DECISION.
Mr. Gray, as Clemence expected, viewed the subject of retaining or
relinquishing the fortune in the same light that she did herself. He
had, before answering her letter, seen the article in the _Times_ which
had so deeply wounded the young wife, and he had anticipated the
resolution that she would form. The ideas of the simple-minded pastor
were drawn, not from the maxims or example of the world, of which he
indeed knew little, but from the pure, written Word of God. He read and
believed that _the love of money_ is _the root of all evil_; he read and
believed that it is impossible _to serve God and Mammon_; and he had
imbibed the spirit of that most solemn question, _What shall it profit a
man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul; or what shall a
man give in exchange for his soul?_
The clergyman’s letter was a very tender one, full of pious consolation,
and concluded by offering to the bankrupt’s wife a home in the vicarage,
where his dear partner, as well as himself, would ever regard her as a
cherished daughter.
The good man’s words were as balm to Clemence’s wounded spirit, though
she felt that her duty to her husband’s family might render it
impossible to accept an invitation which would otherwise have opened a
harbour of refuge to her weary, storm-tossed soul. Clemence, without
further delay, wrote her final decision to Mr. Mark. Never had she more
impatiently despatched a letter than that which stripped her at once of
the wealth which lay like a mountain’s weight upon her conscience. Then,
ringing the bell of the study—the room which she now almost exclusively
occupied—Mrs. Effingham summoned, one after another, every member of her
numerous household, and gave warning to all, without exception. It was a
painful duty to the young mistress, but Clemence had nerved herself to
its performance, and uttered a sigh of relief as the last of the
servants quitted her presence. After all, it was easier to act than to
think; the necessity for exertion was perhaps in itself a blessing.
Clemence, since reading the article in the _Times_, had secluded herself
much from the family; she could not, in the first hours of her anguish,
have endured the sight of familiar faces—the torture of being harassed
with questions; she shrank even from the idea of sympathy, and could
scarcely bear to look upon Vincent, the breathing image of one whom she
thought of with grief, only exceeded by her love. Clemence felt it now,
however, necessary to communicate with those whose interests were
closely linked with her own, and to ascertain the views and feelings of
her step-children before replying to the letter of Mr. Gray. With this
view, mastering a strong sensation of repugnance, she ascended to the
drawing-room, and found herself, on opening the door, in the presence of
the assembled family.
Lady Selina was standing near the fire-place in earnest conference with
Arabella; Vincent had stretched himself on the velvet rug, leaning upon
his crossed arms in an attitude of thought, but he started up on his
step-mother’s entrance; Louisa lay on the sofa, her hand pressed over
her eyes. There was a sudden break in the conversation when Clemence’s
form appeared, and Lady Selina, with a slow and stately air, advanced
forward a few steps to meet her.
“Mrs. Effingham,” she commenced, in tones even more cold and formal than
usual, “I have been much surprised, greatly astonished to find that you
have at once, without consulting any one, dismissed the whole of your
husband’s establishment! May I presume to ask your reason for so
extraordinary a step?”
“I cannot now afford to keep any such servants,” replied Clemence,
gently but firmly.
“Not afford!—really, Mrs. Effingham, your language is incomprehensible!
Not afford, with sixty thousand pounds of your own in the funds!”
Clemence leaned on the table for support as she answered, “I will never
touch a farthing of that money. I have given up all to the creditors,
without reserve.”
“That’s right!” was the hearty exclamation of Vincent. Lady Selina stood
for a moment actually speechless! Had she seen Clemence deliberately put
an end to her own existence, the lady’s amazement and horror could not
have been greater.
“You have done such an insane thing!” she exclaimed at length.
“I have done it!” was the reply of Clemence.
“Then, madam, you have qualified yourself for Bedlam!” cried Lady
Selina, condensed fury flashing from her eyes, all sense of what is due
from one lady to another lost in the torrent of furious passion. “You
have reduced your family to beggary; you have subscribed to the
condemnation of your own husband; you have confirmed the opinion which I
formed of you from the day when Mr. Effingham had the infatuation to
throw himself away on a child—an idiot such as you!”
“Aunt, you must not, you shall not—” cried Vincent; but there was no
staying the rushing flow of bitter words. Clemence endured them as the
tree, whose leafy honours have been struck down by the woodman’s axe,
endures the pelting rain upon its prostrate form. It has felt the cold
steel dividing its very core; the sharp blow, the heavy fall, have been
its fate; the furious shower may now do its worst, it cannot lay it
lower, any more than it has power to restore life to the withered
foliage! But when Lady Selina paused at length, mortified, perhaps, to
find that her fiercest invectives could awake no answering flash of
angry retort, Clemence quietly expressed her hope that she might be
enabled so to economize as to live upon her limited resources without
incurring debt.
