THE END.
Among playgoing folk, in the following April there was a great deal
of talk about the marriage of that very favourite actress, Mrs.
Morton. She appeared in the playbills as Mrs. George Hotspur, late
Mrs. Morton. Very many spoke of her familiarly, who knew her only on
the stage,--as is the custom of men in speaking of actresses,--and
perhaps some few of these who spoke of her did know her personally.
"Poor Lucy!" said one middle-aged gentleman over fifty, who spent
four nights of every week at one theatre or another. "When she was
little more than a child they married her to that reprobate Morton.
Since that she has managed to keep her head above water by hard work;
and now she has gone and married another worse than the first!"
"She is older now, and will be able to manage George," said another.
"Manage him! If anybody can manage to keep him out of debt, or from
drink either, I'll eat him."
"But he must be Sir George when old Sir Harry dies," said he who was
defending the prudence of the marriage.
"Yes, and won't have a penny. Will it help her to be able to put Lady
Hotspur on the bills? Not in the least. And the women can't forgive
her and visit her. She has not been good enough for that. A grand old
family has been disgraced, and a good actress destroyed. That's my
idea of this marriage."
"I thought Georgy was going to marry his cousin--that awfully proud
minx," said one young fellow.
"When it came to the scratch, she would not have him," said another.
"But there had been promises, and so, to make it all square, Sir
Harry paid his debts."
"I don't believe a bit about his debts being paid," said the
middle-aged gentleman who was fond of going to the theatre.
Yes, George Hotspur was married: and, as far as any love went
with him, had married the woman he liked best. Though the actress
was worlds too good for him, there was not about her that air of
cleanliness and almost severe purity which had so distressed him
while he had been forced to move in the atmosphere of his cousin.
After the copying of the letter and the settlement of the bills, Mrs.
Morton had found no difficulty in arranging matters as she pleased.
She had known the man perhaps better than any one else had known him;
and yet she thought it best to marry him. We must not inquire into
her motives, though we may pity her fate.
She did not intend, however, to yield herself as an easy prey to
his selfishness. She had also her ideas of reforming him, and
ideas which, as they were much less grand, might possibly be more
serviceable than those which for a while had filled the mind and
heart of Emily Hotspur. "George," she said, one day to him, "what
do you mean to do?" This was before the marriage was fixed;--when
nothing more was fixed than that idea of marriage which had long
existed between them.
"Of course we shall be spliced now," said he.
"And if so, what then? I shall keep to the stage, of course."
"We couldn't do with the £500 a year, I suppose, any how?"
"Not very well, I'm afraid, seeing that as a habit you eat and drink
more than that yourself. But, with all that I can do, there must be a
change. I tell you for your own sake as well as for mine, unless you
can drop drinking, we had better give it up even yet." After that,
for a month or two under her auspices, he did "drop it,"--or at least
so far dropped it as to induce her to run the risk. In April they
were married, and she must be added to the list of women who have
sacrificed themselves on behalf of men whom they have known to be
worthless. We need not pursue his career further; but we may be sure,
that though she watched him very closely, and used a power over him
of which he was afraid, still he went gradually from bad to worse,
and was found at last to be utterly past redemption. He was one
who in early life had never known what it was to take delight in
postponing himself to another; and now there was no spark in him of
love or gratitude by which fire could be kindled or warmth created.
It had come to that with him,--that to eat and to drink was all that
was left to him; and it was coming to that too, that the latter of
these two pleasant recreations would soon be all that he had within
his power of enjoyment. There are such men; and of all human beings
they are the most to be pitied. They have intellects; they do think;
the hours with them are terribly long;--and they have no hope!
The Hotspurs of Humblethwaite remained at home till Christmas was
passed, and then at once started for Rome. Sir Harry and Lady
Elizabeth both felt that it must be infinitely better for their girl
to be away; and then there came the doctor's slow advice. There was
nothing radically amiss with Miss Hotspur, the doctor said; but it
would be better for her to be taken elsewhere. She, knowing how her
father loved his home and the people around him, begged that she
might be allowed to stay. Nothing ailed her, she said, save only that
ache at the heart which no journey to Rome could cure. "What's the
use of it, Papa?" she said. "You are unhappy because I'm altered.
Would you wish me not to be altered after what has passed? Of course
I am altered. Let us take it as it is, and not think about it." She
had adopted certain practices in life, however, which Sir Harry was
determined to check, at any rate for the time. She spent her days
among the poor, and when not with them she was at church. And there
was always some dreary book in her hands when they were together in
the drawing-room after dinner. Of church-going and visiting the poor,
and of good books, Sir Harry approved thoroughly; but even of good
things such as these there may be too much. So Sir Harry and Lady
Elizabeth got a courier who spoke all languages, and a footman who
spoke German, and two maids, of whom one pretended to speak French,
and had trunks packed without number, and started for Rome. All that
wealth could do was done; but let the horseman be ever so rich, or
the horseman's daughter, and the stud be ever so good, it is seldom
they can ride fast enough to shake off their cares.
