"'TIS DEEPEST WINTER IN LORD TIMOR'S PURSE."
Before nightfall--before the evening which was to have been enlivened by a
dinner-party and a carpet-dance, and while bride and bridegroom should have
been speeding southwards to that noble Kentish mansion which his uncle had
lent George Fairfax--before the rooks flew homeward across the woods beyond
Hale--there had been a general flight from the Castle. People were anxious
to leave the mourners alone with their grief, and even the most intimate
felt more or less in the way, though Mr. Armstrong entreated that there
might be no hurry, no inconvenience for any one.
"Poor Laura won't be fit to be seen for a day or two," he said, "and of
course I shall have to go up to town for the funeral; but that need make no
difference. Hale is large enough for every one, and it will be a comfort to
her by-and-by to find her friends round her."
Through all that dreary day Lady Laura wandered about her morning-room,
alternately sobbing and talking of her father to those chosen friends with
whom she held little interviews.
Her sisters Louisa and Emily were with her for the greater part of the
time, echoing her lamentations like a feeble chorus. Geraldine kept
her room, and would see no one--not even him who was to have been her
bridegroom, and who might have supposed that he had the chiefest right to
console her in this sudden affliction.
Clarissa spent more than an hour with Lady Laura, listening with a tender
interest to her praises of the departed. It seemed as if no elderly
nobleman--more or less impecunious for the last twenty years of his
life--had ever supported such a load of virtues as Lord Calderwood had
carried with him to the grave. To praise him inordinately was the only
consolation his three daughters could find in the first fervour of their
grief. Time was when they had been apt to confess to one another that
papa was occasionally rather "trying," a vague expression which scarcely
involved a lapse of filial duty on the part of the grumbler. But to hear
them to-day one would have supposed that they had never been tried; that
life with Lord Calderwood in a small house in Chapel-street, Mayfair, had
been altogether a halcyon existence.
Clarissa listened reverently, believing implicitly in the merits of the
newly lost, and did her best to console her kind friend during the hour Mr.
Armstrong allowed her to spend with Lady Laura. At the end of that time he
came and solemnly fetched her away, after a pathetic farewell.
"You must come to me again, Clary, and very, very soon," said my lady,
embracing her. "I only wish Fred would let you stay with me now. You would
be a great comfort."
"My dearest Lady Laura, it is better not. You have your sisters."
"Yes, they are very good; but I wanted you to stay, Clary. I had such plans
for you. O, by the bye, the Grangers will be going back to-day, I
suppose. Why should they not take you with them in their great travelling
carriage?--Frederick, will you arrange for the Grangers to take Clarissa
home?" cried Lady Laura to her husband, who was hovering near the door.
In the midst of her grief my lady brightened a little; with the idea of
managing something, even so small a matter as this.
"Of course, my dear," replied the affectionate Fred. "Granger shall take
Miss Lovel home. And now I must positively hurry her away; all this talk
and excitement is so bad for you."
"I must see the Fermors before they go. You'll let me see the Fermors,
Fred?"
"Well, well, I'll bring them just to say good-bye--that's all--Come along,
Miss Lovel."
Clarissa followed him through the corridor.
"O, if you please, Mr. Armstrong," she said, "I did not like to worry Lady
Laura, but I would so much rather go home alone in a fly."
"Nonsense! the Grangers can take you. You could have Laura's brougham, of
course; but if she wants you to go with the Grangers, you must go. Her word
is law; and she's sure to ask me about it by-and-by. She's a wonderful
woman; thinks of everything."
They met Mr. and Miss Granger presently, dressed for the journey.
"O, if you please, Granger, I want you to take Miss Lovel home in your
carriage. You've plenty of 'room, I know."
Sophia looked as if she would have liked to say that there was no room, but
her father's face quite flushed with pleasure.
"I shall be only too happy," he said, "if Miss Lovel will trust herself to
our care."
"And perhaps you'll explain to her father what has happened, and how sorry
we are to lose her, and so on."
"Certainly, my dear Armstrong. I shall make a point of seeing Mr. Lovel in
order to do so."
So Clarissa had a seat in Mr. Granger's luxurious carriage, the proprietor
whereof sat opposite to her, admiring the pale patrician face, and
wondering a little what that charm was which made it seem to him more
beautiful than any other countenance he had ever looked upon. They did not
talk much, Mr. Granger only making a few stereotyped remarks about the
uncertainties of this life, or occasionally pointing out some feature of
the landscape to Clarissa. The horses went at a splendid pace Their owner
would have preferred a slower transit.
"Remember, Miss Lovel," he said, as they approached the village of Arden,
"you have promised to come and see us."
"You are very good; but I go out so little, and papa is always averse to my
visiting."
