COMFORTED.
When Herbert Fitzgerald got back to Castle Richmond it was nearly
dark. He opened the hall door without ringing the bell, and walking
at once into the dining-room, threw himself into a large leathern
chair which always stood near the fire-place. There was a bright fire
burning on the hearth, and he drew himself close to it, putting his
wet feet up on to the fender, thinking that he would at any rate warm
himself before he went in among any of the family. The room, with
its deep red curtains and ruby-embossed paper, was almost dark, and
he knew that he might remain there unseen and unnoticed for the
next half hour. If he could only get a glass of wine! He tried the
cellaret, which was as often open as locked, but now unfortunately
it was closed. In such a case it was impossible to say whether the
butler had the key or Aunt Letty; so he sat himself down without that
luxury.
By this time, as he well knew, all would have been told to his
mother, and his first duty would be to go to her--to go to her and
comfort her, if comfort might be possible, by telling her that he
could bear it all; that as far as he was concerned title and wealth
and a proud name were as nothing to him in comparison with his
mother's love. In whatever guise he may have appeared before Lady
Desmond, he would not go to his mother with a fainting heart. She
should not hear his teeth chatter, nor see his limbs shake. So he sat
himself down there that he might become warm, and in five minutes he
was fast asleep.
How long he slept he did not know; not very long, probably; but
when he awoke it was quite dark. He gazed at the fire for a moment,
bethought himself of where he was and why, shook himself to get rid
of his slumber, and then roused himself in his chair. As he did so a
soft sweet voice close to his shoulder spoke to him. "Herbert," it
said, "are you awake?" And he found that his mother, seated by his
side on a low stool, had been watching him in his sleep.
"Mother!" he exclaimed.
"Herbert, my child, my son!" And the mother and son were fast locked
in each other's arms.
He had sat down there thinking how he would go to his mother and
offer her solace in her sorrow; how he would bid her be of good
cheer, and encourage her to bear the world as the world had now
fallen to her lot. He had pictured to himself that he would find
her sinking in despair, and had promised himself that with his
vows, his kisses, and his prayers, he would bring her back to her
self-confidence, and induce her to acknowledge that God's mercy was
yet good to her. But now, on awakening, he discovered that she had
been tending him in his misery, and watching him while he slept, that
she might comfort him with her caresses the moment that he awoke to
the remembrance of his misfortunes.
"Herbert, Herbert, my son, my son!" she said again, as she pressed
him close in her arms.
"Mother, has he told you?"
Yes, she had learned it all; but hardly more than she had known
before; or, at any rate, not more than she had expected. As she now
told him, for many days past she had felt that this trouble which had
fallen upon his father must have come from the circumstances of their
marriage. And she would have spoken out, she said, when the idea
became clear to her, had she not then been told that Mr. Prendergast
had been invited to come thither from London. Then she knew that she
had better remain silent, at any rate till his visit had been made.
And Herbert again sat in the chair, and his mother crouched, or
almost kneeled, on the cushion at his knee. "Dearest, dearest,
dearest mother," he said, as he supported her head against his
shoulder, "we must love each other now more than ever we have loved."
"And you forgive us, Herbert, for all that we have done to you?"
"Mother, if you speak in that way to me you will kill me. My darling,
darling mother!"
There was but little more said between them upon the matter--but
little more, at least, in words; but there was an infinity of
caresses, and deep--deep assurances of undying love and confidence.
And then she asked him about his bride, and he told her where he
had been, and what had happened. "You must not claim her, Herbert,"
she said to him. "God is good, and will teach you to bear even that
also."
"Must I not?" he asked, with a sadly plaintive voice.
"No, my child. You invited her to share your prosperity, and would it
be just--"
"But, mother, if she wills it?"
"It is for you to give her back her troth, then leave it to time and
her own heart."
"But if she love me, mother, she will not take back her troth. Would
I take back hers because she was in sorrow?"
"Men and women, Herbert, are different. The oak cares not whether the
creeper which hangs to it be weak or strong. If it be weak the oak
can give it strength. But the staff which has to support the creeper
must needs have strength of its own."
