第26章

Such pain fathers and mothers have to bear; and though, I think, the arrow is never so blunted but that it leaves something of a wound behind, there is in most cases, if not a perfect salve, still an ample consolation. The mother knows that it is good that her child should love some man better than all the world beside, and that she should be taken away to become a wife and a mother.

And the father, when that delight of his eye ceases to assure him that he is her nearest and dearest, though he abandon the treasure of the nearestness and dearestness with a soft melancholy, still knows that it should be. Of course that other 'him' is the person she loves the best in the world. Were it not so how evil a thing it would be that she should marry him? Were it not so with reference to some 'him', how void would her life be! But now, to the poor Duke the wound had no salve, no consolation. When he was told that this young Tregear was the owner of the girl's sweet love, was the treasure of her heart, he shrank as though arrows with sharp points were pricking him all over. 'I will not hear of such love,' he said.

'What am I to say, papa?'

'Say that you will obey me.'

Then she sat silent. 'Do you not know that he is not fit to be your husband?'

'No, papa.'

'Then you cannot have thought much either of your position or of mine.'

'He is a gentleman, papa.'

'So is my private secretary. There is not a clerk in one of our public offices who does not consider himself to be a gentleman.

The curate of the parish is a gentleman, and the medical man who comes here from Bradstock. The word is too vague to carry with it any meaning that ought to be serviceable to you in thinking of such a matter.'

'I do not know of any other way of dividing people,' said she, showing thereby that she had altogether made up her mind as to what ought to be serviceable to her.

'You are not called upon to divide people. That division requires so much experience that you are bound in this matter to rely upon those to whom your obedience is due. I cannot but think you must have known that you were not entitled to give your love to any man without being assured that the man would be approved of by--by--by me. He was going to say 'your parents', but was stopped by the remembrance of his wife's imprudence.

She saw it all, and was too noble to plead her mother's authority.

But she was not too dutiful to cast a reproach upon him, when he was so stern to her. 'You have been so little with me, papa.'

'That is true,' he said, after a pause. 'That is true. It has been a fault and I will need to mend it. It is a reason for forgiveness, and I will forgive you. But you must tell me that there shall be an end to this.'

'No, papa.'

'What do you mean?'

'That I love Mr Tregear, and as I have told him so, and as I have promised him, I will be true to him. I cannot let there be an end to it.'

'You do not suppose that you will be allowed to see him again?'

'I hope so.'

'Most assuredly not. Do you write to him?'

'No, papa.'

'Never?'

'Never since we have been back in England.'

'You must promise me that you will not write.'

She paused for a moment before she answered him, and now she was looking him full in the face. 'I shall not write to him. I do not think I shall write to him; but I will not promise.'

'Not promise me,--your father!'

'No, papa. It might be that--that I should do it.'

'You would not wish me so to guard you that you should have no power of sending a letter but by permission?'

'I should not like that.'

'But it will have to be so.'

'If I do write I will tell you.'

'And show me what you write?'

'No, papa; not that, but I will tell you what I have written.'

Then it occurred to him that this bargaining was altogether derogatory to his parental authority, and by no means likely to impress upon her mind the conviction that Tregear must be completely banished from her thoughts. He began already to find how difficult it would be for him to have the charge of such a daughter,--how impossible that he should conduct such a charge with sufficient firmness, and yet with sufficient tenderness! At present he had done no good. He had only been made more wretched than ever by her obstinacy. Surely he must pass her over to the charge of some lady,--but of some lady who would be as determined as he was himself that she should not throw herself away by marrying Mr Tregear. 'There shall be no writing,' he said, 'no visiting, no communication of any kind. As you refuse to obey me now, you had better go to your room.'