"But he can't be that any more after allowing you to stay at the Castle,
or he will offend commoner folks, like Sophy and me, by his exclusiveness.
Besides, he told me he wished Sophy and you to be good friends. I am sure
he will let you come to us. When shall it be? Shall we say to-morrow,
before luncheon--at twelve or one, say? I will show you what I've done
for the house in the morning, and Sophy can take you over her schools and
cottages in the afternoon."
Sophia Granger made no attempt to second this proposition; but her father
was so eager and decisive, that it seemed quite impossible for Clarissa to
say no.
"If papa will let me come," she said doubtfully.
"O, I'm quite sure he will not refuse, after what he was good enough to say
to me," replied Mr. Granger; "and if he does not feel equal to going about
with us in the morning, I hope we shall be able to persuade him to come to
dinner."
They were at the little rustic gate before Mill Cottage by this time. How
small the place looked after Hale Castle! but not without a prettiness
of its own. The virginia creeper was reddening on the wall; the casement
windows open to the air and sunshine. Ponto ran out directly the gate was
opened--first to bark at the carriage, and then to leap joyously about
Clarissa, overpowering her with a fond canine welcome.
"You'll come in with us, Sophia?" asked Mr. Granger, when he had alighted,
and handed Clarissa out of the carriage.
"I think not, papa. You can't want me; and this dreadful morning has given
me a wretched headache."
"I thought there was something amiss. It would be more respectful to Mr.
Lovel for you to come in. I daresay he'll excuse you, however, when he
hears you are ill."
Clarissa held out her hand, which Miss Granger took with an almost obvious
reluctance, and the two young ladies said "Good-bye" to each other, without
a word from Sophia about the engagement for the next day.
They found Mr. Lovel in his favourite sitting-room; not dreaming over
a Greek play or a volume of Bentley, as it was his custom to do, but
seriously engaged with a number of open letters and papers scattered on the
writing-table before him--papers that looked alarmingly like tradesmen's
bills. He was taken by surprise on the entrance of Clarissa and her
companion, and swept the papers into an open drawer with rather a nervous
hand.
"My dear Clarissa, this is quite unexpected!--How do you do, Mr. Granger?
How very good of you to bring my little girl over to see me! Will you take
that chair by the window? I was deep in a file of accounts when you came
in. A man must examine his affairs sometimes, however small his household
may be.--Well, Clary, what news of our kind friends at the Castle? Why,
bless my soul, this is the wedding-day, isn't it? I had quite forgotten the
date. Has anything happened?"
"Yes, papa; there has been a great misfortune, and the wedding is put off."
Between them, Mr. Granger and Clarissa explained the state of affairs at
the Castle. Mr. Lovel seemed really shocked by the intelligence of the
Earl's death.
"Poor Calderwood! He and I were great friends thirty years ago. I suppose
it's nearly twenty since I last saw him. He was one of the handsomest men
I ever knew--Lady Geraldine takes after him--and when he was in the
diplomatic service had really a very brilliant career before him; but he
missed it somehow. Had always rather a frivolous mind, I fancy, and a want
of perseverance. Poor Calderwood! And so he is gone! How old could he have
been? Not much over sixty, I believe. I'll look into Debrett presently."
As soon as he could decently do so after this, Mr. Granger urged his
invitation for the next day.
"O, certainly, by all means. Clary shall come to you as early as you
like. It will be a great relief for her from the dulness of this place.
And--well--yes, if you insist upon it, I'll join you at dinner. But you see
what a perfect recluse I am. There will be no one else, I suppose?"
"You have only to say that you wish it, and there shall be no one else,"
Mr. Granger replied courteously.
Never had he been so anxious to propitiate any one. People had courted
him more or less all his life; and here he was almost suing for the
acquaintance of this broken-down spendthrift--a man whom he had secretly
despised until now.
On this assurance Mr. Lovel consented to dine with his neighbour for the
first time; and Mr. Granger, having no excuse for farther lingering, took
his departure, remembering all at once that he had such a thing as a
daughter waiting for him in the carriage outside.
He went, and Clarissa took up the thread of her old life just where she had
dropped it. Her father was by no means so gracious or agreeable to-day
as he had been during his brief visit to Hale Castle. He took out his
tradesmen's letters and bills when Mr. Granger was gone, and went on with
his examination of them, groaning aloud now and then, or sometimes stopping
to rest his head on his hands with a dreary long-drawn sigh. Clarissa would
have been very glad to offer her sympathy, to utter some word of comfort;
but there was something in her father's aspect which forbade any
injudicious approach. She sat by the open window with a book in her hand,
but not reading, waiting patiently in the hope that he would share his
troubles with her by-and-by.