He made no further answer to her, but understood that he must do as
she bade him. He understood now also, without many arguments within
himself, that he had no right to expect from Clara Desmond that
adherence to him and his misfortunes which he would have owed to her
had she been unfortunate. He understood this now; but still he hoped.
"Two hearts that have once become as one cannot be separated," he
said to himself that night, as he resolved that it was his duty to
write to her, unconditionally returning to her her pledges.
"But, Herbert, what a state you are in!" said Lady Fitzgerald, as
the flame of the coal glimmering out, threw a faint light upon his
clothes.
"Yes, mother; I have been walking."
"And you are wet!"
"I am nearly dry now. I was wet. But, mother, I am tired and fagged.
It would do me good if I could get a glass of wine."
She rang the bell, and gave her orders calmly--though every servant
in the house now knew the whole truth,--and then lit a candle
herself, and looked at him. "My child, what have you done to
yourself? Oh, Herbert, you will be ill!" And then, with his arm round
her waist, she took him up to her own room, and sat by him while he
took off his muddy boots and clammy socks, and made him hot drinks,
and tended him as she had done when he was a child. And yet she
had that day heard of her great ruin! With truth, indeed, had Mr.
Prendergast said that she was made of more enduring material than Sir
Thomas.
And she endeavoured to persuade him to go to his bed; but in this he
would not listen to her. He must, he said, see his father that night.
"You have been with him, mother, since--since--."
"Oh, yes; directly after Mr. Prendergast left me."
"Well?"
"He cried like a child, Herbert. We both sobbed together like two
children. It was very piteous. But I think I left him better than he
has been. He knows now that those men cannot come again to harass
him."
Herbert gnashed his teeth, and clenched his fist as he thought of
them; but he could not speak of them, or mention their name before
his mother. What must her thoughts be, as she remembered that elder
man and looked back to her early childhood!
"He is very weak," she went on to say: "almost helplessly weak now,
and does not seem to think of leaving his bed. I have begged him to
let me send to Dublin for Sir Henry; but he says that nothing ails
him."
"And who is with him now, mother?"
"The girls are both there."
"And Mr. Prendergast?"
Lady Fitzgerald then explained to him, that Mr. Prendergast had
returned to Dublin that afternoon, starting twenty-four hours
earlier than he intended,--or, at any rate, than he had said that
he intended. Having done his work there, he had felt that he would
now only be in the way. And, moreover, though his work was done at
Castle Richmond, other work in the same matter had still to be done
in England. Mr. Prendergast had very little doubt as to the truth
of Mollett's story;--indeed we may say he had no doubt; otherwise
he would hardly have made it known to all that world round Castle
Richmond. But nevertheless it behoved him thoroughly to sift the
matter. He felt tolerably sure that he should find Mollett in London;
and whether he did or no, he should be able to identify, or not to
identify, that scoundrel with the Mr. Talbot who had hired Chevy
Chase Lodge, in Dorsetshire, and who had undoubtedly married poor
Mary Wainwright.
"He left a kind message for you," said Lady Fitzgerald.--My readers
must excuse me if I still call her Lady Fitzgerald, for I cannot
bring my pen to the use of any other name. And it was so also with
the dependents and neighbours of Castle Richmond, when the time came
that the poor lady felt that she was bound publicly to drop her
title. It was not in her power to drop it; no effort that she could
make would induce those around her to call her by another name.
"He bade me say," she continued, "that if your future course of life
should take you to London, you are to go to him, and look to him as
another father. He has no child of his own," he said, "and you shall
be to him as a son."
"I will be no one's son but yours,--yours and my father's," he said,
again embracing her.
And then, when, under his mother's eye, he had eaten and drank and
made himself warm, he did go to his father and found both his sisters
sitting there. They came and clustered round him, taking hold of
his hands and looking up into his face, loving him, and pitying
him, and caressing him with their eyes; but standing there by their
father's bed, they said little or nothing. Nor did Sir Thomas say
much;--except this, indeed, that, just as Herbert was leaving him,
he declared with a faint voice, that henceforth his son should be
master of that house, and the disposer of that property--"As long as
I live!" he exclaimed with his weak voice; "as long as I live!"