“Resources!” exclaimed Lady Selina with ineffable contempt; “the paltry
interest of two or three thousand pounds, of which an hospital has the
reversion! If you can reduce yourself, madam, to such pauper allowance
for the future, how extricate yourself from the meshes of present
difficulties? You speak of avoiding debt—you are in debt at the present
moment to myself!”
Clemence unclasped the massive bracelet on her arm, and silently laid it
on the table. It was her only reply. She then turned and quitted the
apartment.
“I wish that she had flung it at aunt’s head!” was Vincent’s muttered
comment on the scene.
A servant met Clemence as she was about to ascend the staircase.
“Please, ma’am, Madame La Voye is at the door, and says that she must
see you directly.”
“Send her away,” began Clemence, who felt as though her patience had
already been tried to its utmost power of endurance; but as the man
hesitated before again attempting a task in which he had already failed,
she altered her resolution. “No; let her be shown into my room. Better
meet this difficulty at once, and end it,” murmured Clemence to herself,
as the footman turned to obey.
Madame La Voye had, like all the rest of the world, heard of the
bankruptcy of Mr. Effingham, and trembled for her unpaid bill. Her
indignation had been inflamed to a high pitch by the article in the
_Times_. Mr. Effingham she had denounced, and loudly, as a swindler, a
cheat, and a felon; and she resolved, come what might, to have justice
done to herself. She called at his house on Monday, and heard that Mrs.
Effingham refused to see any one. Driven with difficulty from the door,
the dressmaker repeated her call on the next day, with yet more fixed
resolution to assert her claim. She would not be one of the miserable
creditors who suffered themselves to be quietly robbed; she would not
leave the house till she had received her money! Madame La Voye had
worked herself up to an effervescence of indignation very unlike,
indeed, to the smooth-tongued politeness with which she had received
Mrs. Effingham into her show-apartments.
The Frenchwoman entered the house prepared to do battle for her rights,
and the first words which she addressed to Clemence were abrupt almost
to rudeness; but even she was in some degree awed by that pale, meek
face, stamped with such deep impression of sorrow, and the first gentle
tones of the silvery voice stilled her anger as if by a charm.
Clemence owned her debt and her inability to pay it (“Was all false,
then, about the fortune?” thought La Voye); “But”—the lady hesitated and
glanced at her wardrobe—“perhaps;” the Frenchwoman was not slow in
comprehension—she spared the lady the humiliation of an explanation.
Pride was not Mrs. Effingham’s besetting sin; but, in one form or other,
perhaps no human heart is entirely free from it. It was painful to the
lady to hear the value of her wardrobe estimated in her
presence—repugnant to her feelings to hear this mantle depreciated as no
longer _à la mode_—that dress, because the folds of the velvet had been
slightly ruffled in wearing. Madame La Voye was not without a heart, and
her anger had subsided into pity; but the coarseness of her nature
appeared even in what she intended for kindness, and in her compassion
for the reduced lady she never for an instant forgot self-interest.
Balancing, doubting, chaffering, making a parade of “a wish to oblige,”
forming a shrewd calculation that a beautiful Indian shawl, “thrown into
the lot, would make all even between them,” for almost an hour Madame La
Voye made her victim do bitter penance for a day’s extravagance. The
mortifying interview, however, ended at last; the Frenchwoman, well
satisfied with her bargain, quitted the house, and Clemence held in her
hand, receipted, that bill which had been the cause of so much
annoyance.
A sleepless night was passed in forming plans for the future. There had
been only too much truth in Lady Selina’s words—how could the bankrupt’s
wife find means to extricate herself from present difficulties?
Clemence’s purse was empty. The first instalment of her income,
miserable pittance as it appeared, was not due to her for months; she
had none to whom to apply for assistance—none from whom she could hope
for relief. Again and again Clemence thought of her jewels, but they
were all, with the exception of her watch, and a few trifles of little
or no intrinsic worth, the gifts of her husband, and she regarded them
almost as one in the Dark Ages might have regarded precious
relics,—things far too valuable to be parted with, except with life. Yet
there seemed to be no other resource, and Clemence now felt that in
resigning all her fortune she had made a sacrifice indeed.
She rose sad and unrefreshed from her sleepless pillow, and yet a spirit
of submission was shed into her heart. The iron had entered into her
soul, but the wound was not poisoned by rebellious unbelief. Clemence
was able to pray hopefully for her husband, and to trust that even the
trials of his condition might be a means of drawing him nearer to his
God. Surely the Almighty had judged his errors less severely than the
harsh, unfeeling world? Had not those errors arisen from the very
tenderness of his affection towards his wife? The temptations of
prosperity had raised a mist around him; the blast of misfortune had
dispersed that mist, and the blue heaven would again smile above him!
Thus mused the young wife, her mind ever recurring to her absent lord as
the centre of all its earthly thoughts. She could not see him, write to
him, cheer him; but she could still pour out her soul for him in prayer,
and was there not sweet comfort in that?
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