ASKING THE RECTOR.
Perhaps Lady Hartledon had never in all her life been so much astonished
as when she reached Hartledon, for the first person she saw there was her
mother: her mother, whom she had believed to be in some remote district
of Ireland. For the moment she almost wondered whether it was really
herself or her ghost. The countess-dowager came flying down the steps--if
that term may be applied to one of her age and size--with rather
demonstrative affection; which, however, was not cordially received.
"What's the matter, Maude? How you stare!"
"_Is_ it you, mamma? How _can_ it be you?"
"How can it be me?" returned the dowager, giving Maude's bonnet a few
kisses. "It _is_ me, and that's enough. My goodness, Maude, how thin you
look! I see what it is! you've been killing yourself in that racketing
London. It's well I've come to take care of you."
Maude went in, feeling that she could have taken care of herself, and
listening to the off-hand explanations of the countess-dowager. "Kirton
offended me," she said. "He and his wife are like two bears; and so I
packed up my things and came away at once, and got here straight from
Liverpool. And now you know."
"And is Lady Kirton quite well again?" asked Maude, helplessly, knowing
she could not turn her mother out.
"She'd be well enough but for temper. She _was_ ill, though, when they
telegraphed for me; her life for three days and nights hanging on a
shred. I told that fool of a Kirton before he married her that she had no
constitution. I suppose you and Hart were finely disappointed to find I
was not in London when you got there."
"Agreeably disappointed, I think," said Maude, languidly.
"Indeed! It's civil of you to say so."
"On account of the smallness of the house," added Maude, endeavouring to
be polite. "We hardly knew how to manage in it ourselves."
"You wrote me word to take it. As to me, I can accommodate myself to any
space. Where there's plenty of room, I take plenty; where there's not, I
can put up with a closet. I have made Mirrable give me my old rooms here:
you of course take Hart's now."
"I am very tired," said Maude. "I think I will have some tea, and go to
bed."
"Tea!" shrieked the dowager. "I have not yet had dinner. And it's
waiting; that's more."
"You can dine without me, mamma," she said, walking upstairs to the new
rooms. The dowager stared, and followed her. There was an indescribable
something in Maude's manner that she did not like; it spoke of incipient
rebellion, of an influence that had been, but was now thrown off. If she
lost caste once, with Maude, she knew that she lost it for ever.
"You could surely take a little dinner, Maude. You must keep up your
strength, you know."
"Not any dinner, thank you. I shall be all right to-morrow, when I've
slept off my fatigue."
"Well, I know I should like mine," grumbled the countess-dowager, feeling
her position in the house already altered from what it had been during
her former sojourn, when she assumed full authority, and ordered things
as she pleased, completely ignoring the new lord.
"You can have it," said Maude.
"They won't serve it until Hartledon arrives," was the aggrieved answer.
"I suppose he's walking up from the station. He always had a queer habit
of doing that."
Maude lifted her eyes in slight surprise. Her solitary arrival was a
matter of fact so established to herself, that it sounded strange for any
one else to be in ignorance of it.
"Lord Hartledon has not come down. He is remaining in London."
The old dowager peered at Maude through her little eyes. "What's that
for?"
"Business, I believe."
"Don't tell me an untruth, Maude. You have quarrelled."
"We have not quarrelled. We are perfectly good friends."
"And do you mean to tell me that he sent you down alone?"
"He sent the servants with me."
"Don't be insolent, Maude. You know what I mean."
"Why, mamma, I do not wish to be insolent. I can't tell you more, or
tell it differently. Lord Hartledon did not come down with me, and the
servants did."
She spoke sharply. In her tired condition the petty conversation was
wearying her; and underlying everything else in her heart, was the
mortifying consciousness that he had _not_ come down with her, chafing
her temper almost beyond repression. Considering that Maude did not
profess to love her husband very much, it was astonishing how keenly she
felt this.
"Are you and Hartledon upon good terms?" asked the countess-dowager after
a pause, during which she had never taken her eyes from her daughter's
face.
"It would be early days to be on any other."
"Oh," said the dowager. "And you did not write me word from Paris that
you found you had made a mistake, that you could not bear your husband!
Eh, Maude?"
A tinge came into Maude's cheeks. "And you, mamma, told me that I was to
rule my husband with an iron hand, never allowing him to have a will of
his own, never consulting him! Both you and I were wrong," she continued
quietly. "I wrote that letter in a moment of irritation; and you were
assuming what has not proved to be a fact. I like my husband now quite
well enough to keep friends with him; his kindness to me is excessive;
but I find, with all my wish to rule him, if I had the wish, I could not
do it. He has a will of his own, and he exerts it in spite of me; and I
am quite sure he will continue to exert it, whenever he fancies he is in
the right. You never saw any one so changed from what he used to be."