"No, father; not so."
"Yes, yes! as long as I live. It will be little that you will have,
even so--very little. But so it shall be as long as I live."
Very little indeed, poor man, for, alas! his days were numbered.
And then, when Herbert left the room, Emmeline followed him. She had
ever been his dearest sister, and now she longed to be with him that
she might tell him how she loved him, and comfort him with her tears.
And Clara too--Clara whom she had welcomed as a sister!--she must
learn now how Clara would behave, for she had already made herself
sure that her brother had been at Desmond Court, the herald of his
own ruin.
"May I come with you, Herbert?" she asked, closing in round him and
getting under his arm. How could he refuse her? So they went together
and sat over a fire in a small room that was sacred to her and her
sister, and there, with many sobs on her part and much would-be brave
contempt of poverty on his, they talked over the altered world as it
now showed itself before them.
"And you did not see her?" she asked, when with many efforts she had
brought the subject round to Clara Desmond and her brother's walk to
Desmond Court.
"No; she left the room at my own bidding. I could not have told it
myself to her."
"And you cannot know then what she would say?"
"No, I cannot know what she would say; but I know now what I must
say myself. All that is over, Emmeline. I cannot ask her to marry a
beggar."
"Ask her; no! there will be no need of asking her; she has already
given you her promise. You do not think that she will desert you? you
do not wish it?"
Herein were contained two distinct questions, the latter of which
Herbert did not care to answer. "I shall not call it desertion," he
said; "indeed the proposal will come from me. I shall write to her,
telling her that she need think about me no longer. Only that I am so
weary I would do it now."
"And how will she answer you? If she is the Clara that I take her
for she will throw your proposal back into your face. She will tell
you that it is not in your power to reject her now. She will swear
to you, that let your words be what they may, she will think of
you--more now than she has ever thought in better days. She will tell
you of her love in words that she could not use before. I know she
will. I know that she is good, and true, and honest, and generous.
Oh, I should die if I thought she were false! But, Herbert, I am sure
that she is true. You can write your letter, and we shall see."
Herbert, with wise arguments learned from his mother, reasoned with
his sister, explaining to her that Clara was now by no means bound to
cling to him; but as he spoke them his arm fastened itself closely
round his sister's waist, for the words which she uttered with so
much energy were comfortable to him.
And then, seated there, before he moved from the room, he made her
bring him pens, ink, and paper, and he wrote his letter to Clara
Desmond. She would fain have stayed with him while he did so, sitting
at his feet, and looking into his face, and trying to encourage his
hope as to what Clara's answer might be; but this he would not allow;
so she went again to her father's room, having succeeded in obtaining
a promise that Clara's answer should be shown to her. And the letter,
when it was written, copied, and recopied, ran as follows:--
Castle Richmond, ---- night.
My dearest Clara,--
It was with great difficulty that he could satisfy himself with that,
or indeed with any other mode of commencement. In the short little
love-notes which had hitherto gone from him, sent from house to
house, he had written to her with appellations of endearment of his
own--as all lovers do; and as all lovers seem to think that no lovers
have done before themselves--with appellations which are so sweet to
those who write, and so musical to those who read, but which sound
so ludicrous when barbarously made public in hideous law courts by
brazen-browed lawyers with mercenary tongues. In this way only had
he written, and each of these sweet silly songs of love had been as
full of honey as words could make it. But he had never yet written to
her, on a full sheet of paper, a sensible positive letter containing
thoughts and facts, as men do write to women and women also to men,
when the lollypops and candied sugar-drops of early love have passed
away. Now he was to write his first serious letter to her,--and
probably his last,--and it was with difficulty that he could get
himself over the first three words; but there they were decided on at
last.
My dearest Clara,
Before you get this your mother will have told you
all that which I could not bring myself to speak out
yesterday, as long as you were in the room. I am sure you
will understand now why I begged you to go away, and will
not think the worse of me for doing so. You now know the
whole truth, and I am sure that you will feel for us all
here.
