“Oh, Papa, Papa! You must not, shall not say so,” said Charlotte.
“I will say so, and do say so,” said the father, rising from his chair. “And now leave the room, sir.”
“Stop, stop,” said Charlotte. “Why don’t you speak, Bertie? Why don’t you look up and speak? It is your manner that makes Papa so angry.”
“He is perfectly indifferent to all decency, to all propriety,” said the doctor; then he shouted out, “Leave the room, sir! Do you hear what I say?”
“Papa, Papa, I will not let you part so. I know you will be sorry for it.” And then she added, getting up and whispering into his ear, “Is he only to blame? Think of that. We have made our own bed, and, such as it is, we must lie on it. It is no use for us to quarrel among ourselves,” and as she finished her whisper, Bertie finished off the countess’s bustle, which was so well done that it absolutely seemed to be swaying to and fro on the paper with its usual lateral motion.
“My father is angry at the present time,” said Bertie, looking up for a moment from his sketches, “because I am not going to marry Mrs. Bold. What can I say on the matter? It is true that I am not going to marry her. In the first place —”
“That is not true, sir,” said Dr. Stanhope, “but I will not argue with you.”
“You were angry just this moment because I would not speak,” said Bertie, going on with a young Lookaloft.
“Give over drawing,” said Charlotte, going up to him and taking the paper from under his hand. The caricatures, however, she preserved and showed them afterwards to the friends of the Thornes, the Proudies, and De Courcys. Bertie, deprived of his occupation, threw himself back in his chair and waited further orders.
“I think it will certainly be for the best that Bertie should leave this at once; perhaps tomorrow,” said Charlotte; “but pray, Papa, let us arrange some scheme together.”
“If he will leave this tomorrow, I will give him £10, and he shall be paid £5 a month by the banker at Carrara as long as he stays permanently in that place.”
“Well, sir, it won’t be long,” said Bertie, “for I shall be starved to death in about three months.”
“He must have marble to work with,” said Charlotte.
“I have plenty there in the studio to last me three months,” said Bertie. “It will be no use attempting anything large in so limited a time — unless I do my own tombstone.”
Terms, however, were ultimately come to somewhat more liberal than those proposed, and the doctor was induced to shake hands with his son and bid him good night. Dr. Stanhope would not go up to tea, but had it brought to him in his study by his daughter.
But Bertie went upstairs and spent a pleasant evening. He finished the Lookalofts, greatly to the delight of his sisters, though the manner of portraying their décolleté dresses was not the most refined. Finding how matters were going, he by degrees allowed it to escape from him that he had not pressed his suit upon the widow in a very urgent way.
“I suppose, in point of fact, you never proposed at all?” said Charlotte.
“Oh, she understood that she might have me if she wished,” said he.
“And she didn’t wish,” said the Signora.
“You have thrown me over in the most shameful manner,” said Charlotte. “I suppose you told her all about my little plan?”
“Well, it came out somehow — at least the most of it.”
“There’s an end of that alliance,” said Charlotte, “but it doesn’t matter much. I suppose we shall all be back at Como soon.”
“I am sure I hope so,” said the signora. “I’m sick of the sight of black coats. If that Mr. Slope comes here any more, he’ll be the death of me.”
“You’ve been the ruin of him, I think,” said Charlotte.
“And as for a second black-coated lover of mine, I am going to make a present of him to another lady with most singular disinterestedness.”
The next day, true to his promise, Bertie packed up and went off by the 4.30 P.M. train, with £20 in his pocket, bound for the marble quarries of Carrara. And so he disappears from our scene.
At twelve o’clock on the day following that on which Bertie went, Mrs. Bold, true also to her word, knocked at Dr. Stanhope’s door with a timid hand and palpitating heart. She was at once shown up to the back drawing-room, the folding doors of which were closed, so that in visiting the signora Eleanor was not necessarily thrown into any communion with those in the front room. As she went up the stairs, she saw none of the family and was so far saved much of the annoyance which she had dreaded.
“This is very kind of you, Mrs. Bold; very kind, after what has happened,” said the lady on the sofa with her sweetest smile.
“You wrote in such a strain that I could not but come to you.”
“I did, I did; I wanted to force you to see me.”
“Well, signora, I am here.”
“How cold you are to me. But I suppose I must put up with that. I know you think you have reason to be displeased with us all. Poor Bertie; if you knew all, you would not be angry with him.”
“I am not angry with your brother — not in the least. But I hope you did not send for me here to talk about him.”
“If you are angry with Charlotte, that is worse, for you have no warmer friend in all Barchester. But I did not send for you to talk about this — pray bring your chair nearer, Mrs. Bold, so that I may look at you. It is so unnatural to see you keeping so far off from me.”
Eleanor did as she was bid and brought her chair close to the sofa.
“And now, Mrs. Bold, I am going to tell you something which you may perhaps think indelicate, but yet I know that I am right in doing so.”
Hereupon Mrs. Bold said nothing but felt inclined to shake in her chair. The signora, she knew, was not very particular, and that which to her appeared to be indelicate might to Mrs. Bold appear to be extremely indecent.
“I believe you know Mr. Arabin?”
Mrs. Bold would have given the world not to blush, but her blood was not at her own command. She did blush up to her forehead, and the signora, who had made her sit in a special light in order that she might watch her, saw that she did so.
“Yes, I am acquainted with him. That is, slightly. He is an intimate friend of Dr. Grantly, and Dr. Grantly is my brother-inlaw.”
“Well, if you know Mr. Arabin, I am sure you must like him. I know and like him much. Everybody that knows him must like him.”
Mrs. Bold felt it quite impossible to say anything in reply to this. Her blood was rushing about her body she knew not how or why. She felt as though she were swinging in her chair, and she knew that she was not only red in the face but also almost suffocated with heat. However, she sat still and said nothing.
“How stiff you are with me, Mrs. Bold,” said the signora; “and I the while am doing for you all that one woman can do to serve another.”
A kind of thought came over the widow’s mind that perhaps the signora’s friendship was real and that at any rate it could not hurt her; and another kind of thought, a glimmering of a thought, came to her also — that Mr. Arabin was too precious to be lost. She despised the signora, but might she not stoop to conquer? It should be but the smallest fraction of a stoop!
“I don’t want to be stiff,” she said, “but your questions are so very singular.”
“Well, then, I will ask you one more