THE point discussed in our last chapter, if not a momentous one in
itself, was destined to exercise a very important influence upon the
fortunes of the Onslow family. The interview between Sir Stafford and
the Viscount scarcely occupied five minutes; after which the Baronet
wrote a note of some length to her Ladyship, to which she as promptly
replied; a second, and even a third interchange of correspondence
followed. The dinner-party appointed for that day was put off; a certain
ominous kind of silence pervaded the house. The few privileged visitors
were denied admission. Mr. Proctor, Sir Stafford's man, wore a look of
more than common seriousness. Mademoiselle Celestine's glances revealed
a haughty sense of triumph. Even the humbler menials appeared to feel
that something had occurred, and betrayed in their anxious faces some
resemblance to that vague sense of half-curiosity, half-terror, the
passengers of a steamboat experience when an accident, of whose nature
they know nothing, has occurred to the machinery.
Their doubts and suspicions assumed more shape when the order came that
Sir Stafford would dine in the library, and her Ladyship in her own
room, George Onslow alone appearing in the dining-room. There was an air
of melancholy over everything, the silence deepening as night came on.
Servants went noiselessly to and fro, drew the curtains, and closed
the doors with a half-stealthy gesture, and seemed as though fearful of
awakening some slumbering outbreak of passion.
We neither have, nor desire to have, secrets from our readers. We will
therefore proceed to Sir Stafford's dressing-room, where the old Baronet
sat moodily over the fire, his anxious features and sorrow-struck
expression showing the ravages even a few hours of suffering had
inflicted. His table was littered with papers, parchments, and other
formidable-looking documents. Some letters lay sealed here, others were
half-written there; everything about him showed the conflict of doubt
and indecision that was going on within his mind; and truly a most
painful struggle was maintained there.
For some time back he had seen with displeasure the course of
extravagance and waste of all his household. He had observed the habits
of reckless expense with which his establishment was maintained; but,
possessing a very ample fortune, and feeling that probably some change
would be made with the coming summer, he had forborne to advert to
it, and endured with what patience he could a mode of life whose very
display was distasteful to him. Now, however, a more serious cause for
anxiety presented itself, in the class of intimates admitted by Lady
Hester to her society. Of the foreigners he knew comparatively
little; but that little was not to their advantage. Some were wealthy
voluptuaries, glad to propagate their own habits of extravagance among
those they suspected of fortunes smaller than their own. Others were
penniless adventurers, speculating upon everything that might turn to
their profit. All were men of pleasure, and of that indolent, lounging,
purposeless character so peculiarly unpleasing to those who have led
active lives, and been always immersed in the cares and interests of
business.
Such men, he rightly judged, were dangerous associates to his son,
the very worst acquaintances for Kate, in whom already he was deeply
interested; but still no actual stain of dishonor, no palpable flaw,
could be detected in their fame, till the arrival of Lord Norwood added
his name to the list.
To receive a man of whose misconduct in England he had acquired every
proof, was a step beyond his endurance. Here or never must he take
his stand; and manfully he did so, at first, by calm argument and
remonstrance, and at last by firm resolution and determination. Without
adverting to what had passed between the Viscount and himself, the
letter he addressed to Lady Hester conveyed his unalterable resolve not
to know Lord Norwood. Lady Hester's reply was not less peremptory, and
scarcely as courteous. The correspondence continued with increasing
warmth on both sides, till Sir Stafford palpably hinted at the possible
consequences of a spirit of discordance and disagreement so ill-adapted
to conjugal welfare. Her Ladyship caught up the suggestion with avidity,
and professed that, whatever scruples his delicacy might feel, to hers
there was none in writing the word, “Separation.”
If the thought had already familiarized itself to his mind, the word had
not; and strange it is that the written syllables should have a power
and meaning that the idea itself could never realize.
To men who have had little publicity in their lives, and that little
always of an honorable nature, there is no thought so poignantly
miserable as the dread of a scandalous notoriety. To associate their
names with anything that ministers to gossip; to make them tea-table
talk; still worse, to expose them to sneering and impertinent
criticisms, by revealing the secrets of their domesticity, is a torture
to which no mere physical suffering has anything to compare. Sir
Stafford Onslow was a true representative of this class of feeling. The
sight of his name in the list of directors of some great enterprise, as
the patron of a charity, the governor of an hospital, or the donor to an
institution, was about as much of newspaper notoriety as he could bear
without a sense of shrinking delicacy; but to become the mark for public
discussion in the relations of his private life, to have himself and his
family brought up to the bar of that terrible ordeal, where bad tongues
are the eloquent, and evil speakers are the witty, was a speculation
too terrible to think over; and this was exactly what Lady Hester was
suggesting!
