There is nothing perfect in this world. If Bertie Hardwick had been like
his cousin, a great county potentate, on the same level as Miss
Courtenay of Langton-Courtenay, they would both have been happier in
their betrothal. Royal marriages are sometimes very happy, but it must
be hard upon a Queen to be obliged to take the initiative in such a
matter; and it was hard upon Kate, notwithstanding that she did it
bravely, putting away all false pride. And though Bertie Hardwick went
home floating, as it were, through the wintry air, in one sense, in a
flood of delicious and unimaginable happiness; yet, in another sense, he
walked very prosaically along a flinty, frost-bound road, and knocked
his feet against stones and frozen cart-ruts, as he took the short way
home to the Rectory. Cold as it was, he walked about the garden half the
night, and smoked out many cigars, half thinking of Kate’s loveliness
and sweetness, half of the poor figure he would cut--not even a
briefless barrister, a poor Templar reading for the law--as the husband
of the great heiress. Why had not she been Ombra, and Ombra the heiress?
But, in that case, of course, they could not have married, or dreamt of
marrying at all. He thought it over till his head ached, till his brain
swam. Ought he to give up such a hope? ought he to wound her and destroy
all his own hopes of happiness, and perhaps hers, because she was rich
and he was poor?--or should he accept this happiness which was put into
his hands, which he had never hoped for, never dared to do anything to
gain?
His mother waking, and hearing steps, rushed to the window in the cold,
and looking out saw the red glow of his cigar curving round and round,
and out and in among the trees. What could be the matter with the boy?
She opened the window, and put out her head, though it was so cold, and
called to him that he would get his death; that he would be
frost-bitten; that he was mad to expose himself so. ‘My dear boy, for
heaven’s sake, go to bed!’ she cried; and her voice rung out into the
deep night and stillness so that it was heard in the sexton’s cottage,
where it was supposed to be a cry for help against robbers. Old John
drew the bed-clothes over his old nose at the sound, and breathed a sigh
for his Rector, who, he thought, was probably being smothered in his bed
at that moment--but it was too cold to interfere.
Next morning, Bertie had a long conversation with his father, and the
two together proceeded to the Hall, where they had a still longer
interview with Mr. Courtenay. It was not a pleasant interview. Kate had
already seen her uncle, as in duty bound seeing the part which she had
taken upon herself in the transaction, and Mr. Courtenay had foamed at
the mouth with disgust and rage.
‘Is it for this I have watched over you so carefully?’ he cried, half
frantic.
‘Have you watched over me, so carefully?’ said Kate, looking at him with
her bright eyes.
And what could he reply? She would be of age in six months, and then it
would matter very little what objections, or difficulties he might
choose to make. It was, with the full consciousness of this that all
parties discussed the question. Had the heiress been eighteen, things
would have borne a very different aspect; but as she was nearly
twenty-one, with the shadow of her coming independence upon her, she had
a right to her own opinion. Her guardian did all a man could do in the
circumstances to make himself disagreeable, but that could not, of
course, last.
And when it was all over, the news went somehow like an electric shock
through the whole neighbourhood. The Rectory received it first, and lay
for ten minutes or so as if stunned by the blow; and then gradually, no
one could tell how, it spread itself abroad. It had been fully
determined that Bertie should return to town two days after Twelfth
Night; but now he did not return to town--what was the use? ‘If I must
be Prince Consort,’ he said, with a sigh that was half real and half
fictitious, ‘I had better make up my mind to it, and go in for my new
duties.’ These duties, however, consisted, in the meantime, in hanging
about Kate, and following her everywhere. They were heavy enough, for
she teased him, as it was in her nature to do; but he did not feel them
hard. They made a pilgrimage to the brook-side, where, as Kate said, ‘it
was all settled’ six years ago. They talked over a thousand
recollections, half of which would never have occurred to them but for
this sweet leisure, and the new light under which the past glowed, and
shone. They did a great many foolish things, as was to be expected; and
they were as happy as most other young people in the same foolish
circumstances. It was only when he was away from her that Bertie ever
grew red at the thought of the contrast of fortune. He called himself
Prince Consort in Kate’s company; but then the title did not hurt. It
did--a little--when he was alone, and had time to think. But, after all,
even when there is a sting like this in it, it is easy to content one’s
self with happiness, and to find a score of excellent reasons why that,
and nothing else, should be one’s lot.