He went on with his work for about an hour, and then tied the papers in a
bundle with an impatient air.
"Arithmetic is no use in such a case as mine," he said; "no man can make
fifty pounds pay a hundred. I suppose it must end in the bankruptcy court.
It will be only our last humiliation, the culminating disgrace."
"The bankruptcy court! O, papa!" cried Clarissa piteously. She had a very
vague idea as to what bankruptcy meant, but felt that it was something
unutterably shameful--the next thing to a criminal offence.
"Better men than I have gone through it," Mr. Lovel went on with a sigh,
and without the faintest notice of his daughter's dismay; "but I couldn't
stand Arden and Holborough after that degradation. I must go abroad, to
some dull old town in the south of France, where I could have my books and
decent wine, and where, as regards everything else, I should be in a living
grave.
"But they would never make you bankrupt surely, papa;" Clarissa exclaimed
in the same piteous tone.
"_They_ would never make me bankrupt!" echoed her father fretfully. "What
do you mean by _they_? You talk like a baby, Clarissa. Do you suppose that
tradesmen and bankers and bill-discounters would have more mercy upon me
than upon other people? They may give me more time than they would give
another man, perhaps, because they know I have some pride of race, and
would coin my heart's blood rather than adopt expedients that other men
make light of; but when they know there is no more to be got out of me,
they will do their worst. It is only a question of time."
"Are you very much in debt, papa?" Clarissa asked timidly, anticipating a
rebuff.
"No; that is the most confounded part of the business. My liabilities only
amount to a few pitiful hundreds. When I sold Arden--and I did not do that
till I was obliged, you may believe--the bulk of the purchase-money went to
the mortgagees. With the residue--a paltry sum--I bought myself an annuity;
a transaction which I was able to conclude upon better terms than most men
of my age, on account of my precarious health, and to which I was most
strongly urged by my legal advisers. On this I have existed, or tried to
exist, ever since: but the income has not been sufficient even for the
maintenance of this narrow household; if I lived in a garret, I must live
like a gentleman, and should be always at the mercy of my servants.
These are honest enough, I daresay, but I have no power of checking my
expenditure. And then I had your schooling to pay for--no small amount, I
assure you."
"Thank heaven that is over, papa! And now, if you would only let me go out
as a governess, I might be some help to you instead of a burden."
"There's time enough to think of that. You are not much of a burden to me
at present. I don't suppose you add many pounds a year to the expenses of
this house. And if I have to face the inevitable, and see my name in the
_Gazette_, we must begin life again upon a smaller scale, and in a cheaper
place--some out-of-the-way corner of France or Belgium. The governess
notion will keep till I am dead. You can always be of some use to me as a
companion, if you choose."
This was quite a concession. Clarissa came over to her father's chair, and
laid her hand caressingly upon his shoulder.
"My dear father," she said in a low sweet voice, "you make me almost happy,
in spite of our troubles. I wish for nothing better than to stay with you
always. And by-and-by, if we have to live abroad, where you need not be so
particular about our name, I may be able to help you a little--by means of
art or music--without leaving home. I think I could be happy anywhere with
you, papa, if you would only love me a little."
That appeal touched a heart not easily moved. Marmaduke Lovel put
his hand--such a slender feminine hand--into his daughter's with an
affectionate pressure.
"Poor child!" he said sadly. "It would be hard if I couldn't love you a
little. But you were born under an evil star, Clarissa; and hitherto
perhaps I have tried to shut my heart against you. I won't do that any
more. Whatever affection is in me to give shall be yours. God knows I have
no reason to withhold it, nor any other creature on this earth on whom to
bestow it. God knows it is a new thing for me to have my love sued for."
There was a melancholy in his tone which touched his daughter deeply.
He seemed to have struck the key-note of his life in those few words; a
disappointed unsuccessful life; a youth in which there had been some hidden
cause for the ungenial temper of his middle age.
It was nearly six o'clock by this time, and Clarissa strolled into the
garden with her father while the table was being laid for dinner. There
were faint glimpses of russet here and there among the woods around Arden
Court, but it still seemed summer time. The late roses were in full bloom
in Mr. Lovel's fertile garden, the rosy apples were brightening in the
orchard, the plums purpling on a crumbling old red-brick wall that bounded
the narrow patch of kitchen-garden. Yes, even after Hale Castle the place
seemed pretty; and a pang went through Clarissa's heart, as she thought
that this too they might have to leave; even this humble home was not
secure to them.
Father and daughter dined together very pleasantly. Clarissa had been
almost happy by her father's unwonted tenderness, and Mr. Lovel was in
tolerable spirits, in spite of that dreary afternoon's labour, that
hopeless task of trying to find out some elastic quality in pounds,
shillings, and pence.
* * * * *