‘Oh yes — Madame Melmotte told me. I take it they are very intimate.’
‘Mr Longestaffe ask the Melmottes to visit him at Caversham!’
‘Why not?’
‘I should almost as soon have believed that I myself might have been induced to ask them here.’
‘I fancy, Roger, that Mr Longestaffe does want a little pecuniary assistance.’
‘And he condescends to get it in this way! I suppose it will make no difference soon whom one knows, and whom one doesn’t. Things aren’t as they were, of course, and never will be again. Perhaps it’s all for the better; — I won’t say it isn’t. But I should have thought that such a man as Mr Longestaffe might have kept such another man as Mr Melmotte out of his wife’s drawing-room.’ Henrietta became redder than ever. Even Lady Carbury flushed up, as she remembered that Roger Carbury knew that she had taken her daughter to Madame Melmotte’s ball. He thought of this himself as soon as the words were spoken, and then tried to make some half apology. ‘I don’t approve of them in London, you know; but I think they are very much worse in the country.’
Then there was a movement. The ladies were shown into their rooms, and Roger again went out into the garden. He began to feel that he understood it all. Lady Carbury had come down to his house in order that she might be near the Melmottes! There was something in this which he felt it difficult not to resent. It was for no love of him that she was there. He had felt that Henrietta ought not to have been brought to his house; but he could have forgiven that, because her presence there was a charm to him. He could have forgiven that, even while he was thinking that her mother had brought her there with the object of disposing of her. If it were so, the mother’s object would be the same as his own, and such a manoeuvre he could pardon, though he could not approve. His self-love had to some extent been gratified. But now he saw that he and his house had been simply used in order that a vile project of marrying two vile people to each other might be furthered!
As he was thinking of all this, Lady Carbury came out to him in the garden. She had changed her travelling dress, and made herself pretty, as she well knew how to do. And now she dressed her face in her sweetest smiles. Her mind, also, was full of the Melmottes, and she wished to explain to her stern, unbending cousin all the good that might come to her and hers by an alliance with the heiress. ‘I can understand, Roger,’ she said, taking his arm, ‘that you should not like those people.’
‘What people?’
‘The Melmottes.’
‘I don’t dislike them. How should I dislike people that I never saw? I dislike those who seek their society simply because they have the reputation of being rich.’
‘Meaning me.’
‘No; not meaning you. I don’t dislike you, as you know very well, though I do dislike the fact that you should run after these people. I was thinking of the Longestaffes then.’
‘Do you suppose, my friend, that I run after them for my own gratification? Do you think that I go to their house because I find pleasure in their magnificence; or that I follow them down here for any good that they will do me?’
‘I would not follow them at all.’
‘I will go back if you bid me, but I must first explain what I mean. You know my son’s condition — better, I fear, than he does himself.’ Roger nodded assent to this, but said nothing. ‘What is he to do? The only chance for a young man in his position is that he should marry a girl with money. He is good-looking; you can’t deny that.’
‘Nature has done enough for him.’
‘We must take him as he is. He was put into the army very young, and was very young when he came into possession of his own small fortune. He might have done better; but how many young men placed in such temptations do well? As it is, he has nothing left.’
‘I fear not.’
‘And therefore is it not imperative that he should marry a girl with money?’
‘I call that stealing a girl’s money, Lady Carbury.’
‘Oh, Roger, how hard you are!’
‘A man must be hard or soft — which is best?’
‘With women I think that a little softness has the most effect. I want to make you understand this about the Melmottes. It stands to reason that the girl will not marry Felix unless she loves him.’
‘But does he love her?’
‘Why should he not? Is a girl to be debarred from being loved because she has money? Of course she looks to be married, and why should she not have Felix if she likes him best? Cannot you sympathise with my anxiety so to place him that he shall not be a disgrace to the name and to the family?’
‘We had better not talk about the family, Lady Carbury.’
‘But I think so much about it.’
‘You will never get me to say that I think the family will be benefited by a marriage with the daughter of Mr Melmotte. I look upon him as dirt in the gutter. To me, in my old-fashioned way, all his money, if he has it, can make no difference. When there is a question of marriage, people at any rate should know something of each other. Who knows anything of this man? Who can be sure that she is his daughter?’
‘He would give her her fortune when she married.’
‘Yes; it all comes to that. Men say openly that he is an adventurer and a swindler. No one pretends to think that he is a gentleman. There is a consciousness among all who speak of him that he amasses his money not by honest trade, but by unknown tricks as does a card-sharper. He is one whom we would not admit into our kitchens, much less to our tables, on the score of his own merits. But because he has learned the art of making money, we not only put up with him, but settle upon his carcase as so many birds of prey.’
‘Do you mean that Felix should not marry the girl, even if they love each other?’
He shook his head in disgust, feeling sure that any idea of love on the part of the young man was a sham and a pretence, not only as regarded him, but also his mother. He could not quite declare this, and yet he desired that she should understand that he thought so. ‘I have nothing more to say about it,’ he continued. ‘Had it gone on in London I should have said nothing. It is no affair of mine. When I am told that the girl is in the neighbourhood, at such a house as Caversham, and that Felix is coming here in order that he may be near to his prey, and when I am asked to be a party to the thing, I can only say what I think. Your son would be welcome to my house, because he is your son and my cousin, little as I approve his mode of life; but I could have wished that he had chosen some other place for the work that he has on hand.’
‘If you wish it, Roger, we will return to London. I shall find it hard to explain to Hetta; — but we will go.’
‘No; I certainly do not wish that.’
‘But you have said such hard things! How are we to stay? You speak of Felix as though he were all bad.’ She looked at him hoping to get from him some contradiction of this, some retractation, some kindly word; but it was what he did think, and he had nothing to say. She could bear much. She was not delicate as to censure implied, or even expressed. She had endured rough usage before, and was prepared to endure more. Had he found fault with herself, or with Henrietta, she would have put up with it, for the sake of benefits to come — would have forgiven it the more easily because perhaps it might not have been deserved. But for her son she was prepared to fight. If she did not defend him, who would? ‘I am grieved, Roger, that we should have troubled you with our visit, but I think that we had better go. You are very harsh, and it crushes me.’
‘I