Robert Hunter and his Wife.
In the midst of the pretty and exclusive village of Katterley, an
inland spot, from twenty to thirty miles away from the sea, there
stands a charming residence, half-cottage, half-villa, called
Katterley Lodge. Its rooms are warm in winter, cool in summer; it
rises in the midst of a lovely garden, in view of magnificent scenery;
and the sweetest roses and honeysuckles entwine themselves on its
walls.
The evening August sun--July had just past--shone full on its entrance
gate; on a lady, young and fair, who was leaning over it. She may have
been about three-and-twenty, and she was dressed in white, with
ribbons in her hair. There was a remarkable refinement and delicacy in
her face, her manners, in her appearance altogether; and her soft dark
eyes had a sad expression. Did you, who may be reading this, ever
observe that peculiar, sad look--not a passing sadness, or one caused
by present care--but a fixed mournful look, implanted in the eyes by
nature? It is not a common expression, or one often seen; rely upon
it, when you do see it, it is but an index that the spirit is, or will
be, sad within.
Sauntering up the road towards the gate, encumbered with a basket, a
rod, and other apparatus pertaining to the fishing art, strode a
gentleman, carelessly switching the hedge as he passed it. No sad
expression was there about him; rather the contrary. He was of middle
height, very slender, with a frank pleasant face given to laughing,
and dark auburn hair; his manner was light, his speech free and
careless. Her face sparkled, at his approach, and she opened the gate
long before he had gained it.
"What sport, Robert? What have you brought?"
"Brought you myself," was the gentleman's reply, as he passed in at
the gate she held wide. "Thank you. How much is the toll?"
As he bent to take the "toll," a kiss, she glanced shyly in his face
and blushed--blushed brightly; although she was his wife of nearly
three years' standing. In a retiring, impassioned earnest nature such
as hers, it takes a great deal ere love can die out--a convulsion
sometimes. With her it had not begun to die.
His name was Robert Frederick Hunter. His wife liked the second name
best, and generally called him by it, but as other people adhered to
the first it may be best to do so here. His career already, young
though he was, had seen changes. Reared in middle-class life in the
North of England, practically educated, rather than fashionably, he
had served his articles to a civil engineer. Ere they were quite out,
and he free, a small fortune came to him through a relative. Mr.
Robert Hunter thought he could not do better than take to a red-coat,
and he purchased a lieutenancy in a home corps. Nearly simultaneously
with this, he met with Clara Lake, of Katterley. He fell in love with
her; at least he fancied so; she most unmistakably did with him, and
the preliminaries for a marriage were arranged. Her father made it a
proviso that he should quit the army; and that they should live with
him after the marriage at Katterley Lodge. Robert Hunter assented,
sold out, and the marriage took place. When his wife's father died
shortly after, it was found that Katterley Lodge and money amounting
to four or five hundred a year were left to her, with a condition that
Mr. Hunter should take the name of Lake. So he was mostly called in
Katterley, Lake, or Hunter-Lake; elsewhere he was as before Hunter.
Just for the present we will call him Lake, but it must not be
forgotten that Hunter was his real name.
Mr. Lake opened his basket as he got in and displayed the
contents--some fine trout. Two were ordered to be dressed, and served
with the tea. On the days of these fishing expeditions, Mrs. Lake
dined early. Occasionally she went with him. Not very often. The sport
wearied her, and but for him at whose side she sat, it would never
have been endurable. "Sport, indeed!" she used laughingly to say, "I'd
as soon be at a funeral."
"What have you been doing all the afternoon, Clara?"
"Oh, reading and working; and wishing it was time for you to come
home."
"Silly girl!" laughed he, as he played with her curls. "Suppose I
should be brought home to you some day fished out of the stream
myself; drowned and dead."
"Don't joke, please," was her reply, given in a low voice.
"It had like to have been no joke this afternoon. I all but
overbalanced myself. But for a friendly tree I should have been in;
perhaps done for."
"Oh, Robert!" she exclaimed, the bright rose fading out of her cheeks.
"And there's a fierce bit of current there, and the river is at its
deepest, and the mill-wheel a stone's throw lower down," he continued,
as if he enjoyed the sport of teasing her; which perhaps he did. "I
was an idiot never to learn to swim."
"Did you slip?" she asked in a half-whisper.
"No; I was leaning too forward and lost my balance. Oh, Clary! you are
a little coward at best. Why your heart is beating fast; a vast deal
faster than mine did, I can tell you. And where have your roses gone?"
She looked up with a faint smile.