Is it not very strange that woman, with whose nature we inseparably and
truly associate all those virtues that take their origin in refinement
and modesty, should sometimes be able to brave a degree of publicity
to which a man, the very hardiest and least shamefaced, would succumb,
crestfallen and abashed; that her timid delicacy, her shrinking
bashfulness, can be so hardened by the world that she can face a
notoriety where every look is an indictment, and every whisper a
condemnation?
Now, if Lady Hester was yet remote from this, she had still journeyed
one stage of the road. She had abundant examples around her of those
best received and best looked on in society, whose chief claim to the
world's esteem seemed to be the contempt with which they treated all its
ordinances. There was a dash of heroism in their effrontery that pleased
her. They appeared more gay, more buoyant, more elastic in spirits than
other people; their increased liberty seemed to impart enlarged and more
generous views, and they were always “good-natured,” since, living in
the very glassiest of houses, they never “shied” a pebble.
While, then, Sir Stafford sat overwhelmed with shame and sorrow at the
bare thought of the public discussion that awaited him, Lady Hester was
speculating upon condolences here, approbation there, panegyrics upon
her high spirit, and congratulations upon her freedom. The little,
half-shadowy allusions her friends would throw out from time to time
upon the strange unsuitableness of her marriage with a man so much her
senior, would soon be converted into comments of unrestricted license.
Besides and perhaps the greatest charm of all was she would have a
grievance; not the worn-out grievance of some imaginary ailment that
nobody believes in but the “doctor,” not the mock agonies of a heart
complaint, that saves the sufferer from eating bad dinners in vulgar
company, but always allows them a respite for a dejeuner at the court,
or a supper after the Opera, with a few chosen convives, but a real,
substantial grievance, over which men might be eloquent and ladies
pathetic. Such were the different feelings with which two persons
contemplated the same event. Sir Stafford's thoughts turned instantly
towards England. What would be said there by all those friends who had
endeavored to dissuade him from this ill-suited union? Their sorrowful
compassion was even less endurable than the malice of others; and
Grounsell, too, what would his old friend think of a catastrophe so
sudden? In his heart Sir Stafford was glad that the doctor was absent;
much as he needed his counsel and advice, he still more dreaded the
terror of his triumphant eye at the accomplishment of his oft-repeated
prediction.
From George he met no support whatever. He either believed, or thought
that he believed, Norwood's garbled explanation. Intercourse with a
certain set of “fast men” had shown him that a man might do a “screwy”
thing now and then, and yet not be cut by his acquaintance. And
the young Guardsman deemed his father's rigid notions nothing but
prejudices, very excellent and commendable ones, no doubt, but as
inapplicable to our present civilization as would be a coat of mail or a
back-piece of chain-armor. George Onslow, therefore, halted between the
two opinions. Adhering to his father's side from feelings of affection
and respect, he was drawn to Lady Hester's by his convictions; not,
indeed, aware how formidable the difference had already become between
them, and that, before that very night closed in, they had mutually
agreed upon a separation, which while occupying the same house, was
essentially to exclude all intercourse.
One consideration gave Sir Stafford much painful thought. What was to
become of Kate Dalton in this new turn of affairs? The position of
a young girl on a visit with a family living in apparent unity and
happiness was very wide apart from her situation as the companion of a
woman separated, even thus much, from her husband. It would be equally
unfair to her own family, as unjust to the girl herself, to detain her
then in such a conjuncture. And yet what was to be done? Apart from all
the unpleasantness of proposing an abrupt return to her home, came
the thought of the avowal that must accompany the suggestion, the very
confession he so dreaded to make. Of course the gossiping of servants
would soon circulate the rumor. But then they might not spread it beyond
the Alps, nor make it the current talk of a German watering-place. Thus
were his selfish feelings at war with higher and purer thoughts. But
the struggle was not a long one. He sat down and wrote to Lady Hester.
Naturally assuming that all the reasons which had such force for himself
would weigh equally with her, he dwelt less upon the arguments for
Kate's departure than upon the mode in which it might be proposed and
carried out. He adverted with feeling to the sacrifice the loss would
inflict upon Lady Hester, but professed his conviction in the belief
that all merely selfish considerations would give way before higher and
more important duties.
