when the matter was mentioned to george roden by his mother he could see no reason why she should not dine at hendon hall. he himself was glad to have an opportunity of getting over that roughness of feeling which had certainly existed between him and his friend when they parted with each other on the road. as to his mother, it would be well that she should so far return to the usages of the world as to dine at the house of her son's friend. "it is only going back to what you used to be," he said.
"you know nothing of what i used to be," she replied, almost angrily.
"i ask no questions, and have endeavoured so to train myself that i should care but little about it. but i knew it was so." then after a pause he went back to the current of his thoughts. "had my father been a prince i think that i should take no pride in it."
"it is well to have been born a gentleman," she said.
"it is well to be a gentleman, and if the good things which are generally attendant on high birth will help a man in reaching noble feelings and grand resolves, so it may be that to have been well born will be an assistance. but if a man derogates from his birth,—as so many do,—then it is a crime."
"all that has to be taken for granted, george."
"but it is not taken for granted. though the man himself be knave, and fool, and coward, he is supposed to be ennobled because the blood of the howards run in his veins. and worse again: though he has gifts of nobility beyond compare he can hardly dare to stand upright before lords and dukes because of his inferiority."
"that is all going away."
"would that it could be made to go a little faster. it may be helped in its going. it may be that in these days the progress shall be accelerated. but you will let me write to hampstead and say that you will come." she assented, and so that part of the little dinner-party was arranged.
after that she herself contrived to see the quaker one evening on his return home. "yes," said mr. fay; "i have heard thy proposition from marion. why should the young lord desire such a one as i am to sit at his table?"
"he is george's intimate friend."
"that thy son should choose his friend well, i surely believe, because i see him to be a prudent and wise young man, who does not devote himself over-much to riotous amusements." george did occasionally go to a theatre, thereby offending the quaker's judgment, justifying the "overmuch," and losing his claim to a full measure of praise. "therefore i will not quarrel with him that he has chosen his friend from among the great ones of the earth. but like to like is a good motto. i fancy that the weary draught-horse, such as i am, should not stable himself with hunters and racers."
"this young man affects the society of such as yourself and george, rather than that of others nobly born as himself."
"i do not know that he shows his wisdom the more."
"you should give him credit at any rate for good endeavours."
"it is not for me to judge him one way or the other. did he ask that marion should also go to his house?"
"certainly. why should not the child see something of the world that may amuse her?"
"little good can come to my marion from such amusements, mrs. roden; but something, perhaps, of harm. wilt thou say that such recreation must necessarily be of service to a girl born to perform the hard duties of a strict life?"
"i would trust marion in anything," said mrs. roden, eagerly.
"so would i; so would i. she hath ever been a good girl."
"but do you not distrust her if you shut her up, and are afraid to allow her even to sit at table in a strange house?"
"i have never forbidden her to sit at thy table," said the quaker.
"and you should let her go specially as a kindness to me. for my son's sake i have promised to be there, and it would be a comfort to me to have another woman with me."
"then you will hardly need me," said mr. fay, not without a touch of jealousy.
"he specially pressed his request that you would come. it is among such as you that he would wish to make himself known. moreover, if marion is to be there, you, i am sure, will choose to accompany her. would you not wish to see how the child bears herself on such an occasion?"
"on all occasions, at all places, at all hours, i would wish to have my child with me. there is nothing else left to me in all the world on which my eye can rest with pleasure. but i doubt whether it may be for her good." then he took his departure, leaving the matter still undecided, speaking of it with words which seemed to imply that he must ultimately refuse, but impressing mrs. roden with a conviction that he would at last accept the invitation.
"doest thou wish it thyself?" he said to his daughter before retiring to rest that night.
"if you will go, father, i should like it."
"why shouldst thou like it? what doest thou expect? is it because the young man is a lord, and that there will be something of the gilded grandeur of the grand ones of the earth to be seen about his house and his table?"
"it is not for that, father."
"or is it because he is young and comely, and can say soft things as such youths are wont to say, because he will smell sweetly of scents and lavender, because his hand will be soft to the touch, with rings on his fingers, and jewels perhaps on his bosom like a woman?"
"no, father; it is not for that."
"the delicacies which he will give thee to eat and to drink; the sweetmeats and rich food cannot be much to one nurtured as thou hast been."
"certainly not, father; they can be nothing to me.
"then why is it that thou wouldst go to his house?"
"it is that i may hear you, father, speak among men."