To be affected in this manner, to agitation, merely at the recital of
the possible danger, now past, was what Mr. Lake did not understand
Neither did he understand the depth of her love, for no sentiment in
his own heart echoed to it; the time for love, with him, had not come.
"It is simply foolish, child, to feel alarm now," he said, looking at
her gravely.
"You must not go again, Robert."
The remark called forth a hearty laugh. "Not go again! What am I to
do, then, until shooting comes in?"
What, indeed? Robert Lake was an idle man. One of those whose unhappy
lot it is (the most unhappy lot on earth) to be obliged to "kill"
time, or else find it hang on their hands with a heavy weight. To a
man born to idleness, cradled in the lap of luxury, it is bad enough;
but to Robert Lake, brought up to industry, it was simply unbearable.
He was skilled and clever in his profession, and he loved it; the
misfortune of his life was having the money left to him; the great
mistake his quitting his profession. He saw it now; he had seen it
nearly ever since. Another mistake, but a smaller one, was his
retiring from the army; as he had entered it, he ought to have kept in
it. That fault was not his, but old Mr. Lake's. Lieutenant Hunter was
on a visit at his sister's when he met Clara Lake, also staying there,
the heiress in a small way. They fell in love with each other; he,
after his temperament, carelessly and lightly, a species of love that
he had felt for others, and would feel for more; she with all the
fervour, the lasting depth of an impassioned and poetic nature. When
he came to speak of marriage, and the father--an old-fashioned man who
had once worn a pig-tail--said "Yes, upon condition that you quit
soldiering and settle down with me--I cannot part with my daughter,"
Robert Hunter acquiesced without a word of murmur. Nay, he rather
liked the prospect; change of all sorts bears its charm of magic for
the young. And he was very young; but a year or so older than his
wife. They settled down in Katterley Lodge; he to idleness, and it
brings danger sometimes; she to happiness, which she believed in as
real, as a bliss that would last for ever. If there were a man more
perfect than other men on earth, she believed her husband to be that
man. A charming confidence, a safeguard for a wife's heart; but
sometimes the trust gets rudely awakened. One great grief had come to
Clara Lake--she lost her baby; but she was getting over that now.
How intolerable idleness had been to Robert Hunter at first, none save
himself ever knew. Over and over again visions of resuming his work as
a civil engineer, came pressing on him. But it was never done. In the
first year of their marriage came old Mr. Lake's long illness and
death; in the second year came the baby and a prolonged illness for
Clara; in the third year, this, the idleness had grown upon him, and
he cared less to exchange it for hard work. It is of all evils nearly
the most insidious.
All the year long, from January to December, living at Katterley Lodge
with nothing to do! And he was really beginning not to feel the
sameness. Their income, about six hundred a year in all, was not
sufficient to allow of their mixing in the great world's fair, the
London season; and one visit only had they paid the seaside. The
pretty cottage, with its roses and its honeysuckles for a bower, and
fishing for recreation in the summer season! It had a monotonous
charm, no doubt; but the young man's conscience sometimes warned him
that he was wasting his life.
The tea and the fish came in, and they sat down to it, Mrs. Lake
remarking that she had forgotten to mention his sister had been there.
"What has she come over for?"
"To see the Jupps. Some little matter of business, she said."
"Business with the Jupps! Gossiping, rather, Clary."
"She said she should remain to tea with them. I wanted her to come
back and take it with us; I told her there would be some fish. The
fish was a great temptation, she said, but she must stay at the
Jupps'! Who's this?" continued Mrs. Lake as the gate was pushed open
with a hasty hand "Why, here she is!"
"And now for a clatter." He alluded to his sister's voluble tongue,
but he got up and went out to greet her, table-napkin in hand It was
Mrs. Chester, his half-sister. She was ten years older than he, twenty
times older in experience, and rather inclined to be dictatorial to
him and his gentle wife. Her husband, a clergyman, had died a few
months back, and she was not left well-off in the world. She had just
taken a house at Guild, a place about seven miles from Katterley;
though how she meant to pay expenses in it, she scarcely knew.
"Well, Clara! here I am back again!" she exclaimed as she came in;
"like a piece of bad money returned."
"I am so glad to see you!" returned Mrs. Lake, in her warmth of
courtesy, as she rose and brought forward a chair and rang the bell,
and busied herself with other little signs of welcome.
Mrs. Chester threw off her widow's bonnet and black silk mantle. Her
well-formed face was pale in general, but the hot August sun made it
red now.
