第102章

"You ask me to keep you informed of the progress of Julian Gray's infatuation, and of the course of conduct pursued toward him by Mercy Merrick.

"If you had not favored me by explaining your object, I might have felt some surprise at receiving from a lady in your position such a request as this.But the motives by which you describe yourself as being actuated are beyond dispute.The existence of Society, as you truly say, is threatened by the present lamentable prevalence of Liberal ideas throughout the length and breadth of the land.We can only hope to protect ourselves against impostors interested in gaining a position among persons of our rank by becoming in some sort (unpleasant as it may be) familiar with the arts by which imposture too frequently succeeds.If we wish to know to what daring lengths cunning can go, to what pitiable self-delusion credulity can consent, we must watch the proceedings--even while we shrink from them--of a Mercy Merrick and a Julian Gray.

"In taking up my narrative again where my last letter left off, I must venture to set you right on one point.

"Certain expressions which have escaped your pen suggest to me that you blame Julian Gray as the cause of Lady Janet's regrettable visit to the Refuge the day after Mercy Merrick had left her house.This is not quite correct.Julian, as you will presently see, has enough to answer for without being held responsible for errors of judgment in which he has had no share.Lady Janet (as she herself told me) went to the Refuge of her own free-will to ask Mercy Merrick's pardon for the language which she had used on the previous day.'I passed a night of such misery as no words can describe'--this, I assure you, is what her ladyship really said to me--'thinking over what my vile pride and selfishness and obstinacy had made me say and do.I would have gone down on my knees to beg her pardon if she would have let me.My first happy moment was when I won her consent to come and visit me sometimes at Mablethorpe House.'

"You will, I am sure, agree with me that such extravagance as this is to be pitied rather than blamed.How sad to see the decay of the faculties with advancing age! It is a matter of grave anxiety to consider how much longer poor Lady Janet can be trusted to manage her own affairs.I shall take an opportunity of touching on the matter delicately when I next see her lawyer.

"I am straying from my subject.And--is it not strange?--I am writing to you as confidentially as if we were old friends "To return to Julian Gray.Innocent of instigating his aunt's first visit to the Refuge, he is guilty of having induced her to go there for the second time the day after I had dispatched my last letter to you.Lady Janet's object on this occasion was neither more nor less than to plead her nephew's cause as humble suitor for the hand of Mercy Merrick.Imagine the descent of one of the oldest families in England inviting an adventuress in a Refuge to honor a clergyman of the Church of England by becoming his wife! In what times do we live! My dear mother shed tears of shame when she heard of it.How you would love and admire my mother!

"I dined at Mablethorpe House, by previous appointment, on the day when Lady Janet returned from her degrading errand.

"'Well?' I said, waiting, of course, until the servant was out of the room.

"'Well,' Lady Janet answered, 'Julian was quite right.'

"'Quite right in what?'

"'In saying that the earth holds no nobler woman than Mercy Merrick.'

"'Has she refused him again?'

"'She has refused him again.'

"'Thank God!' I felt it fervently, and I said it fervently.Lady Janet laid down her knife and fork, and fixed one of her fierce looks on me.

"'It may not be your fault, Horace,' she said, 'if your nature is incapable of comprehending what is great and generous in other natures higher than yours.But the least you can do is to distrust your own capacity of appreciation.

For the future keep your opinions (on questions which you don't understand)modestly to yourself.I have a tenderness for you for your father's sake;and I take the most favorable view of your conduct toward Mercy Merrick.

I humanely consider it the conduct of a fool.' (Her own words, Miss Roseberry.

I assure you once more, her own words.) 'But don't trespass too far on my indulgence--don't insinuate again that a woman who is good enough (if she died this night) to go to heaven, is not good enough to be my nephew's wife.'

"I expressed to you my conviction a little way back that it was doubtful whether poor Lady Janet would be much longer competent to manage her own affairs.Perhaps you thought me hasty then? What do you think now?

"It was, of course, useless to reply seriously to the extraordinary reprimand that I had received.Besides, I was really shocked by a decay of principle which proceeded but too plainly from decay of the mental powers.I made a soothing and respectful reply, and I was favored in return with some account of what had really happened at the Refuge.

My mother and my sisters were disgusted when I repeated the particulars to them.You will be disgusted too.

"The interesting penitent (expecting Lady Janet's visit) was, of course, discovered in a touching domestic position! She had a foundling baby asleep on her lap; and she was teaching the alphabet to an ugly little vagabond girl whose acquaintance she had first made in the street.Just the sort of artful tableau vivant to impose on an old lady--was it not?