'I will not say anything can be of comfort. But of course it is right that you should go. I can have no excuse for asking you to remain. While there was yet a hope for her--' Then he stopped, unable to say a word further in that direction, and yet there was no sign of a tear and no sound of a sob.
'Of course I would stay, Duke, if I could be of any service.'
'Mr Finn will expect you to return to him.'
'Perhaps it would be better that I should say that I would stay were it not that I know that I can be of no real service.'
'What do you mean by that, Mrs Finn?'
'Lady Mary should have with her at such a time some other friend.'
'There was none other whom her mother loved as she loved you--none, none.' This he said almost with energy.
'There was no one lately, Duke, with whom circumstances caused her mother to be so closely intimate. But even that perhaps was unfortunate.'
'I never thought so.'
'That is a great compliment. But as to Lady Mary, will it not be well that she should have with her, as soon as possible, someone,--perhaps someone of her own kindred if it be possible, or, if not that, at least one of her own kind?'
'Who is there? Whom do you mean?'
'I mean no one. It is hard, Duke, to say what I do mean, but perhaps I had better try. There will be,--probably there have been,--some among your friends who have regretted the great intimacy which chance produced between me and my lost friend.
While she was with us no such feeling would have sufficed to drive me from her. She had chosen for herself, and if others disapproved of her choice that was nothing to me. But as regards Lady Mary, it will better, I think, that from the beginning she should be taught to look for friendship and guidance to those--to those who are more naturally connected with her.'
'I was not thinking of any guidance,' said the Duke.
'Of course not. But with one so young, where there is intimacy there will be guidance. There should be somebody with her. It was almost the last thought that occupied her mother's mind. I could not tell her, Duke, but I can tell you, that I cannot with any advantage to your girl be that somebody.'
'Cora wished it.'
'Her wishes, probably, were sudden and hardly fixed.'
'Who should it be, then?' asked the father, after a pause.
'Who am I, Duke, that I should answer such a question?'
After that there was another pause, and then the conference was ended by a request from the Duke that Mrs Finn would stay at Matching for yet two days longer. At dinner they all met,--the father, the three children, and Mrs Finn. How far the young people among themselves had been able to throw off something of the gloom of death need not here be asked; but in the presence of their father they were sad and sombre, almost as he was. On the next day, early in the morning, the younger lad returned to his college, and Lord Silverbridge went up to London, where he was supposed to have his home.
'Perhaps you would not mind reading these letters,' the Duke said to Mrs Finn, when she again went to him in compliance with a message from him asking for her presence. Then she sat down and read two letters, one from Lady Cantrip, and the other from a Mrs Jeffrey Palliser, each of which contained an invitation for his daughter, and expressed a hope that Lady Mary would not be unwilling to spend some time with the writer. Lady Cantrip's letter was long, and went minutely into circumstances. If Lady Mary would come to her, she would abstain from having other company in the house till her young friend's spirits should have somewhat recovered themselves. Nothing could be more kind, or proposed in a sweeter fashion. There had, however, been present in the Duke's mind as he read it a feeling that a proposition to a bereaved husband to relieve him of the society of an only daughter, was not one which would usually be made to a father. In such a position a child's company would probably be his best solace. But he knew,--at this moment, he painfully remembered,--that he was not as other men. He acknowledged the truth of this, but he was not the less grieved and irritated by the reminder. The letter from Mrs Jeffrey Palliser was to the same effect, but was much shorter. If it would suit Mary to come to them for a month or six weeks at their place in Gloucestershire, they would both be delighted.
'I should not choose her to go there,' said the Duke, as Mrs Finn refolded the latter letter. 'My cousin's wife is a very good woman, but Mary would not be happy with her.'
'Lady Cantrip is an excellent friend for her.'
'Excellent. I know no one whom I esteem more than Lady Cantrip.'
'Would you wish her to go there, Duke?'
There came a piteous look over the father's face. Why should he be treated as no other father would be treated? Why should it be supposed that he would desire to send his girl away from him? But yet he felt that it would be better that she should go. It was his present purpose to remain at Matching through a portion of the summer. What could he do to make a girl happy? What comfort would there be in his companionship?
'I suppose she ought to go somewhere,' he said.
'I had not thought of it,' said Mrs Finn.
'I understood you to say,' replied the Duke, almost angrily, 'that she ought to go someone who would take care of her.'
'I was thinking of some friend coming to her.'
'Who would come? Who is there that I could possibly ask? You will not stay.'
'I certainly would stay, if it were for her good. I was thinking, Duke, that perhaps you might ask the Greys to come to you.'
'They would not come,' he said, after a pause.
'When she was told that it was for her sake, she would come, I think.'
Then there was another pause. 'I could not ask them,' he said;
'for his sake I could not have it put to her in that way. Perhaps Mary had better go to Lady Cantrip. Perhaps I had better be alone for a time. I do not think that I am fit to have any human being with me in my sorrow.'