In Rome they remained till April, and while they were there the name
of Cousin George was never once mentioned in the hearing of Sir
Harry. Between the mother and daughter no doubt there was speech
concerning him. But to Emily's mind he was always present. He was to
her as a thing abominable, and yet necessarily tied to her by bonds
which she could never burst asunder. She felt like some poor princess
in a tale, married to an ogre from whom there was no escape. She had
given herself up to one utterly worthless, and she knew it. But yet
she had given herself, and could not revoke the gift. There was,
indeed, still left to her that possibility of a miracle, but of
that she whispered nothing even to her mother. If there were to
be a miracle, it must be of God; and at God's throne she made her
whispers. In these days she was taken about from sight to sight with
apparent willingness. She saw churches, pictures, statues, and ruins,
and seemed to take an interest in them. She was introduced to the
Pope, and allowed herself to be apparelled in her very best for that
august occasion. But, nevertheless, the tenor of her way and the
fashions of her life, as was her daily dress, were grey and sad and
solemn. She lived as one who knew that the backbone of her life was
broken. Early in April they left Rome and went north, to the Italian
lakes, and settled themselves for a while at Lugano. And here the
news reached them of the marriage of George Hotspur.
Lady Elizabeth read the marriage among the advertisements in the
_Times_, and at once took it to Sir Harry, withdrawing the paper from
the room in a manner which made Emily sure that there was something
in it which she was not intended to see. But Sir Harry thought that
the news should be told to her, and he himself told it.
"Already married!" she said. "And who is the lady?"
"You had better not ask, my dear."
"Why not ask? I may, at any rate, know her name."
"Mrs. Morton. She was a widow,--and an actress."
"Oh yes, I know," said Emily, blushing; for in those days in which
it had been sought to wean her from George Hotspur, a word or two
about this lady had been said to her by Lady Elizabeth under the
instructions of Sir Harry. And there was no more said on that
occasion. On that day, and on the following, her father observed no
change in her; and the mother spoke nothing of her fears. But on
the next morning Lady Elizabeth said that she was not as she had
been. "She is thinking of him still--always," she whispered to her
husband. He made no reply, but sat alone, out in the garden, with his
newspaper before him, reading nothing, but cursing that cousin of his
in his heart.
There could be no miracle now for her! Even the thought of that was
gone. The man who had made her believe that he loved her, only in the
last autumn,--though indeed it seemed to her that years had rolled
over since, and made her old, worn-out, and weary;--who had asked for
and obtained the one gift she had to give, the bestowal of her very
self; who had made her in her baby folly believe that he was almost
divine, whereas he was hardly human in his lowness,--this man, whom
she still loved in a way which she could not herself understand,
loving and despising him utterly at the same time,--was now the
husband of another woman. Even he, she had felt, would have thought
something of her. But she had been nothing to him but the means of
escape from disreputable difficulties. She could not sustain her
contempt for herself as she remembered this, and yet she showed but
little of it in her outward manner.
"I'll go when you like, Papa," she said when the days of May had
come, "but I'd sooner stay here a little longer if you wouldn't
mind." There was no talk of going home. It was only a question
whether they should go further north, to Lucerne, before the warm
weather came.
"Of course we will remain; why not?" said Sir Harry. "Mamma and I
like Lugano amazingly." Poor Sir Harry. As though he could have liked
any place except Humblethwaite!
Our story is over now. They did remain till the scorching July sun
had passed over their heads, and August was upon them; and then--they
had buried her in the small Protestant cemetery at Lugano, and Sir
Harry Hotspur was without a child and without an heir.
He returned home in the early autumn, a grey, worn-out, tottering old
man, with large eyes full of sorrow, and a thin mouth that was seldom
opened to utter a word. In these days, I think, he recurred to
his early sorrow, and thought almost more of his son than of his
daughter. But he had instant, pressing energy left to him for one
deed. Were he to die now without a further will, Humblethwaite and
Scarrowby would go to the wretch who had destroyed him. What was the
title to him now, or even the name? His wife's nephew was an Earl
with an enormous rent-roll, something so large that Humblethwaite and
Scarrowby to him would be little more than additional labour. But to
this young man Humblethwaite and Scarrowby were left, and the glories
of the House of Hotspur were at an end.
And so the story of the House of Humblethwaite has been told.
London: R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor Printers Bread Street Hill.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Specific changes in wording of the text are listed below.
Chapter V, paragraph 1. The word "of" was deleted
from the sentence which in the original read:
It was of this taste OF which Pope was conscious
when he declared that every woman was at heart a rake.
Chapter VII, paragraph 17. The word "like" was added
to the sentence: A girl LIKE that learns everything.
Chapter VIII, paragraph 33. The spelling of the word
"commencment" was changed in the sentence beginning:
George had determined from the COMMENCEMENT of his
visit . . .
Chapter XX, paragraph 4. The word "uncle" was changed
to "cousin" in the sentence: "I am so sorry to give you
this trouble," said Cousin George, coming forward to
greet his COUSIN.