Lady Caryisfort had gone away a week before. She came back, when she
heard of it, in consternation, to remonstrate, if that was possible. But
when she arrived at Langton-Courtenay, and saw how things were, Lady
Caryisfort was much too sensible a woman to make herself disagreeable.
She said, on the contrary, that she had divined how it would be from the
beginning, and had been quite certain since the marriage of ‘the
Eldridges’ had been made known to the world. I hope what she said was
true; but it was not to say this that she had come all the way from
Dorsetshire. She remained only two days, and took a very affectionate
leave of Kate, and sent her a charming present when she married; but it
was a long time before they met again. It was disappointing not to have
an heiress to present to the world, to carry about in her train; but
then it was her own fault. Had she not lingered in Italy till the last
season was over, how different things might have been! She had no good
answer to give to Mr. Courtenay when he taunted her with this. She knew
very well herself why she lingered, and probably so did he; and it had
come to nothing after all. However, we may say, for the satisfaction of
the reader, that it did not end in nothing. Lady Caryisfort continued
her independent, and, as people said, enjoyable life for some years
more. Then it suddenly occurred to her all at once that to go every year
from London to Paris, and from Paris to Italy, and from Italy back to
London, with a quantity of dull visits between, was an unprofitable way
of spending one’s life; so she went to Florence early one season, and
married Antonio Buoncompagni after all. I hope she was very comfortable,
and liked it; but, at all events, so far as this story is concerned,
there was an end of her.
Mrs. Anderson stayed with her niece for a very long time; naturally her
presence was necessary till Kate married--and then she returned to
receive the pair when they came back after their honeymoon. But when the
honeymoon was long over Mrs. Anderson still stayed, and was more firmly
established at Langton-Courtenay than in her daughter’s great house,
where old Lady Eldridge lived with the young people, and where sometimes
there were shadows visible, even on the clear sky of prosperity and
well-doing. Ombra was Ombra still, even when she was happy--a nature
often sweet, and never intentionally unkind, but apt to become
self-absorbed, and disposed to be cloudy. Her mother never uttered a
word of complaint, and was very happy to pay her a visit now and then;
but her home gradually became fixed with her adopted child. She and old
Francesca faded and grew old together--that is to say, Mrs. Anderson
grew older, while Francesca bloomed perennial, no more aged at seventy,
to all appearance, than she had been at fifty. Never was such an
invaluable old woman in a house. She was the joy of all the young
generation for twenty years, and her stories grew more full of detail
and more lavishly decorated with circumstances every day.
There is not much more to add. If we went further on in the history,
should we not have new threads to take up, perhaps new complications to
unravel, new incidents with every new hour? For life does not sit still
and fold its hands in happiness any more than in sorrow--something must
always be happening; and when Providence does not send events, we take
care to make them. But Providence happily provided the events in the
house of Kate and Bertie. He made an admirable Prince Consort. He went
into Parliament, and took up politics warmly, and finally got up to a
secondary seat in the Cabinet, which Kate was infinitely proud of. She
made him rich and important--which, after all, as she said, were things
which any cheese-monger’s daughter could have done, who had money
enough. But he made her, what few people could have done, the wife of a
Cabinet Minister. When the Right Honourable H. Hardwick came down to
Westerton, the town took off its hat to him, and considered itself
honoured as no Mr. Courtenay of Langton-Courtenay had ever honoured it.
Thus things went well with those who aimed well, which does not always
happen, though sometimes it is permitted us for the consolation of the
race.
W. H. Smith & Son, Printers, London, W.C.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Ice.