She was a little, restless woman, inclined to be stout, with shrewd
grey eyes and brown hair, and a nose sharp at the end. The deep crape
on her merino gown looked worn and shabby; her muslin collar and cuffs
were tumbled. She told everybody she was twenty-eight; Mr. Lake knew
her to be four-and-thirty.
"Such a mess it makes of one, travelling in this heat and dust!" she
exclaimed rather fretfully, as she shook out her skirts and pulled her
collar here and there before the chimney-glass. "I've nothing but my
bonnet-cap here; you won't mind it."
It was a bit of plain muslin with a widow's gauffered border. Mrs.
Chester untied the black strings of it as she turned round and fanned
herself with her handkerchief.
"Did the fish bring you back, Penelope?" asked Mr. Lake.
"Not it. When I got to the Jupps' I found they were going to have a
late dinner-party. They wanted me to stay for it. Fancy! in this dusty
guise of a costume. How delicious those fish look!"
"Try them," said Mr. Lake, passing some to her. "I have not caught
finer trout this season. Clara has some cold fowl in the house, I
think, if you have not dined."
"I dined before I came over--that is, had a scrambling sort of
cold-meat meal, half dinner, half lunch. Robert, I should like you to
catch fish for me always."
"How are you getting on with the house, Penelope?" he asked. "Are you
straight yet?"
"Oh, we are getting on. Anna's worth her weight in gold at that sort
of thing. She has been used to contrive and work all her life, you
know."
"She might be used to worse things," said Mr. Lake.
"I have got a--visitor coming to stay with me," resumed Mrs. Chester,
making a pause before the word visitor, and then going on with a
cough, as if a fish-bone had stuck in her throat.
"Who is it?"
"Lady Ellis."
"Lady Ellis!" echoed Mr. Lake, unaware that his sister had any one of
the name on her visiting list. "Who on earth is Lady Ellis?"
"Well, she is a friend of the Jupps'."
"Oh. And why is she going to visit you?"
"Because I choose to ask her," returned Mrs. Chester, in a reproving
tone meant for the public benefit, while she gave her brother a
private kick under the table. "She is a widow lady, just come home
from India in the depth of her sorrow; and she wants to find some
quiet country seclusion to put her poor bereaved head into."
Mr. Lake concluded that the kick was intended as a warning against
asking questions. He put a safe one.
"Is she staying with the Jupps?"
"Oh dear, no. She went to India a mere child, I fancy. She was very
pretty, and was snapped up by some colonel, a K.C.B., and dreadfully
old."
"Ellis by name, I presume?" carelessly remarked Mr. Lake, as he looked
for another nice piece of fish for his sister's plate.
"Colonel Sir George Ellis," spoke Mrs. Chester, in a grandly reproving
tone, as if the title were good for her mouth. "He is dead, and Lady
Ellis has come home."
"With a lac of rupees?"
"With a _lack_ of rupees," retorted Mrs. Chester, rubbing her sharp
nose. "Sir George's property, every shilling of it, was settled on his
first wife's children. Lady Ellis has money of her own--not very
much."
"And why is she coming to you?"
"I have told you. She wants quiet and country air."
"Will she pay you?"
"Pay me! Good gracious, Robert, what mercenary ideas you have! Do you
hear him, Clara? Oh, thank you; don't heap my plate like that, though
I think I never did taste such fish. The Jupps have been praising her
to the skies, one trying to out-talk the rest. Never were such talkers
as the Jupp girls."
"Except yourself," put in Mr. Lake.
Mrs. Chester lifted her eyes in surprise.
"Myself! Why, I am remarkably silent. Nobody can say I talk."
He glanced at his wife as he suppressed a smile. The matter in regard
to Lady Ellis puzzled him--at least, the proposed residence with Mrs.
Chester; but he supposed he might not inquire further.
"Should you like to take home some trout, Penelope?"
"That I should. Have you any to give?"
"I'll have them put up for you, the fellow brace to these. Mind the
youngsters don't get the bones in their throats."
"They must take their chance," was the philosophical reply. "Children
were never sent for anything but our torment. I am going to pack the
two young ones off to school."
"Have you further news from the Clergy Orphan School about James?"
"News! Yes. It is all cross together. There's not the least chance for
him, they write me word, at the election in November; I must try again
later. And now, Clara, I want you and your husband to come to me for
Sunday and Monday. Will you promise? I came over purposely to ask
you."
Mrs. Lake did not immediately answer.
"You can come on Sunday morning in time for church, and remain until
Tuesday. I don't ask you to come on Saturday evening; we shall be busy
until late. The Jupps are coming."
"All of them?" asked Mr. Lake.