"How do you mean?"
"I mean in asserting his own will. But he is changed in other ways. It
seems to me that he has never been quite the same man since that night in
the chapel. He has been more thoughtful; and all the old vacillation is
gone."
The countess-dowager could not understand at all; neither did she
believe; and she only stared at Maude.
"His _not_ coming down with me is a proof that he exercises his own will
now. I wished him to come very much, and he knew it; but you see he has
not done so."
"And what do you say is keeping him?" repeated the countess-dowager.
"Business--"
"Ah," interrupted the dowager, before Maude could finish, "that's the
general excuse. Always suspect it, my dear."
"Suspect what?" asked Maude.
"When a man says that, and gets his wife out of the way with it, rely
upon it he is pursuing some nice little interests of his own."
Lady Hartledon understood the implication; she felt nettled, and a flush
rose to her face. In her husband's loyalty (always excepting his feeling
towards Miss Ashton) she rested fully assured.
"You did not allow me to finish," was the cold rejoinder. "Business _is_
keeping him in town, for one thing; for another, I think he cannot get
over his dislike to face the Ashtons."
"Rubbish!" cried the wrathful dowager. "He does not tell you what the
business is, does he?" she cynically added.
"I happen to know," answered Maude. "The Ashtons are bringing an action
against him for breach of promise; and he and Mr. Carr the barrister are
trying to arrange it without its coming to a trial."
The old lady opened her eyes and her mouth.
"It is true. They lay the damages at ten thousand pounds!"
With a shriek the countess-dowager began to dance. Ten thousand pounds!
Ten thousand pounds would keep her for ever, invested at good interest.
She called the parson some unworthy names.
"I cannot give you any of the details," said Maude, in answer to the
questions pressed upon her. "Percival will never speak of it, or allow
me to do so. I learnt it--I can hardly tell you how I learnt it--by
implication, I think; for it was never expressly told me. We had a
mysterious visit one night from some old parson--parson or lawyer; and
Percival and Mr. Carr, who happened to be at our house, were closeted
with him for an hour or two. I saw they were agitated, and guessed what
it was; Dr. Ashton was bringing an action. They could not deny it."
"The vile old hypocrite!" cried the incensed dowager. "Ten thousand
pounds! Are you sure it is as much as that, Maude?"
"Quite. Mr. Carr told me the amount."
"I wonder you encourage that man to your house."
"It was one of the things I stood out against--fruitlessly," was the
quiet answer. "But I believe he means well to me; and I am sure he is
doing what he can to serve my husband. They are often together about this
business."
"_Of course_ Hartledon resists the claim?"
"I don't know. I think they are trying to compromise it, so that it shall
not come into court."
"What does Hartledon think of it?"
"It is worrying his life out. No, mamma, it is not too strong an
expression. He says nothing; but I can see that it is half killing him.
I don't believe he has slept properly since the news was brought to him."
"What a simpleton he must be! And that man will stand up in the pulpit
to-morrow and preach of charity!" continued the dowager, turning her
animadversions upon Dr. Ashton. "You are a hypocrite too, Maude, for
trying to deceive me. You and Hartledon are _not_ on good terms; don't
tell me! He would never have let you come down alone."
Lady Hartledon would not reply. She felt vexed with her mother, vexed
with her husband, vexed on all sides; and she took refuge in her fatigue
and was silent.
The dowager went to church on the following day. Maude would not go. The
hot anger flushed into her face at the thought of showing herself there
for the first time, unaccompanied by her husband: to Maude's mind it
seemed that she must look to others so very much like a deserted wife.
She comes home alone; he stays in London! "Ah, why did he not come down
only for this one Sunday, and go back again--if he must have gone?" she
thought.
A month or two ago Maude had not cared enough for him to reason like
this. The countess-dowager ensconced herself in a corner of the Hartledon
state-pew, and from her blinking eyes looked out upon the Ashtons. Anne,
with her once bright face looking rather wan, her modest demeanour; Mrs.
Ashton, so essentially a gentlewoman; the doctor, sensible, clever,
charitable, beyond all doubt a good man--a feeling came over the mind of
the sometimes obtuse woman that of all the people before her they looked
the least likely to enter on the sort of lawsuit spoken of by Maude. But
never a doubt occurred to her that they _had_ entered on it.
