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RALPH THE HEIR
“He always was, and I declare I think that Patience and
Clary have been the better for it. They have learned things of
which they would have known nothing had he been with them
every morning and evening. I don’t know any girls who are so
sweet as they are. You know they have been like sisters to me.”
“So I have been told.”
“And when you came, it would have been like another sister coming; only — ”
“Only what?” said Mary, assuming purposely a savage look.
“That something else intervened.”
“Of course it must be very different, — and it should be
different. You have only known me a few months.”
“I have known you enough to wish to know you more
closely than anybody else for the rest of my life.”
“Mr. Newton, I thought you had understood me before.”
“So I did.” This he said with an assumed tone of lachrymose
complaint. “I did understand you, — thoroughly. I understood
that I was rebuked, and rejected, and disdained. But a man, if
he is in earnest, does not give over on that account. Indeed,
there are things which he can’t give over. You may tell a man
that he shouldn’t drink, or shouldn’t gamble; but telling will
do no good. When he has once begun, he’ll go on with it.”
“What does that mean?”
“That love is as strong a passion, at any rate, as drinking or
gambling. You did tell me, and sent me away, and rebuked me
because of that tradesman’s daughter.”
“What tradesman’s daughter?” asked Mary. “I have spoken of no tradesman’s daughter. I gave you ample reason why
you should not address yourself to me.”
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
“Of course there are ample reasons,” said Ralph, looking
into his hat, which he had taken from the table. “The one, —
most ample of all, is that you do not care for me.”
“I do not,” said Mary resolutely.
“Exactly; — but that is a sort of reason which a man will
do his best to conquer. Do not misunderstand me. I am not
such a fool as to think that I can prevail in a day. I am not vain
enough to think that I can prevail at all. But I can persist.”
“It will not be of the slightest use; indeed, it cannot be allowed. I will not allow it. My uncle will not allow it.”
“When you told me that I was untrue to another person —
; I think that was your phrase.”
“Very likely.”
“I supposed you had heard that stupid story which had got
round to my uncle, — about a Mr. Neefit’s daughter.”
“I had heard no stupid story.”
“What then did you mean?”
Mary paused a moment, thinking whether it might still
be possible that a good turn might be done for her cousin.
That Clarissa had loved this man with her whole heart she
had herself owned to Mary. That the man had professed his
love for Clary, Clary had also let her know. And Clary’s love
had endured even after the blow it had received from Ralph’s
offer to her cousin. All this that cousin knew; but she did not
know how that love had now turned to simple soreness. “I have
heard nothing of the man’s daughter,” said Mary.
“Well then?”
“But I do know that before I came here at all you had striven to gain the affections of my cousin.”
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RALPH THE HEIR
“Clarissa!”
“Yes; Clarissa. Is it not so?” Then she paused, and Ralph
remembered the scene on the lawn. In very truth it had never been forgotten. There had always been present with him
when he thought of Mary Bonner a sort of remembrance of
the hour in which he had played the fool with dear Clary.
He had kissed her. Well; yes; and with some girls kisses mean
so much, — as Polly Neefit had said to her true lover. But
then with others they mean just nothing. “If you want to find
a wife in this house you had better ask her. It is certainly useless that you should ask me.”
“Do you mean quite useless?” asked Ralph, beginning to be
somewhat abashed.
“Absolutely useless. Did I not tell you something else, —
something that I would not have hinted to you, had it not
been that I desired to prevent the possibility of a renewal of
anything so vain? But you think nothing of that! All that can
be changed with you at a moment, if other things suit.”
“That is meant to be severe, Miss Bonner, and I have not deserved it from you. What has brought me to you but that I admire you above all others?”
“You shouldn’t admire me above others. Is a man to change
as he likes because he sees a girl whose hair pleases him for
the moment better than does hers to whom he has sworn to
be true?” Ralph did not forget at this moment to whisper to
himself for his own consolation, that he had never sworn to
be true to Clarissa. And, indeed, he did feel, that though there
had been a kiss, the scene on the lawn was being used unfair-
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
ly to his prejudice. “I am afraid you are very fickle, Mr. Newton,
and that your love is not worth much.”
“I hope we may both live till you learn that you have
wronged me.”