"nay," said he, laughing, "thou mayst hear me better speak among men at king's court in the city. there i can hold my own well enough, but with these young men over their wine, i shall have but little to say, i fancy. if thou hast nothing to gain but to hear thy old father talk, the time and money will be surely thrown away."
"i would hear him talk, father."
"the young lord?"
"yes; the young lord. he is bright and clever, and, coming from another world than our world, can tell me things that i do not know."
"can he tell thee aught that is good?"
"from what i hear of him from our friend he will tell me, i think, naught that is bad. you will be there to hear, and to arrest his words if they be evil. but i think him to be one from whose mouth no guile or folly will be heard."
"who art thou, my child, that thou shouldst be able to judge whether words of guile are likely to come from a young man's lips?" but this he said smiling and pressing her hand while he seemed to rebuke her.
"nay, father; i do not judge. i only say that i think it might be so. they are not surely all false and wicked. but if you wish it otherwise i will not utter another syllable to urge the request."
"we will go, marion. thy friend urged that it is not good that thou shouldst always be shut up with me alone. and, though i may distrust the young lord as not knowing him, my confidence in thee is such that i think that nothing will ever shake it." and so it was settled that they should all go. he would send to a livery stable and hire a carriage for this unusual occasion. there should be no need for the young lord to send them home. though he did not know, as he said, much of the ways of the outside world, it was hardly the custom for the host to supply carriages as well as viands. when he dined, as he did annually, with the elder mr. pogson, mr. pogson sent him home in no carriage. he would sit at the lord's table, but he would go and come as did other men.
on the friday named the two ladies and the two men arrived at hendon hall in something more than good time. hampstead hopped and skipped about as though he were delighted as a boy might have been at their coming. it may be possible that there was something of guile even in this, and that he had calculated that he might thus best create quickly that intimacy with the quaker and his daughter which he felt to be necessary for his full enjoyment of the evening. if the quaker himself expected much of that gilding of which he had spoken he was certainly disappointed. the garniture of hendon hall had always been simple, and now had assumed less even of aristocratic finery than it used to show when prepared for the use of the marchioness. "i'm glad you've come in time," said he, "because you can get comfortably warm before dinner." then he fluttered about round mrs. roden, paying her attention much rather than marion fay,—still with some guile, as knowing that he might thus best prepare for the coming of future good things. "i suppose you found it awfully cold," he said.
"i do not know that we were awed, my lord," said the quaker. "but the winter has certainly set in with some severity."
"oh, father!" said marion, rebuking him.
"everything is awful now," said hampstead, laughing. "of course the word is absurd, but one gets in the way of using it because other people do."
"nay, my lord, i crave pardon if i seemed to criticize thy language. being somewhat used to a sterner manner of speaking, i took the word in its stricter sense."
"it is but slang from a girl's school, after all," said roden.
"now, master george, i am not going to bear correction from you," said hampstead, "though i put up with it from your elders. miss fay, when you were at school did they talk slang?"
"where i was at school, lord hampstead," marion answered, "we were kept in strict leading-strings. fancy, father, what miss watson would have said if we had used any word in a sense not used in a dictionary."
"miss watson was a sensible woman, my dear, and understood well, and performed faithfully, the duties which she had undertaken. i do not know that as much can be said of all those who keep fashionable seminaries for young ladies at the west end."
"miss watson had a red face, and a big cap, and spectacles;—had she not?" said hampstead, appealing to marion fay.
"miss watson," said mrs. roden, "whom i remember to have seen once when marion was at school with her, was a very little woman, with bright eyes, who wore her own hair, and always looked as though she had come out of a bandbox."
"she was absolutely true to her ideas of life, as a quaker should be," said mr. fay, "and i only hope that marion will follow her example. as to language, it is, i think, convenient that to a certain extent our mode of speech should consort with our mode of living. you would not expect to hear from a pulpit the phrases which belong to a racecourse, nor would the expressions which are decorous, perhaps, in aristocratic drawing-rooms befit the humble parlours of clerks and artisans."
"i never will say that anything is awful again," said lord hampstead, as he gave his arm to mrs. roden, and took her in to dinner.
"i hope he will not be angry with father," whispered marion fay to george roden, as they walked across the hall together.
"not in the least. nothing of that kind could anger him. if your father were to cringe or to flatter him then he would be disgusted."
