Another week went by and Sir Marmaduke had even yet not surrendered. He quite understood that Nora was not to go back to the Islands and had visited Mr and Mrs Outhouse at St. Diddulph’s in order to secure a home for her there, if it might be possible. Mr Outhouse did not refuse, but gave the permission in such a fashion as to make it almost equal to a refusal. ‘He was,’ he said, ‘much attached to his niece Nora, but he had heard that there was a love affair.’ Sir Marmaduke, of course, could not deny the love affair. There was certainly a love affair of which he did not personally approve, as the gentleman had no fixed income and as far as he could understand no fixed profession. ‘Such a love affair,’ thought Mr Outhouse, ‘was a sort of thing that he didn’t know how to manage at all. If Nora came to him, was the young man to visit at the house, or was he not?’ Then Mrs Outhouse said something as to the necessity of an anti-Stanbury pledge on Nora’s part, and Sir Marmaduke found that that scheme must be abandoned. Mrs Trevelyan had written from Florence more than once or twice, and in her last letter had said that she would prefer not to have Nora with her. She was at that time living in lodgings at Siena and had her boy there also. She saw her husband every other day; but nevertheless, according to her statements, her visits to Casalunga were made in opposition to his wishes. He had even expressed a desire that she should leave Siena and return to England. He had once gone so far as to say that if she would do so, he would follow her. But she clearly did not believe him, and in all her letters spoke of him as one whom she could not regard as being under the guidance of reason. She had taken her child with her once or twice to the house, and on the first occasion Trevelyan had made much of his son, had wept over him, and professed that in losing him he had lost his only treasure; but after that he had not noticed the boy, and latterly she had gone alone. She thought that perhaps her visits cheered him, breaking the intensity of his solitude; but he never expressed himself gratified by them, never asked her to remain at the house, never returned with her into Siena, and continually spoke of her return to England as a step which must be taken soon, and the sooner the better. He intended to follow her, he said; and she explained very fully how manifest was his wish that she should go, by the temptation to do so which he thought that he held out by this promise. He had spoken, on every occasion of her presence with him, of Sir Marmaduke’s attempt to prove him to be a madman; but declared that he was afraid of no one in England, and would face all the lawyers in Chancery Lane and all the doctors in Savile Row. Nevertheless, so said Mrs Trevelyan, he would undoubtedly remain at Casalunga till after Sir Marmaduke should have sailed. He was not so mad but that he knew that no one else would be so keen to take steps against him as would Sir Marmaduke. As for his health, her account of him was very sad. ‘He seemed,’ she said, ‘to be withering away.’ His hand was mere skin and bone. His hair and beard so covered his thin long cheeks, that there was nothing left of his face but his bright, large, melancholy eyes. His legs had become so frail and weak that they would hardly bear his weight as he walked; and his clothes, though he had taken a fancy to throw aside all that he had brought with him from England, hung so loose about him that they seemed as though they would fall from him. Once she had ventured to send out to him from Siena a doctor to whom she had been recommended in Florence; but he had taken the visit in very bad part, had told the gentleman that he had no need for any medical services, and had been furious with her, because of her offence in having sent such a visitor. He had told her that if ever she ventured to take such a liberty again, he would demand the child back, and refuse her permission inside the gates of Casalunga. ‘Don’t come, at any rate, till I send for you,’ Mrs Trevelyan said in her last letter to her sister. ‘Your being here would do no good, and would, I think, make him feel that he was being watched. My hope is, at last, to get him to return with me. If you were here, I think this would be less likely. And then why should you be mixed up with such unutterable sadness and distress more than is essentially necessary? My health stands wonderfully well, though the heat here is very great. It is cooler at Casalunga than in the town, of which I am glad for his sake. He perspires so profusely that it seems to me he cannot stand the waste much longer. I know he will not go to England as long as papa is there, but I hope that he may be induced to do so by slow stages as soon as he knows that papa has gone. Mind you send me a newspaper, so that he may see it stated in print that papa has sailed.’
