they?”

“I don’t understand the nicety of language well enough to say.  We used to have a question among us when we were children whether a wild beast could howl in an empty cavern.  It’s the same sort of thing.”

“Why shouldn’t he?”

“Because the cavern would not be empty if the wild beast were in it.  Did you ever see a girl bang an egg against a wall in a stocking, and then look awfully surprised because she had smashed it?”

“I don’t understand the joke.”

“She had been told she couldn’t break an egg in an empty stocking.  Then she was made to look in, and there was the broken egg for her pains.  I don’t know what made me tell you that story.”

“It’s a very good story.  I’ll get Miss Abbott to do it to-night.  She believes everything.”

“And everybody?  Then she’s a happy woman.”

“I wish you’d believe everybody.”

“So I do; ­nearly everybody.  There are some inveterate liars whom nobody can believe.”

“I hope I am not regarded as one.”

“You? certainly not.  If anybody were to speak of you as such behind your back no one would take your part more loyally than I. But nobody would.”

“That’s something, at any rate.  Then you do believe that I love you?”

“I believe that you think so.”

“And that I don’t know my own heart?”

“That’s very common, Mr. Anderson.  I wasn’t quite sure of my own heart twelve months ago, but I know it now.”  He felt that his hopes ran very low when this was said.  She had never before spoken to him of his rival, nor had he to her.  He knew, or fancied that he knew, that “her heart had been touched,” as he had said to Arbuthnot.  But the “touch” must have been very deep if she felt herself constrained to speak to him on the subject.  It had been his desire to pass over Mr. Annesley, and never to hear the name mentioned between them.  “You were speaking of your own heart.”

“Well I was, no doubt.  It is a silly thing to talk of, I dare say.”

“I’m going to tell you of my heart, and I hope you won’t think it silly.  I do so because I believe you to be a gentleman, and a man of honor.”  He blushed at the words and the tone in which they were spoken, but his heart fell still lower.  “Mr. Anderson, I am engaged.”  Here she paused a moment, but he had nothing to say.  “I am engaged to marry a gentleman whom I love with all my heart, and all my strength, and all my body.  I love him so that nothing can ever separate me from him, or, at least, from the thoughts of him.  As regards all the interests of life, I feel as though I were already his wife.  If I ever marry any man I swear to you that it will be him.”  Then Mr. Anderson felt that all hope had utterly departed from him.  She had said that she believed him to be a man of truth.  He certainly believed her to be a true-speaking woman.  He asked himself, and he found it to be quite impossible to doubt her word on this subject.  “Now I will go on and tell you my troubles.  My mother disapproves of the man.  Sir Magnus has taken upon himself to disapprove, and Lady Mountjoy disapproves especially.  I don’t care two straws about Sir Magnus and Lady Mountjoy.  As to Lady Mountjoy, it is simply an impertinence on her part, interfering with me.”  There was something in her face as she said this which made Mr. Anderson feel that if he could only succeed in having her and the pair of ponies he would be a prouder man than the ambassador at Paris.  But he knew that it was hopeless.  “As to my mother, that is indeed a sorrow.  She has been to me the dearest mother, putting her only hopes of happiness in me.  No mother was ever more devoted to a child, and of all children I should be the most ungrateful were I to turn against her.  But from my early years she has wished me to marry a man whom I could not bring myself to love.  You have heard of Captain Scarborough?”

“The man who disappeared?”

“He was and is my first cousin.”

“He is in some way connected with Sir Magnus.”

“Through mamma.  Mamma is aunt to Captain Scarborough, and she married the brother of Sir Magnus.  Well, he has disappeared and been disinherited.  I cannot explain all about it, for I don’t understand it; but he has come to great trouble.  It was not on that account that I would not marry him.  It was partly because I did not like him, and partly because of Harry Annesley.  I will tell you everything because I want you to know my story.  But my mother has disliked Mr. Annesley, because she has thought that he has interfered with my cousin.”

“I understand all that.”

“And she has been taught to think that Mr. Annesley has behaved very badly.  I cannot quite explain it, because there is a brother of Captain Scarborough who has interfered.  I never loved Captain Scarborough, but that man I hate.  He has spread those stories.  Captain Scarborough has disappeared, but before he went he thought it well to revenge himself on Mr. Annesley.  He attacked him in the street late at night, and endeavored to beat him.”