"father would never do that," said marion, with confidence.
the dinner went off very pleasantly, hampstead and roden taking between them the weight of the conversation. the quaker was perhaps a little frightened by the asperity of his own first remark, and ate his good things almost in silence. marion was quite contented to listen, as she had told her father was her purpose; but it was perhaps to the young lord's words that she gave attention rather than to those of his friends. his voice was pleasant to her ears. there was a certain graciousness in his words, as to which she did not suppose that their softness was specially intended for her hearing. who does not know the way in which a man may set himself at work to gain admission into a woman's heart without addressing hardly a word to herself? and who has not noted the sympathy with which the woman has unconsciously accepted the homage? that pressing of the hand, that squeezing of the arm, that glancing of the eyes, which are common among lovers, are generally the developed consequences of former indications which have had their full effect, even though they were hardly understood, and could not have been acknowledged, at the time. but marion did, perhaps, feel that there was something of worship even in the way in which her host looked towards her with rapid glances from minute to minute, as though to see that if not with words, at any rate with thoughts, she was taking her share in the conversation which was certainly intended for her delight. the quaker in the mean time ate his dinner very silently. he was conscious of having shown himself somewhat of a prig about that slang phrase, and was repenting himself. mrs. roden every now and then would put in a word in answer rather to her son than to the host, but she was aware of those electric sparks which, from lord hampstead's end of the wire, were being directed every moment against marion fay's heart.
"now just for the fashion of the thing you must sit here for a quarter of an hour, while we are supposed to be drinking our wine." this was said by lord hampstead when he took the two ladies into the drawing-room after dinner.
"don't hurry yourselves," said mrs. roden. "marion and i are old friends, and will get on very well."
"oh yes," said marion. "it will be pleasure enough to me just to sit here and look around me." then hampstead knelt down between them, pretending to doctor up the fire, which certainly required no doctoring. they were standing, one on one side and the other on the other, looking down upon him.
"you are spoiling that fire, lord hampstead," said mrs. roden.
"coals were made to be poked. i feel sure of that. do take the poker and give them one blow. that will make you at home in the house for ever, you know." then he handed the implement to marion. she could hardly do other than take it in her hand. she took it, blushed up to the roots of her hair, paused a moment, and then gave the one blow to the coals that had been required of her. "thanks," said he, nodding at her as he still knelt at her feet and took the poker from her; "thanks. now you are free of hendon hall for ever. i wouldn't have any one but a friend poke my fire." upon that he got up and walked slowly out of the room.
"oh, mrs. roden," said marion, "i wish i hadn't done it."
"it doesn't matter. it was only a joke."
"of course it was a joke! but i wish i hadn't done it. it seemed at the moment that i should look to be cross if i didn't do as he bade me. but when he had said that about being at home—! oh, mrs. roden, i wish i had not done it."
"he will know that it was nothing, my dear. he is good-humoured and playful, and likes the feeling of making us feel that we are not strangers." but marion knew that lord hampstead would not take it as meaning nothing. though she could see no more than his back as he walked out of the room, she knew that he was glowing with triumph.
"now, mr. fay, here is port if you like, but i recommend you to stick to the claret."
"i have pretty well done all the sticking, my lord, of which i am competent," said the quaker. "a little wine goes a long way with me, as i am not much used to it."
"wine maketh glad the heart of man," said roden.
"true enough, mr. roden. but i doubt whether it be good that a man's heart should be much gladdened. gladness and sorrow counterbalance each other too surely. an even serenity is best fitted to human life, if it can be reached."
"a level road without hills," said hampstead. "they say that horses are soonest tired by such travelling."
"they would hardly tell you so themselves if they could give their experience after a long day's journey." then there was a pause, but mr. fay continued to speak. "my lord, i fear i misbehaved myself in reference to that word 'awful' which fell by chance from thy mouth."
"oh, dear no; nothing of the kind."
"i was bethinking me that i was among the young men in our court in great broad street, who will indulge sometimes in a manner of language not befitting their occupation at the time, or perhaps their station in life. i am wont then to remind them that words during business hours should be used in their strict sense. but, my lord, if you will take a farm horse from his plough you cannot expect from him that he should prance upon the green."
"it is because i think that there should be more mixing between what you call plough horses and animals used simply for play, that i have been so proud to make you welcome here. i hope it may not be by many the last time that you will act as a living dictionary for me. if you won't have any more wine we will go to them in the drawing-room."
mrs. roden very soon declared it necessary that they should start back to holloway. hampstead himself did not attempt to delay them. the words that had absolutely passed between him and marion had hardly been more than those which have been here set down, but yet he felt that he had accomplished not only with satisfaction but with some glory to himself the purpose for which he had specially invited his guests. his scheme had been carried out with perfect success. after the manner in which marion had obeyed his behest about the fire, he was sure that he was justified in regarding her as a friend.