Lady Hartledon remained at home, her prayer-book in her hand. She was
thinking she could steal out to the evening service; it might not be so
much noticed then, her being alone. Listlessly enough she sat, toying
with her prayer-book rather than reading it. She had never pretended to
be religious, had not been trained to be so; and reading a prayer-book,
when not in church, was quite unusual to her. But there are seasons in
a woman's life, times when peril is looked forward to, that bring thought
even to the most careless nature. Maude was trying to play at "being
good," and was reading the psalms for the day in an absent fashion, her
thoughts elsewhere; and the morning passed on. The quiet apathy of her
present state, compared with the restless fever which had stirred her
during her last sojourn at Hartledon, was remarkable.
Suddenly there burst in upon her the countess-dowager: that estimable
lady's bonnet awry, her face scarlet, herself in a commotion.
"I didn't suppose you'd have done it, Maude! You might play tricks upon
other people, I think, but not upon your own mother."
The interlude was rather welcome to Maude, rousing her from her apathy.
Not for some few moments, however, could she understand the cause of
complaint.
It appeared that the countess-dowager, with that absence of all sense of
the fitness of things which so eminently characterized her, had joined
the Ashtons after service, inquiring with quite motherly solicitude after
Mrs. Ashton's health, complimenting Anne upon her charming looks; making
herself, in short, as agreeable as she knew how, and completely ignoring
the past in regard to her son-in-law. Gentlewomen in mind and manners,
they did not repulse her, were even courteously civil; and she graciously
accompanied them across the road to the Rectory-gate, and there took a
cordial leave, saying she would look in on the morrow.
In returning she met Dr. Ashton. He was passing her with nothing but a
bow; but he little knew the countess-dowager. She grasped his hand; said
how grieved she was not to have had an opportunity of explaining away her
part in the past; hoped he would let bygones be bygones; and finally,
whilst the clergyman was scheming how to get away from her without
absolute rudeness, she astonished him with a communication touching the
action-at-law. There ensued a little mutual misapprehension, followed by
a few emphatic words of denial from Dr. Ashton; and the countess-dowager
walked away with a scarlet face, and an explosion of anger against her
daughter.
Lady Hartledon was not yet callous to the proprieties of life; and the
intrusion on the Ashtons, which her mother confessed to, half frightened,
half shamed her. But the dowager's wrath at having been misled bore down
everything. Dr. Ashton had entered no action whatever against Lord
Hartledon; had never thought of doing it.
"And you, you wicked, ungrateful girl, to come home to me with such an
invention, and cause me to start off on a fool's errand! Do you suppose I
should have gone and humbled myself to those people, but for hoping to
bring the parson to a sense of what he was doing in going-in for those
enormous damages?"
"I have not come home to you with any invention, mamma. Dr. Ashton has
entered the action."
"He has not," raved the dowager. "It is an infamous hoax you have played
off upon me. You couldn't find any excuse for your husband's staying in
London, and so invented this. What with you, and what with Kirton's
ingratitude, I shall be driven out of house and home!"
"I won't say another word until you are calm and can talk common sense,"
said Maude, leaning back in her chair, and putting down her prayer-book.
"Common sense! What am I talking but common sense? When a child begins to
mislead her own mother, the world ought to come to an end."
Maude took no notice.
There happened to be some water standing on a table, and the dowager
poured out a tumblerful and drank it, though not accustomed to the
beverage. Untying her bonnet-strings she sat down, a little calmer.
"Perhaps you'll explain this at your convenience, Maude."
"There is nothing to explain," was the answer. "What I told you was the
truth. The action _has_ been entered by the Ashtons."
"And I tell you that the action has not."
"I assure you that it has," returned Maude. "I told you of the evening we
first had notice of it, and the damages claimed; do you think I invented
that, or went to sleep and dreamt it? If Val has gone down once to that
Temple about it, he has gone fifty times. He would not go for pleasure."
The countess-dowager sat fanning herself quietly: for her daughter's
words were gaining ground.
"There's a mistake somewhere, Maude, and it is on your side and not mine.
I'll lay my life that no action has been entered by Dr. Ashton. The man
spoke the truth; I can read the truth when I see it as well as anyone:
his face flushed with pain and anger at such a thing being said of him.
It may not be difficult to explain this contradiction."
"Do you think not?" returned Maude, her indifference exciting the
listener to anger.