“I hope so. If my opinion be worth anything with you, go
back to her from whom you have allowed yourself to stray in
your folly. To me you must not address yourself again. If you
do, it will be an insult.” Then she rose up, queenly in her beauty, and slowly left the room.
There must be an end of that. Such was Ralph’s feeling as
she left the room, in spite of those protestations of constancy
and persistence which he had made to himself. “A fellow has to
go on with it, and be refused half a dozen times by one of those
proud ones,” he had said; “but when they do knuckle under,
they go in harness better than the others.” It was thus that he
had thought of Mary Bonner, but he did not so think of her
now. No, indeed. There was an end of that. “There is a sort of
way of doing it, which shows that they mean it.” Such was his
inward speech; and he did believe that Miss Bonner meant
it. “By Jove, yes; if words and looks ever can mean anything.”
But how about Clarissa? If it was so, as Mary Bonner had told
him, would it be the proper kind of thing for him to go back to
Clarissa? His heart, too, — for he had a heart, — was very
soft. He had always been fond of Clarissa, and would not, for
worlds, that she should be unhappy. How pretty she was, and
how soft, and how loving! And how proudly happy she would
be to be driven about the Newton grounds by him as their mistress. Then he remembered what Gregory had said to him, and
how he had encouraged Gregory to persevere. If anything of
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RALPH THE HEIR
that kind were to happen, Gregory must put up with it. It was
clear that Clarissa couldn’t marry Gregory if she were in love
with him. But how would he look Sir Thomas in the face?
As he thought of this he laughed. Sir Thomas, however, would
be glad enough to give his daughter, not to the heir but to
the owner of Newton. Who could be that fellow whom Mary
Bonner preferred to him — with all Newton to back his suit?
Perhaps Mary Bonner did not know the meaning of being
the mistress of Newton Priory.
After a while the servant came to show him to his chamber.
Sir Thomas had come and had gone at once to his room. So
he went up-stairs and dressed, expecting to see Clarissa when
they all assembled before dinner. When he went down, Sir
Thomas was there, and Mary, and Patience, — but not Clarissa. He had summoned back his courage and spoke jauntily to
Sir Thomas. Then he turned to Patience and asked after her
sister. “Clarissa is spending the day with Mrs. Brownlow,” said
Patience, “and will not be home till quite late.”
“Oh, how unfortunate!” exclaimed Ralph. Taking all his
difficulties into consideration, we must admit that he did not
do it badly.
After dinner Sir Thomas sat longer over his wine than
is at present usual, believing, perhaps, that the young ladies
would not want to see much more of Ralph on the present
occasion. The conversation was almost entirely devoted to
the affairs of the late election, as to which Ralph was much
interested and very indignant. “They cannot do you any harm,
sir, by the investigation,” he said.
“No; I don’t think they can hurt me.”
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
“And you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you
have been the means of exposing corruption, and of helping to
turn such a man as Griffenbottom out of the House. Upon my
word, I think it has been worth while.”
“I am not sure that I would do it again at the same cost, and
with the same object,” said Sir Thomas.
Ralph did have a cup of tea given to him in the drawingroom, and then left the villa before Clarissa’s fly had returned.
CHAPTER XLVIII
MR. MOGGS WALKS TOWARDS
EDGEWARE
The judge’s decision in Percycross as to the late election was
no sooner known than fresh overtures were made to Ontario
Moggs by the Young Men’s Association. A letter of triumph
was addressed to him at the Cheshire Cheese, in which he was
informed that Intimidation and Corruption had been trodden under foot in the infamous person of Mr. Griffenbottom,
and that Purity and the Rights of Labour were still the watchwords of that wholesome party in the borough which was determined to send Mr. Moggs to Parliament. Did not Mr. Moggs
think it best that he should come down at once to the borough
and look after his interests? Now Mr. Moggs junior, when he
received this letter, had left the borough no more than three
or four days since, having been summoned there as a witness
during the trial of the petition; — and such continued attendance to the political interests of a small and otherwise uninteresting town, without the advantage of a seat in Parliament,
was felt by Mr. Moggs senior to be a nuisance. The expense in
all these matters fell of course upon the shoulders of the father. “I don’t believe in them humbugs no longer,” said Mr.