Having thought a good deal upon the matter, chiefly during
my walk home from Desmond Court, and indeed since I
have been at home, I have come to the resolution that
everything between us must be over. It would be unmanly
in me to wish to ruin you because I myself am ruined. Our
engagement was, of course, made on the presumption that
I should inherit my father's estate; as it is I shall
not do so, and therefore I beg that you will regard that
engagement as at an end. Of my own love for you I will say
nothing. But I know that you have loved me truly, and that
all this, therefore, will cause you great grief. It is
better, however, that it should be so, than that I should
seek to hold you to a promise which was made under such
different circumstances.
You will, of course, show this letter to your mother. She,
at any rate, will approve of what I am now doing; and so
will you when you allow yourself to consider it calmly.
We have not known each other so long that there is much
for us to give back to each other. If you do not think it
wrong I should like still to keep that lock of your hair,
to remind me of my first love--and, as I think, my only
one. And you, I hope, will not be afraid to have near you
the one little present that I made you.
And now, dearest Clara, good-bye. Let us always think,
each of the other, as of a very dear friend. May God bless
you, and preserve you, and make you happy.
Yours, with sincere affection,
HERBERT FITZGERALD.
This, when at last he had succeeded in writing it, he read over and
over again; but on each occasion he said to himself that it was
cold and passionless, stilted and unmeaning. It by no means pleased
him, and seemed as though it could bring but one answer--a cold
acquiescence in the proposal which he so coldly made. But yet he knew
not how to improve it. And after all it was a true exposition of
that which he had determined to say. All the world--her world and
his world--would think it better that they should part; and let the
struggle cost him what it would, he would teach himself to wish
that it might be so--if not for his own sake, then for hers. So he
fastened the letter, and taking it with him determined to send it
over, so that it should reach Clara quite early on the following
morning.
And then having once more visited his father, and once more kissed
his mother, he betook himself to bed. It had been with him one of
those days which seem to pass away without reference to usual hours
and periods. It had been long dark, and he seemed to have been
hanging about the house, doing nothing and aiding nobody, till he
was weary of himself. So he went off to bed, almost wondering, as he
bethought himself of what had happened to him within the last two
days, that he was able to bear the burden of his life so easily as he
did. He betook himself to bed; and with the letter close at his hand,
so that he might despatch it when he awoke, he was soon asleep. After
all, that walk, terrible as it had been, was in the end serviceable
to him.
He slept without waking till the light of the February morning was
beginning to dawn into his room, and then he was roused by a servant
knocking at the door. It was grievous enough, that awaking to his
sorrow after the pleasant dreams of the night.
"Here is a letter, Mr. Herbert, from Desmond Court," said Richard.
"The boy as brought it says as how--"
"A letter from Desmond Court," said Herbert, putting out his hand
greedily.
"Yes, Mr. Herbert. The boy's been here this hour and better. I warn't
just up and about myself, or I wouldn't have let 'em keep it from
you, not half a minute."
"And where is he? I have a letter to send to Desmond Court. But never
mind. Perhaps--"
"It's no good minding, for the gossoon's gone back any ways." And
then Richard, having drawn the blind, and placed a little table by
the bed-head, left his young master to read the despatch from Desmond
Court. Herbert, till he saw the writing, feared that it was from the
countess; but the letter was from Clara. She also had thought good to
write before she betook herself to bed, and she had been earlier in
despatching her messenger. Here is her letter:
Dear Herbert, my own Herbert,
I have heard it all. But remember this; nothing, nothing,
_nothing_ can make any change between you and me. I will
hear of no arguments that are to separate us. I know
beforehand what you will say, but I will not regard
it--not in the least. I love you ten times the more for
all your unhappiness; and as I would have shared your good
fortune, I claim my right to share your bad fortune. _Pray
believe me_, that nothing shall turn me from this; for I
will _not be given up_.
Give my kindest love to your dear, dear, dearest
mother--my mother, as she is and must be; and to my
darling girls. I do so wish I could be with them, and with
you, my own Herbert. I cannot help writing in confusion,
but I will explain all when I see you. I have been so
unhappy.
Your own faithful
CLARA.
Having read this, Herbert Fitzgerald, in spite of his affliction, was
comforted.