"Not all. I don't know where I should put them. Some of the girls:
Mary and Margaret for two; and Oliver. I have three spare bedrooms
nearly ready."
"Three spare bedrooms? And you grumbling about the purse's
shallowness!"
"Allow me to manage my own affairs," said Mrs. Chester, equably. "You
will say 'Yes,' will you not, Clara? I want to show you my house; you
have never seen it."
Clara Lake did say "Yes;" but at the same time there was a feeling in
her heart prompting her to say "No." She neither listened to it nor
gave way to it; and yet she was conscious that it was there, as she
well remembered afterwards.
"And now I must be going," said Mrs. Chester, putting on her bonnet
and mantle. "You will come with me to the station, Robert?"
They started together: he carrying the basket of fish: and walked
slowly. As he remarked, they had plenty of time.
"I know it," she said. "I came on early to talk to you."
"About Lady Ellis and her projected visit?" he quickly rejoined. "I
thought there was some scheme agate by the kick you gave me."
"Robert, I must scheme to live."
"I think you must if you are to keep three spare bedrooms for
visitors."
"I am left a widow, Robert, with a fair amount of furniture, and a
wretched pittance of two hundred a year. How am I to live like a lady
and educate the children?"
"But why need you have taken so large a house?"
"What am I to do? How am I to eke out my means? I cannot lose caste. I
can't go and open a shop; I can't turn Court milliner; I can't begin
and speculate in the funds; I can't present myself to the Government
or the Bank of England directors, and make a curtsey, and say,
'Please, gentlemen, double my income for me, and then perhaps I can
manage to get along.' _Can_ I?" added Mrs. Chester, fiercely.
"I never said you could."
"No; I have only got my own resources to look to, and my own headpiece
to work upon. It has been ransacked pretty well of late, I can tell
you. The first idea that suggested itself to me was to educate Fanny
at home with Anna Chester's help, and to get half-a-dozen pupils as
well, on the plan of a private family. But I hated the thought of it.
I have no nerves and no patience; and I knew I should be worried out
of my very existence. Besides, education gets more fantastical every
day, and I am not up to the modern rubbish they call requirements: so
I said, 'That won't do.' Next I thought of getting three or four
gentlewomen to live with me, on the plan of a private family. Quite as
visitors, you know; and the longer I dwelt on the scheme the better I
liked it. I thought it would be a pleasant, social way of getting on;
and I determined to carry it out. Now you know why I have taken a
large house, and am putting it into good order."
"That is, you are going to take boarders?"
"If you choose to put it in that plain way. You are so very downright,
Robert. Lady Ellis is the first coming."
"How did you hear of her?"
"Never you mind," returned Mrs. Chester, who did not choose to say she
had advertised. "Friends are looking out for me in London and
elsewhere. I have had some correspondence with Lady Ellis, and she
comes to me the middle of next week. She wants quiet, she says--quiet
and country air. A most exquisite little hand she writes, only you
can't read it at sight."
"Have you references?"
"Of course. She referred me to some people in London, and also in
Cheltenham, where she is now staying. In her last letter she mentioned
that the Jupps of Katterley knew her, and that's the chief thing that
brought me over today. Mind, Robert, I did not tell the Jupps she was
coming to me as a boarder: only as a visitor. 'She writes me that you
know her,' I carelessly said to the girls, and they immediately began
to tell all they did know, as I knew they would."
"What did they say?"
"Well, the whole of it did not amount to much. At first they persisted
they had never heard of her, till I said she was formerly a Miss
Finch, having lost sight of her when she went to India. They are
charmed to hear she has come back Lady Ellis, and think it will be
delightful for me to have her with me."
"Unless you can get more boarders, Lady Ellis will prove a source of
expense to you, Penelope, instead of a profit."
"You can't teach me," retorted Mrs. Chester. "I mean to get more."
"What is she to pay you?"
"Well, you know, Robert, I can't venture upon much style at first,
wanting the means. I am unable to set up men-servants, and a service
of plate, and a pony carriage, and that sort of thing: so at present
my terms must be in accordance with my accommodation. Now what should
you think fair?"
"I? Oh, nonsense! Don't ask me."
"Lady Ellis is to pay me a hundred pounds if she stays the year; if
not, ten pounds per month. Now you see if I get four at that rate,
permanent inmates," went on Mrs. Chester, rapidly, "it will bring my
income up to six hundred pounds, which will be comfortable, and enable
one to live."
"I suppose it will."