"_I_ should say Hartledon is deceiving you. If any action is entered
against him at all, it isn't that sort of action; or perhaps the young
lady is not Miss Ashton, but some other; he's just the kind of man to be
drawn into promising marriage to a dozen or two. Very clever of him to
palm you off with this tale: a man may get into five hundred troubles not
convenient to disclose to his wife."
Except that Lady Hartledon's cheek flushed a little, she made no answer;
she held firmly--at least she thought she held firmly--to her own side
of the case. Her mother, on the contrary, adopted the new view, and
dismissed it from her thoughts accordingly.
Maude went to church in the evening, sitting alone in the great pew, pale
and quiet. Anne Ashton was also alone; and the two whilom rivals, the
triumphant and the rejected, could survey each other to their heart's
content.
Not very triumphant was Maude's feeling. Strange perhaps to say, the
suggestion of the old dowager, like instilled poison, was making its way
into her very veins. Her thoughts had been busy with the matter ever
since. One positive conviction lay in her heart--that Dr. Ashton, now
reading the first lesson before her, for he was taking the whole of the
service that evening, could not, under any circumstance, be guilty of a
false assertion or subterfuge. One solution of the difficulty presented
itself to her--that her mother, in her irascibility, had misunderstood
the Rector; and yet that was improbable. As Maude half sat, half lay back
in the pew, for the faint feeling was especially upon her that evening,
she thought she would give a great deal to set the matter at rest.
When the service was over she took the more secluded way home; those of
the servants who had attended returning as usual by the road. On reaching
the turning where the three paths diverged, the faintness which had been
hovering over her all the evening suddenly grew worse; and but for a
friendly tree, she might have fallen. It grew better in a few moments,
but she did not yet quit her support.
Very surprised was the Rector of Calne to come up and see Lady Hartledon
in this position. Every Sunday evening, after service, he went to visit
a man in one of the cottages, who was dying of consumption, and he was on
his way there now. He would have preferred to pass without speaking: but
Lady Hartledon looked in need of assistance; and in common Christian
kindness he could not pass her by.
"I beg your pardon, Lady Hartledon. Are you ill?"
She took his offered arm with her disengaged hand, as an additional
support; and her white face turned a shade whiter.
"A sudden faintness overtook me. I am better now," she said, when able to
speak.
"Will you allow me to walk on with you?"
"Thank you; just a little way. If you will not mind it."
That he must have understood the feeling which prompted the concluding
words was undoubted: and perhaps had Lady Hartledon been in possession
of her keenest senses, she might never have spoken them. Pride and health
go out of us together. Dr. Ashton took her on his arm, and they walked
slowly in the direction of the little bridge. Colour was returning to her
face, strength to her frame.
"The heat of the day has affected you, possibly?"
"Yes, perhaps; I have felt faint at times lately. The church was very hot
to-night."
Nothing more was said until the bridge was gained, and then Maude
released his arm.
"Dr. Ashton, I thank you very much. You have been a friend in need."
"But are you sure you are strong enough to go on alone? I will escort you
to the house if you are not."
"Quite strong enough now. Thank you once again."
As he was bowing his farewell, a sudden impulse to speak, and set the
matter that was troubling her at rest, came over her. Without a moment's
deliberation, without weighing her words, she rushed upon it; the
ostensible plea an apology for her mother's having spoken to him.
"Yes, I told Lady Kirton she was labouring under some misapprehension,"
he quietly answered.
"Will you forgive _me_ also for speaking of it?" she murmured. "Since my
mother came home with the news of what you said, I have been lost in a
sea of conjecture: I could not attend to the service for dwelling upon
it, and might as well not have been in church--a curious confession to
make to you, Dr. Ashton. Is it indeed true that you know nothing of
the matter?"
"Lady Kirton told me in so many words that I had entered an action
against Lord Hartledon for breach of promise, and laid the damages at ten
thousand pounds," returned Dr. Ashton, with a plainness of speech and a
cynical manner that made her blush. And she saw at once that he had done
nothing of the sort; saw it without any more decisive denial.
"But the action has been entered," said Lady Hartledon.
"I beg your pardon, madam. Lord Hartledon is, I should imagine, the only
man living who could suppose me capable of such a thing."
"And you have _not_ entered on it!" she reiterated, half bewildered by
the denial.
"Most certainly not. When I parted with Lord Hartledon on a certain
evening, which probably your ladyship remembers, I washed my hands of him
for good, desiring never to approach him in any way whatever, never hear
of him, never see him again. Your husband, madam, is safe for me: I
desire nothing better than to forget that such a man is in existence."
Lifting his hat, he walked away. And Lady Hartledon stood and gazed after
him as one in a dream.