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
Moggs senior. Moggs junior, who had felt the enthusiasm of
the young men of Percycross, and who had more to get and
less to lose than his father, did believe. Although he had been
so lately at Percycross, he went down again, and again made
speeches to the young men at the Mechanics’ Institute. Nothing could be more triumphant than his speeches, nothing
more pleasant than his popularity; but he could not fail to
become aware, after a further sojourn of three days at Percycross, of two things. The first was this, — that if the borough
were spared there would be a compromise between the leading men on the two sides, and Mr. Westmacott would be returned together with a young Griffenbottom. The second conviction forced upon him was that the borough would not be
spared. There was no comfort for him at Percycross, — other
than what arose from a pure political conscience. On the very
morning on which he left, he besought his friends, the young
men, — though they were about to be punished, degraded, and
disfranchised for the sins of their elders, though it might never be allowed to them again to stir themselves for the political
welfare of their own borough, — still to remember that Purity and the Rights of Labour were the two great wants of
the world, and that no man could make an effort, however
humble, in a good cause without doing something towards
bringing nearer to him that millennium of political virtue
which was so much wanted, and which would certainly come
sooner or later. He was cheered to the echo, and almost carried
down to the station on the shoulders of a chairman, or president, and a secretary; but he left Percycross with the convic-
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RALPH THE HEIR
tion that that borough would never confer upon him the coveted honour of a seat in Parliament.
All this had happened early in March, previous to
that Sunday on which Mr. Neefit behaved so rudely to him at
the cottage. “I think as perhaps you’d better stick to business
now a bit,” said old Moggs. At that moment Ontario was sitting up at a high desk behind the ledger which he hated, and
was sticking to business as well as he knew how to stick to
it. “No more Cheshire Cheeses, if you please, young man,”
said the father. This was felt by the son to be unfair, cruel,
and even corrupt. While the election was going on, as long as
there was a hope of success at Percycross, Moggs senior had
connived at the Cheshire Cheese, had said little or nothing
about business, had even consented on one occasion to hear
his son make a speech advocating the propriety of combination among workmen. “It ain’t my way of thinking,” Moggs
senior had said; “but then, perhaps, I’m old.” To have had
a member of the firm in Parliament would have been glorious
even to old Moggs, though he hardly knew in what the glory
would have consisted. But as soon as he found that his hopes
were vain, that the Cheshire Cheese had been no steppingstone to such honour, and that his money had been spent
for nothing, his mind reverted to its old form. Strikes became to him the work of the devil, and unions were once more
the bane of trade.
“I suppose,” said Ontario, looking up from his ledger, “if
I work for my bread by day, I may do as I please with my evenings. At any rate I shall,” he continued to say after pausing
awhile. “It’s best we should understand each other, father.”
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
Moggs senior growled. At a word his son would have been off
from him, rushing about the country, striving to earn a crust
as a political lecturer. Moggs knew his son well, and in truth
loved him dearly. There was, too, a Miss Moggs at home, who
would give her father no peace if Ontario were turned adrift.
There is nothing in the world so cruel as the way in which sons
use the natural affections of their fathers, obtaining from these
very feelings a power of rebelling against authority! “You must
go to the devil if you please, I suppose,” said Moggs senior.
“I don’t know why you say that. What do I do devilish?”
“Them Unions is devilish.”
“I think they’re Godlike,” said Moggs junior. After that they
were silent for a while, during which Moggs senior was cutting his nails with a shoemaker’s knife by the fading light of
the evening, and Moggs junior was summing up an account
against a favoured aristocrat, who seemed to have worn
a great many boots, but who was noticeable to Ontario, chiefly
from the fact that he represented in Parliament the division of
the county in which Percycross was situated. “I thought you
was going to make it all straight by marrying that girl,” said
Moggs senior.
Here was a subject on which the father and the son were in
unison; — and as to which the romantic heart of Miss Moggs,
at home at Shepherd’s Bush, always glowed with enthusiasm.
That her brother was in love, was to her, of whom in truth it
must be owned that she was very plain, the charm of her life.
She was fond of poetry, and would read to her brother aloud
the story of Juan and Haidee, and the melancholy condition of
the lady who was loved by the veiled prophet. She sympathised
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