“As it is,” said he, “I fear much that we have done anything but conduce
to this dear girl's welfare and happiness. We have shown her glimpses of
a life whose emptiness she cannot appreciate, but by whose glitter
she is already attracted. We have exposed her to all the seductions of
flattery, pampering a vanity which is perhaps her one only failing. We
have doubtless suggested to her imagination dreams of a future never
to be realized, and we must now consign her to a home where all the
affections of fond relatives will be unequal to the task of blinding her
to its poverty and its obscurity. And yet even this is better than to
detain her here. It shall be my care to see in what way I can I was
about to write 'recompense;' nor would the word be unsuitable recompense
Mr. Dalton for the injury we have done him as regards his child; and if
you have any suggestion to make me on this head, I will gladly accept
it.”
The note concluded with some hints as to the manner of making the
communication to Kate, the whole awkwardness of which Sir Stafford, if
need were, would take upon himself.
The whole temper of the letter was feeling and tender. Without even in
the most remote way adverting to what had occurred between Lady Hester
and himself, he spoke of their separation simply in its relation to Kate
Dalton, for whom they were both bound to think and act with caution.
As if concentrating every thought upon her, he did not suffer any other
consideration to interfere. Kate, and Kate only, was all its theme.
Lady Hester, however, read the lines in a very different spirit. She had
just recovered from a mesmeric trance, into which, to calm her nervous
exaltation, her physician, Dr. Buccellini, had thrown her. She had been
lying in a state of half-hysterical apathy for some hours, all volition,
almost all vitality, suspended, under the influence of an exaggerated
credulity, when the letter was laid upon the table.
“What is that your maid has just left out of her hand?” asked the
doctor, in a tone of semi-imperiousness.
[Illustration: 318]
“A letter, a sealed letter,” replied she, mystically waving her hand
before her half-closed eyes.
The doctor gave a look of triumph at the bystanders, and went on:
“Has the letter come from a distant country, or from a correspondent
near at hand?”
“Near!” said she, with a shudder.
“Where is the writer at this moment?” asked he.
“In the house,” said she, with another and more violent shuddering.
“I now take the letter in my hand,” said the doctor, “and what am I
looking at?”
“A seal with two griffins supporting a spur.”
The doctor showed the letter on every side, with a proud and commanding
gesture. “There is a name written in the corner of the letter, beneath
the address. Do you know that name?”
A heavy, thick sob was the reply.
“There there be calm, be still,” said he, majestically motioning
with both hands towards her; and she immediately became composed
and tranquil. “Are the contents of this letter such as will give you
pleasure?”
A shake of the head was the answer.
“Are they painful?”
“Very painful,” said she, pressing her hand to her temples.
“Will these tidings be productive of grand consequences?”
“Yes, yes!” cried she, eagerly.
“What will you do, when you read them?”
“Act!” ejaculated she, solemnly.
“In compliance with the spirit, or in rejection?”
“Rejection!”
“Sleep on, sleep on,” said the doctor, with a wave of his hand; and, as
he spoke, her head drooped, her arm fell listlessly down, and her
long and heavy breathing denoted deep slumber. “There are people, Miss
Dalton,” said he to Kate, “who affect to see nothing in mesmerism but
deception and trick, whose philosophy teaches them to discredit all that
they cannot comprehend. I trust you may never be of this number.”
“It is very wonderful, very strange,” said she, thoughtfully.
“Like all the secrets of nature, its phenomena are above belief; yet, to
those who study them with patience and industry, how compatible do they
seem with the whole order and spirit of creation. The great system of
vitality being a grand scheme of actionary and reactionary influences,
the centrifugal being in reality the centripetal, and those impulses we
vainly fancy to be our own instincts being the impressions of external
forces do you comprehend me?”
“Not perfectly; in part, perhaps,” said she, diffidently.
“Even that is something,” replied he, with a bland smile. “One whose
future fortunes will place her in a station to exert influence is an
enviable convert to have brought to truth.”
“I!” said she, blushing with shame and surprise together; “surely you
mistake, sir. I am neither born to rank, nor like to attain it.”
“Both one and the other, young lady,” said he, solemnly; “high as
your position will one day be, it will not be above the claims of your
descent. It is not on fallible evidence that I read the future.”
“And can you really predict my fortune in life?” asked she, eagerly.
“More certainly than you would credit it, when told,” said he,
deliberately.
“How I should like to hear it; how I should like to know” She stopped,
and a deep blush covered her face.
“And why should you not know that your dreams will be realized?” said
he, hastily, as if speaking from some irresistible impulse. “What more
natural than to desire a glance, fleeting though it be, into that
black vista where the bright lightning of prophecy throws its momentary
splendor?”
“And how know you that I have had dreams?” said she, innocently.
“I know of them but by their accomplishment. I see you not in the
present or the past, but in the future. There your image is revealed to
me, and surrounded by a splendor I cannot describe. It is gorgeous and
barbaric in magnificence; there is something feudal in the state by
which you are encompassed that almost speaks of another age.”