"You suppose it will!" snapped Mrs. Chester, who was resenting his
indifferent demeanour. "It is as much as you and Clara possess. You
live well."
"We have none too much. We spend it--all."
"And more imprudent of you to spend it all! as I have often thought of
telling you, Robert Hunter. I wonder you can reconcile yourself to
live up to the last penny of your income, and do nothing to increase
it. How will it be when children come?"
"Ah, that's a question," said he, giving the fish-basket a twirl.
"You may have a large family yet; you are both young. What sort of a
figure would your six hundred a year cut when everything had to come
out of it? A dozen children to keep at home, and find in clothes, and
doctors, and sundries, and a dozen children to provide for at school,
would make your money look foolish."
"Let's see," cried he, gravely; "twelve at home and twelve at school
would make twenty-four. Could you not have added twelve more while you
were about it, and said thirty-six?"
"Don't be stupid! You know I meant twelve in all. They may come, for
all you can tell; and they'll require both home expenses and school
expenses, as you will find. It is a sin and a shame, Robert, for a
young capable man like you, to live an idle life."
"I tell myself so every other morning, Penelope."
She glanced at him, uncertain whether he spoke in jest or earnest. His
dark-blue eyes had a serious look in them, but there was a smile on
his pleasant lips.
"If you don't think well to take up civil engineering again, try
something else. There's nothing like providing for a rainy day; and a
man who lives up to his income cannot be said to do it. You cannot be
altogether without interest; perhaps you might get a post under
Government."
"I'll apply for the lord-lieutenancy," said he. "The place is vacant."
"I know you always turn into ridicule any suggestion of mine," again
retorted Mrs. Chester. "You might get into the board of works, and
leave the lord-lieutenancy for your betters. There's the train,
shrieking in the distance. Don't forget Sunday. I wish you and Clara
to see how nice the house looks."
"All right, Penelope; we will not forget. But now I want to know why
you could not have given your explanation before my wife."
"Her pride would have taken alarm."
"Indeed you cannot know Clara if you think that."
"I know her as well as you," returned Mrs. Chester. "I shall acquaint
neither her nor the Jupps of the terms on which Lady Ellis is coming."
He said no more. To keep the fact from the clear-sighted, sensible
Jupps would be just an impossibility; and he meant to tell his wife as
soon as he got home. They passed through the waiting-room to the
platform. Mrs. Chester took her seat in one of the carriages; he
handed in the basket of trout, and stood back. Just before the train
started, she suddenly beckoned to him.
"Robert," she began in a low voice, putting her head out at the window
to speak, "I'm going to give you a caution. Don't you carry on any of
that nonsensical flirting with Rose Jupp, should you ever happen to be
together in the presence of Lady Ellis. You make yourself utterly
ridiculous with that girl."
He looked very much amused. "A couple of sinful scapegoats! I am
astonished you ever have us at your house!"
"There you are, mocking me again. You may think as you please, Robert,
but it is excessively absurd in a married man. I saw you kiss Rose
Jupp the other day."
He broke into a laugh.
"Anything of that before Lady Ellis would be an awful mistake. It
might frighten her away again."
"Oh, we will both put on our best behaviour for the old Begum. Do not
let doubts of us disturb your sleep, Penelope."
"She is not old, but I daresay she knows what propriety is," sharply
concluded Mrs. Chester as the train puffed off. And Mr. Lake, quitting
the station, went home laughing.
He found his wife in a reverie. The feeling, that she had done wrong
to promise to go to Mrs. Chester's, was making itself unmistakably
heard, and Clara tried to analyse it. Why should it be wrong? It was
difficult to say. Sunday travelling? But she had gone several times
before to spend Sunday with Mrs. Chester, gone and returned the same
day; for Guild Rectory, where Mrs. Chester had lived, was short of
bedrooms. No, it was not the idea of Sunday travelling that disturbed
her, and she could find no other reason. Finally she gave up the
trouble of guessing, and her husband came in.
"Were you not too early for the train, Robert?"
"I should think so. Penelope confessed that she wiled me out to talk
of her plans. I'll tell you about them directly. What do you think she
wound up with, Clara, just as the train was starting?"
He had sat down in a large armchair, and was holding his wife before
him by the waist.
"With an injunction not to flirt so much with Rose Jupp! Which is
absurd in itself, she says, and might frighten away the grand Indian
Begum."
Clara Lake laughed. She was accustomed to witness her husband's free
rattling manners with others, but not a shadow of jealousy had yet
arisen. She believed his _love_ to be hers, just as truly and
exclusively as hers was his; and nothing as yet had shaken the belief.