Framley Parsonage Part 45

However, I am tired of all that now, and I came here to-day to talk about something else."

"I rather like Mr. Supplehouse myself," exclaimed Miss Dunstable. "He never makes any bones about the matter. He has a certain work to do, and a certain cause to serve--namely, his own; and in order to do that work, and serve that cause, he uses such weapons as G.o.d has placed in his hands."

"That's what the wild beasts do."

"And where will you find men honester than they? The tiger tears you up because he is hungry and wants to eat you. That's what Supplehouse does. But there are so many among us tearing up one another without any excuse of hunger. The mere pleasure of destroying is reason enough."

"Well, my dear, my mission to you to-day is certainly not one of destruction, as you will admit when you hear it. It is one, rather, very absolutely of salvation. I have come to make love to you."

"Then the salvation, I suppose, is not for myself," said Miss Dunstable.

It was quite clear to Mrs. Harold Smith that Miss Dunstable had immediately understood the whole purport of this visit, and that she was not in any great measure surprised. It did not seem from the tone of the heiress's voice, or from the serious look which at once settled on her face, that she would be prepared to give a very ready compliance. But then great objects can only be won with great efforts.

"That's as may be," said Mrs. Harold Smith. "For you and another also, I hope. But I trust, at any rate, that I may not offend you?"

"Oh, laws, no; nothing of that kind ever offends me now."

"Well, I suppose you're used to it."

"Like the eels, my dear. I don't mind it the least in the world--only sometimes, you know, it is a little tedious."

"I'll endeavour to avoid that, so I may as well break the ice at once. You know enough of Nathaniel's affairs to be aware that he is not a very rich man."

"Since you do ask me about it, I suppose there's no harm in saying that I believe him to be a very poor man."

"Not the least harm in the world, but just the reverse. Whatever may come of this, my wish is that the truth should be told scrupulously on all sides; the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

"_Magna est veritas_," said Miss Dunstable. "The Bishop of Barchester taught me as much Latin as that at Chaldicotes; and he did add some more, but there was a long word, and I forgot it."

"The bishop was quite right, my dear, I'm sure. But if you go to your Latin, I'm lost. As we were just now saying, my brother's pecuniary affairs are in a very bad state. He has a beautiful property of his own, which has been in the family for I can't say how many centuries--long before the Conquest, I know."

"I wonder what my ancestors were then?"

"It does not much signify to any of us," said Mrs. Harold Smith, with a moral shake of her head, "what our ancestors were; but it's a sad thing to see an old property go to ruin."

"Yes, indeed; we none of us like to see our property going to ruin, whether it be old or new. I have some of that sort of feeling already, although mine was only made the other day out of an apothecary's shop."

"G.o.d forbid that I should ever help you to ruin it," said Mrs. Harold Smith. "I should be sorry to be the means of your losing a ten-pound note."

"_Magna est veritas_, as the dear bishop said," exclaimed Miss Dunstable. "Let us have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as we agreed just now."

Mrs. Harold Smith did begin to find that the task before her was difficult. There was a hardness about Miss Dunstable when matters of business were concerned on which it seemed almost impossible to make any impression. It was not that she had evinced any determination to refuse the tender of Mr. Sowerby's hand; but she was so painfully resolute not to have dust thrown in her eyes! Mrs. Harold Smith had commenced with a mind fixed upon avoiding what she called humbug; but this sort of humbug had become so prominent a part of her usual rhetoric, that she found it very hard to abandon it.

"And that's what I wish," said she. "Of course my chief object is to secure my brother's happiness."

"That's very unkind to poor Mr. Harold Smith."

"Well, well, well--you know what I mean."

"Yes, I think I do know what you mean. Your brother is a gentleman of good family, but of no means."

"Not quite so bad as that."

"Of embarra.s.sed means, then, or anything that you will; whereas I am a lady of no family, but of sufficient wealth. You think that if you brought us together and made a match of it, it would be a very good thing for--for whom?" said Miss Dunstable.

"Yes, exactly," said Mrs. Harold Smith.

"For which of us? Remember the bishop now and his nice little bit of Latin."

"For Nathaniel then," said Mrs. Harold Smith, boldly. "It would be a very good thing for him." And a slight smile came across her face as she said it. "Now that's honest, or the mischief is in it."

"Yes, that's honest enough. And did he send you here to tell me this?"

"Well, he did that, and something else."

"And now let's have the something else. The really important part, I have no doubt, has been spoken."

"No, by no means, by no means all of it. But you are so hard on one, my dear, with your running after honesty, that one is not able to tell the real facts as they are. You make one speak in such a bald, naked way."

"Ah, you think that anything naked must be indecent; even truth."

"I think it is more proper-looking, and better suited, too, for the world's work, when it goes about with some sort of a garment on it. We are so used to a leaven of falsehood in all we hear and say, now-a-days, that nothing is more likely to deceive us than the absolute truth. If a shopkeeper told me that his wares were simply middling, of course, I should think that they were not worth a farthing. But all that has nothing to do with my poor brother. Well, what was I saying?"

"You were going to tell me how well he would use me, no doubt."

"Something of that kind."

"That he wouldn't beat me; or spend all my money if I managed to have it tied up out of his power; or look down on me with contempt because my father was an apothecary! Was not that what you were going to say?"

"I was going to tell you that you might be more happy as Mrs. Sowerby of Chaldicotes than you can be as Miss Dunstable--"

"Of Mount Lebanon. And had Mr. Sowerby no other message to send?--nothing about love, or anything of that sort? I should like, you know, to understand what his feelings are before I take such a leap."

"I do believe he has as true a regard for you as any man of his age ever does have--"

"For any woman of mine. That is not putting it in a very devoted way certainly; but I am glad to see that you remember the bishop's maxim."

"What would you have me say? If I told you that he was dying for love, you would say, I was trying to cheat you; and now because I don't tell you so, you say that he is wanting in devotion. I must say you are hard to please."

"Perhaps I am, and very unreasonable into the bargain. I ought to ask no questions of the kind when your brother proposes to do me so much honour. As for my expecting the love of a man who condescends to wish to be my husband, that, of course, would be monstrous. What right can I have to think that any man should love me? It ought to be enough for me to know that as I am rich, I can get a husband. What business can such as I have to inquire whether the gentleman who would so honour me really would like my company, or would only deign to put up with my presence in his household?"

"Now, my dear Miss Dunstable--"

"Of course I am not such an a.s.s as to expect that any gentleman should love me; and I feel that I ought to be obliged to your brother for sparing me the string of complimentary declarations which are usual on such occasions. He, at any rate, is not tedious--or rather you on his behalf; for no doubt his own time is so occupied with his parliamentary duties that he cannot attend to this little matter himself. I do feel grateful to him; and perhaps nothing more will be necessary than to give him a schedule of the property, and name an early day for putting him in possession."

Mrs. Smith did feel that she was rather badly used. This Miss Dunstable, in their mutual confidences, had so often ridiculed the love-making grimaces of her mercenary suitors--had spoken so fiercely against those who had persecuted her, not because they had desired her money, but on account of their ill-judgment in thinking her to be a fool--that Mrs. Smith had a right to expect that the method she had adopted for opening the negotiation would be taken in a better spirit. Could it be possible, after all, thought Mrs. Smith to herself, that Miss Dunstable was like other women, and that she did like to have men kneeling at her feet? Could it be the case that she had advised her brother badly, and that it would have been better for him to have gone about his work in the old-fas.h.i.+oned way? "They are very hard to manage," said Mrs. Harold Smith to herself, thinking of her own s.e.x.

"He was coming here himself," said she, "but I advised him not to do so."