“This is mere dreamland, indeed,” said she, laughing.
“Nay, not so; nor is it all bright and glorious, as you think. There are
shadows of many a dark tint moving along the sunlit surface.”
“But how know you all this?” asked she, half incredulously.
“As you slept last evening in a mesmeric slumber on that sofa; but I
will hear no further questioning. Look to our patient here, and if
that letter agitate her over-much, let me be sent for.” And, with these
words, delivered oracularly, the doctor left the room, while Kate seated
herself beside the sofa where Lady Hester slept.
It was late in the night when Lady Hester awoke, and soon remembering
that a letter had arrived, broke the seal and read it. If the proposal
of Sir Stafford was in every way unacceptable, there was something which
compensated for all in the excitement of spirits an act of opposition
was sure to produce; nor was it without a sense of triumph that she read
lines penned in evident sorrow and depression of spirit. In fact, she
made the not uncommon error of mistaking sorrow for repentance, and
thought she perceived in her husband's tone a desire to retrace his
steps. It is difficult to say whether such an amende would have
given her pleasure; certainly she would not have accepted it without
subjecting him to a term of probation of more or less length. In any
case, as regarded Kate, she was decided at once upon a positive refusal;
and as, with her, a resolve and a mode of action were usually the work
of the same moment, she motioned to Kate to sit down beside her on the
sofa, and passing her arm around her, drew her fondly towards her.
“Kate, dearest,” said she, “I 'm sure nothing would induce you to leave
me, I mean, to desert and forsake me.”
Kate pressed the hand she held in her own to her lips with fervor, but
could not speak for emotion.
“I say this,” said Lady Hester, rapidly, “because the moment has come to
test your fidelity. Sir Stafford and I it is needless to state how and
by what means have at last discovered, what I fancy the whole world has
seen for many a day, that we were totally unsuited to each other, in
taste, age, habit, feeling, mode of life, and thought; that we have
nothing in common, neither liking nor detesting the same things,
but actually at variance upon every possible subject and person. Of
course-all attempt to cover such discrepancies must be a failure. We
might trump up a hollow truce, child, but it never could be an alliance;
and so we have thought, I 'm sure it is well that we have hit upon even
one topic for agreement, we have thought that the best, indeed the only,
thing we could do, was to separate.”
An exclamation, almost like an accent of pain, escaped Kate at these
words.
“Yes, dearest,” resumed Lady Hester, “it was his own proposal, made in
the very coldest imaginable fashion; for men have constantly this
habit, and always take the tone of dignity when they are about to do
an injustice. All this, however, I was prepared for, and could suffer
without complaint; but he desires to rob me of you, my dear child, to
deprive me of the only friend, the only confidante I have in the world.
I don't wonder that you grow pale and look shocked at such cruelty,
concealed, as it is, under the mask of care for your interests and
regard for your welfare; and this to me, dearest, to me, who feel to you
as to a sister, a dear, dear sister!” Here Lady Hester drew Kate towards
her, and kissed her twice, affectionately. “There 's his letter, my
sweet child. You can read it; or better, indeed, that you should not, if
you would preserve any memory of your good opinion of him.”
“And he that was ever so kind, so thoughtful, and so generous!” cried
Kate.
“You know nothing of these creatures, my dear,” broke in Lady Hester.
“All those plausibilities that they play off in the world are little
emanations of their own selfish natures. They are eternally craving
admiration from us women, and that is the true reason of their mock
kindness and mock generosity! I 'm sure,” added she, sighing, “my
experience has cost me pretty dearly! What a life of trial and privation
has mine been!”
Lady Hester sighed heavily as her jewelled fingers pressed to her eyes a
handkerchief worth a hundred guineas, and really believed herself a case
for world-wide sympathy. She actually did shed a tear or two over
her sorrows; for it is wonderful on what slight pretension we can
compassionate ourselves. She thought over all the story of her life, and
wept. She remembered how she had been obliged to refuse the husband of
her choice; she forgot to be grateful for having escaped a heartless
spendthrift, she remembered her acceptance of one inferior to her in
rank, and many years her senior; but forgot his wealth, his generosity,
his kindliness of nature, and his high character. She thought of herself
as she was at eighteen, the flattered beauty, daughter of a Peer,
courted, sought after, and admired; but she totally forgot what she
was at thirty, with faded attractions, unthought of, and, worse still,
unmarried. Of the credit side of her account with Fortune she omitted
not an item; the debits she slurred over as unworthy of mention. That
she should be able to deceive herself is nothing very new or strange,
but that she should succeed in deceiving another is indeed singular; and
such was the case. Kate listened to her, and believed everything; and
when her reason failed to convince, her natural softness of disposition
served to satisfy her that a more patient, long-suffering, unrepining
being never existed than Lady Hester Onslow.