It followed as one consequence of these letters from Florence that Nora was debarred from the Italian scheme as a mode of passing her time till some house should be open for her reception. She had suggested to Hugh that she might go for a few weeks to Nuncombe Putney, but he had explained to her the nature of his mother’s cottage, and had told her that there was no hole there in which she could lay her head. ‘There never was such a forlorn young woman,’ she said. ‘When papa goes I shall literally be without shelter.’ There had come a letter from Mrs Glascock, at least it was signed Caroline Glascock, though another name might have been used, dated from Milan, saying that they were hurrying back to Naples even at that season of the year, because Lord Peterborough was dead. ‘And she is Lady Peterborough!’ said Lady Rowley, unable to repress the expression of the old regrets. ‘Of course she is Lady Peterborough, mamma; what else should she be? though she does not so sign herself.’ ‘We think,’ said the American peeress, ‘that we shall be at Monkhams before the end of August, and Charles says that you are to come just the same. There will be nobody else there, of course, because of Lord Peterborough’s death.’ ‘I saw it in the paper,’ said Sir Marmaduke, ‘and quite forgot to mention it.’
That same evening there was a long family discussion about Nora’s prospects. They were all together in the gloomy sitting-room at Gregg’s Hotel, and Sir Marmaduke had not yielded. The ladies had begun to feel that it would be well not to press him to yield. Practically he had yielded. There was now no question of cursing and of so-called disinheritance. Nora was to remain in England, of course, with the intention of being married to Hugh Stanbury; and the difficulty consisted in the need of an immediate home for her. It wanted now but twelve days to that on which the family were to sail from Southampton, and nothing had been settled. ‘If papa will allow me something ever so small, and will trust me, I will live alone in lodgings,’ said Nora.
‘It is the maddest thing I ever heard,’ said Sir Marmaduke.
‘Who would take care of you, Nora?’ asked Lady Rowley.
‘And who would walk about with you?’ said Lucy.
‘I don’t see how it would be possible to live alone like that,’ said Sophie.
‘Nobody would take care of me, and nobody would walk about with me, and I could live alone very well,’ said Nora. ‘I don’t see why a young woman is to be supposed to be so absolutely helpless as all that comes to. Of course it won’t be very nice, but it need not be for long.’
‘Why not for long?’ asked Sir Marmaduke.
‘Not for very long,’ said Nora.
‘It does not seem to me,’ said Sir Marmaduke, after a considerable pause, ‘that this gentleman himself is so particularly anxious for the match. I have heard no day named, and no rational proposition made.’
‘Papa, that is unfair, most unfair and ungenerous.’
‘Nora,’ said her mother, ‘do not speak in that way to your father.’
‘Mamma, it is unfair. Papa accuses Mr Stanbury of being being lukewarm and untrue — of not being in earnest.’
‘I would rather that he were not in earnest,’ said Sir Marmaduke.
‘Mr Stanbury is ready at any time,’ continued Nora. ‘He would have the banns at once read, and marry me in three weeks if I would let him.’
‘Good gracious, Nora!’ exclaimed Lady Rowley.
‘But I have refused to name any day, or to make any arrangement, because I did not wish to do so before papa had given his consent. That is why things are in this way. If papa will but let me take a room till I can go to Monkhams, I will have everything arranged from there. You can trust Mr Glascock for that, and you can trust her.’
‘I suppose your papa will make you some allowance,’ said Lady Rowley.
‘She is entitled to nothing, as she has refused to go to her proper home,’ said Sir Marmaduke.
The conversation, which had now become very disagreeable, was not allowed to go any further. And it was well that it should be interrupted. They all knew that Sir Marmaduke must be brought round by degrees, and that both Nora and Lady Rowley had gone as far as was prudent at present. But all trouble on this head was suddenly ended for this evening by the entrance of the waiter with a telegram. It was addressed to Lady Rowley, and she opened it with trembling hands as ladies always do open telegrams. It was from Emily Trevelyan. ‘Louis is much worse. Let somebody come to me. Hugh Stanbury would be the best.’
In a few minutes they were so much disturbed that no one quite knew what should be done at once. Lady Rowley began by declaring that she would go herself. Sir Marmaduke of course pointed out that this was impossible, and suggested that he would send a lawyer. Nora professed herself ready to start immediately on the journey, but was stopped by a proposition from her sister Lucy that in that case Hugh Stanbury would of course go with her. Lady Rowley asked whether Hugh would go, and Nora asserted that he would go immediately as a matter of course. She was sure he would go, let the people at the D. R. say what they might. According to her there was always somebody at the call of the editor of the D. R. to do the work of anybody else, when anybody else wanted to go away. Sir............