The American Senator by Anthony Trollope — Read

It might be surmised from the description which Lord Rufford had given of his own position to his sister and his sister's two friends, when he pictured himself as falling over the edge of the precipice while they hung on behind to save him, that he was sufficiently aware of the inexpediency of the proposed intimacy with Miss Trefoil. Anyone hearing him would have said that Miss Trefoil's chances in that direction were very poor -- that a man seeing his danger so plainly and so clearly understanding the nature of it would certainly avoid it. But what he had said was no more than Miss Trefoil knew that he would say -- or, at any rate would think. Of course she had against her not only all his friends -- but the man himself also and his own fixed intentions. Lord Rufford was not a marrying man -- which was supposed to signify that he intended to lead a life of pleasure till the necessity of providing an heir should be forced upon him, when he would take to himself a wife out of his own class in life twenty years younger than himself for whom he would not care a straw. The odds against Miss Trefoil were of course great; -- but girls have won even against such odds as these. She knew her own powers, and was aware that Lord Rufford was fond of feminine beauty and feminine flutter and feminine flattery, though he was not prepared to marry. It was quite possible that she might be able to dig such a pit for him that it would be easier for him to marry her than to get out in any other way. Of course she must trust something to his own folly at first. Nor did she trust in vain. Before her week was over at Mrs. Gore's she received from him a letter, which, with the correspondence to which it immediately led, shall be given in this chapter.

Letter No. 1. / Rufford, Sunday. / My dear Miss Trefoil, / We have had a sad house since you left us. Poor Caneback got better and then worse and then better -- and at last died yesterday afternoon. And now; -- there is to be the funeral! The poor dear old boy seems to have had nobody belonging to him and very little in the way of possessions. I never knew anything of him except that he was, or had been, in the Blues, and that he was about the best man in England to hounds on a bad horse. It now turns out that his father made some money in India -- a sort of Commissary purveyor -- and bought a commission for him twenty-five years ago. Everybody knew him but nobody knew anything about him. Poor old Caneback! I wish he had managed to die anywhere else and I don't feel at all obliged to Purefoy for sending that brute of a mare here. He said something to me about that wretched ball; -- not altogether so wretched! was it? But I didn't like what he said and told him a bit of my mind. Now we're two for a while; and I don't care for how long unless he comes round. / I cannot stand a funeral, and I shall get away from this. I will pay the bill and Purefoy may do the rest. I'm going for Christmas to Surbiton's near Melton with a string of horses. Surbiton is a bachelor, and as there will be no young ladies to interfere with me I shall have the more time to think of you. We shall have a little play there instead. I don't know whether it isn't the better of the two, as if one does get sat upon, one doesn't feel so confoundedly sheep-faced. I have been out with the hounds two or three times since you went, as I could do no good staying with that poor fellow and there was a time when we thought he would have pulled through. I rode Jack one day, but he didn't carry me as well as he did you. I think he's more of a lady's horse. If I go to Mistletoe I shall have some horses somewhere in the neighbourhood and I'll make them take Jack, so that you may have a chance. / I never know how to sign myself to young ladies. Suppose I say that I am yours, / Anything you like best, / R.