“And now,” said she, after a long peroration of woes, “can you leave me
here, alone and friendless? will you desert me?”
“Oh, never, never!” cried Kate, kissing her hand and pressing her to her
heart. “I would willingly lay down my life to avert this sad misfortune;
but, if that cannot be, I will share your lot with the devotion of my
whole heart.”
Lady Hester could scarcely avoid smiling at the poor girl's simplicity,
who really fancied that separation included a life of seclusion and
sorrow, with restricted means and an obscure position; and it was with
a kind of subdued drollery she assured Kate that even in her altered
fortunes a great number of little pleasures and comforts would remain
for them. In fact, by degrees the truth came slowly out, that the great
change implied little else than unrestrained liberty of action, freedom
to go anywhere, know any one, and be questioned by nobody; the
equivocal character of the position adding a piquancy to the society,
inexpressibly charming to all those who, like the Duchesse d'Abrantes,
think it only necessary for a thing to be “wrong” to make it perfectly
delightful.
Having made a convert of Kate, Lady Hester briefly replied to Sir
Stafford, that his proposition was alike repugnant to Miss Dalton as to
herself, that she regretted the want of consideration on his part, which
could have led him to desire that she should be friendless at a time
when the presence of a companion was more than ever needed. This done,
she kissed Kate three or four times affectionately, and retired to
her room, well satisfied with what the day had brought forth, and only
wishing for the morrow, which should open her new path in life.
It often happens in life that we are never sufficiently struck with
the force of our own opinions or their consequences, till, from
some accident or other, we come to record them. Then it is that the
sentiments we have expressed, and the lines of action adopted, suddenly
come forth in all their unvarnished truth. Like the images which the
painter, for the first time, commits to canvas, they stand out
to challenge a criticism which, so long as they remained in mere
imagination, they had escaped.
This was precisely Kate Dalton's case now. Her natural warm-heartedness,
and her fervent sense of gratitude, had led her to adopt Lady Hester's
cause as her own; generous impulses, carrying reason all before them,
attached her to what she fancied to be the weaker side. “The divinity
that doth hedge--” “beauty--” made her believe that so much loveliness
could do no wrong; nor was it till she came to write of the event to
her sister, that even a doubt crossed her mind on the subject. The
difficulty of explaining a circumstance of which she knew but little,
was enhanced by her knowledge of Ellen's rigid and unbending sense of
right. “Poor dear Nelly,” said she, “with her innocence of mind, will
understand nothing of all this, or she will condemn Lady Hester at once.
Submission to her husband would, in her opinion, have been the first of
duties. She cannot appreciate motives which actuate society in a rank
different from her own. In her ignorance of the world, too, she might
deem my remaining here unadvisable; she might counsel my return to
home; and thus I should be deserting, forsaking, the dear friend who has
confided all her sorrows to my heart, and reposes all her trust in my
fidelity. This would break Lady Hester's heart and my own together; and
yet nothing is more likely than such a course. Better a thousand times
not expose her friend's cause to such a casualty. A little time and a
little patience may place matters in a position more intelligible and
less objectionable; and, after all, the question is purely a family
secret, the divulgence of which, even to a sister, is perhaps not
warrantable.”
Such were among the plausibilities with which she glanced over her
conduct; without, however, satisfying herself that she was in the right.
She had only begun the descent of lax morality, and her head was
addled by the new sensation. Happy are they who even from weak nerves
relinquish the career!
Kate's letter home, then, was full of gay revelations. Galleries,
churches, gardens; objects of art or historic interest; new pictures
of manners, sketches of society, abounded. There were descriptions of
fetes, too, and brilliant assemblies, with great names of guests and
gorgeous displays of splendor. Well and sweetly were they written; a
quick observation and a keen insight into character in every line. The
subtle analysis of people and their pretensions, which comes of mixture
with the world, was preeminent in all she said; while a certain sharp
wit pointed many of the remarks, and sparkled in many a brilliant
passage.
It was altogether a lively and a pleasant letter. A stranger, reading
ft, would have pronounced the writer clever and witty; a friend would
have regretted the want of personal details, the hundred little traits
of egoism that speak confidence and trust. But to a sister! and such
a sister as Nelly! it was, indeed, barren! No outpouring of warm
affection; no fond memory of home; no reference to that little fireside
whence her own image had never departed, and where her presence was each
night invoked.
Oh! Kate, has Hanserl's dark prophecy thrown its shadow already to your
feet? Can a young heart be so easily corrupted, and so soon?