“But why?”

“Why indeed.  That such a trumpery cause as a girl’s love should operate with such a man!”

“I can understand it; oh yes, ­I can understand it.”

“I believe he was tipsy, and he had been gambling, and had lost all his money ­more than all his money.  He was a ruined man, and reckless and wretched.  I can forgive him, and so does Harry.  But in the struggle Harry got the best of it, and left him there in the street.  No weapons had been used, except that Captain Scarborough had a stick.  There was no reason to suppose him hurt, nor was he much hurt.  He had behaved very badly, and Harry left him.  Had he gone for a policeman he could only have given him in charge.  The man was not hurt, and seems to have walked away.”

“The papers were full of it.”

“Yes, the papers were full of it, because he was missing.  I don’t know yet what became of him, but I have my suspicions.”

“They say that he has been seen at Monaco.”

“Very likely.  But I have nothing to do with that.  Though he was my cousin, I am touched nearer in another place.  Young Mr. Scarborough, who, I suspect, knows all about his brother, took upon himself to cross-question Mr. Annesley.  Mr. Annesley did not care to tell anything of that struggle in the streets, and denied that he had seen him.  In truth, he did not want to have my name mentioned.  My belief is that Augustus Scarborough knew exactly what had taken place when he asked the question.  It was he who really was false.  But he is now the heir to Tretton and a great man in his way, and in order to injure Harry Annesley he has spread abroad the story which they all tell here.”

“But why?”

“He does; ­that is all I know.  But I will not be a hypocrite.  He chose to wish that I should not marry Harry Annesley.  I cannot tell you farther than that.  But he has persuaded mamma, and has told every one.  He shall never persuade me.”

“Everybody seems to believe him,” said Mr. Anderson, not as intending to say that he believed him now, but that he had done so.

“Of course they do.  He has simply ruined Harry.  He too has been disinherited now.  I don’t know how they do these things, but it has been done.  His uncle has been turned against him, and his whole income has been taken from him.  But they will never persuade me.  Nor, if they did, would I be untrue to him.  It is a grand thing for a girl to have a perfect faith in the man she has to marry, as I have ­as I have.  I know my man, and will as soon disbelieve in Heaven as in him.  But were he what they say he is, he would still have to become my husband.  I should be broken-hearted, but I should still be true.  Thank God, though, ­thank God, ­he has done nothing and will do nothing to make me ashamed of him.  Now you know my story.”

“Yes; now I know it.”  The tears came very near the poor man’s eyes as he answered.

“And what will you do for me?”

“What shall I do?”

“Yes; what will you do?  I have told you all my story, believing you to be a fine-tempered gentleman.  You have entertained a fancy which has been encouraged by Sir Magnus.  Will you promise me not to speak to me of it again?  Will you relieve me of so much of my trouble?  Will you; ­will you?” Then, when he turned away, she followed him, and put both her hands upon his arm.  “Will you do that little thing for me?”

“A little thing!”

“Is it not a little thing, ­when I am so bound to that other man that nothing can move me?  Whether it be little or whether it be much, will you not do it?” She still held him by the arm, but his face was turned from her so that she could not see it.  The tears, absolute tears, were running down his cheeks.  What did it behoove him as a man to do?  Was he to believe her vows now and grant her request, and was she then to give herself to some third person and forget Harry Annesley altogether?  How would it be with him then?  A faint heart never won a fair lady.  All is fair in love and war.  You cannot catch cherries by holding your mouth open.  A great amount of wisdom such as this came to him at the spur of the moment.  But there was her hand upon his arm, and he could not elude her request.  “Will you not do it for me?” she asked again.

“I will,” he said, still keeping his face turned away.

“I knew it; ­I knew you would.  You are high-minded and honest, and cannot be cruel to a poor girl.  And if in time to come, when I am Harry Annesley’s wife, we shall chance to meet each other, ­as we will, ­he shall thank you.”

“I shall not want that.  What will his thanks do for me?  You do not think that I shall be silent to oblige him?” Then he walked forth from out of the garden, and she had never seen his tears.  But she knew well that he was weeping, and she sympathized with him.