SOME SCENES IN THE LIFE OF A COUNTESS.
[Illustration.]
About the middle of January Harry Clavering went up to London, and
settled himself to work at Mr. Beilby's office. Mr. Beilby's office
consisted of four or five large chambers, overlooking the river from
the bottom of Adam Street in the Adelphi, and here Harry found a
table for himself in the same apartment with three other pupils. It
was a fine old room, lofty, and with large windows, ornamented on the
ceiling with Italian scrollwork, and a flying goddess in the centre.
In days gone by the house had been the habitation of some great
rich man, who had there enjoyed the sweet breezes from the river
before London had become the London of the present days, and when no
embankment had been needed for the Thames. Nothing could be nicer
than this room, or more pleasant than the table and seat which he was
to occupy near a window; but there was something in the tone of the
other men towards him which did not quite satisfy him. They probably
did not know that he was a fellow of a college, and treated him
almost as they might have done had he come to them direct from King's
College, in the Strand, or from the London University. Down at
Stratton, a certain amount of honour had been paid to him. They had
known there who he was, and had felt some deference for him. They had
not slapped him on the back, or poked him in the ribs, or even called
him old fellow, before some length of acquaintance justified such
appellation. But up at Mr. Beilby's, in the Adelphi, one young man,
who was certainly his junior in age, and who did not seem as yet
to have attained any high position in the science of engineering,
manifestly thought that he was acting in a friendly and becoming way
by declaring the stranger to be a lad of wax on the second day of his
appearance. Harry Clavering was not disinclined to believe that he
was a "lad of wax," or "a brick," or "a trump," or "no small beer."
But he desired that such complimentary and endearing appellations
should be used to him only by those who had known him long enough to
be aware that he deserved them. Mr. Joseph Walliker certainly was not
as yet among this number.
There was a man at Mr. Beilby's who was entitled to greet him with
endearing terms, and to be so greeted himself, although Harry had
never seen him till he attended for the first time at the Adelphi.
This was Theodore Burton, his future brother-in-law, who was now
the leading man in the London house;--the leading man as regarded
business, though he was not as yet a partner. It was understood that
this Mr. Burton was to come in when his father went out; and in
the meantime he received a salary of a thousand a year as managing
clerk. A very hard-working, steady, intelligent man was Mr. Theodore
Burton, with a bald head, a high forehead, and that look of constant
work about him which such men obtain. Harry Clavering could not
bring himself to take a liking to him, because he wore cotton
gloves and had an odious habit of dusting his shoes with his
pocket-handkerchief. Twice Harry saw him do this on the first day
of their acquaintance, and he regretted it exceedingly. The cotton
gloves too were offensive, as were also the thick shoes which had
been dusted; but the dusting was the great sin.
And there was something which did not quite please Harry in Mr.
Theodore Burton's manner, though the gentleman had manifestly
intended to be very kind to him. When Burton had been speaking to him
for a minute or two, it flashed across Harry's mind that he had not
bound himself to marry the whole Burton family, and that, perhaps,
he must take some means to let that fact be known. "Theodore," as
he had so often heard the younger Mr. Burton called by loving lips,
seemed to claim him as his own, called him Harry, and upbraided
him with friendly warmth for not having come direct to his,--Mr.
Burton's,--house in Onslow Crescent. "Pray feel yourself at home
there," said Mr. Burton. "I hope you'll like my wife. You needn't be
afraid of being made to be idle if you spend your evenings there, for
we are all reading people. Will you come and dine to-day?" Florence
had told him that she was her brother Theodore's favourite sister,
and that Theodore as a husband and a brother, and a man, was perfect.
But Theodore had dusted his boots with his handkerchief, and Harry
Clavering would not dine with him on that day.
And then it was painfully manifest to him that every one in the
office knew his destiny with reference to old Burton's daughter. He
had been one of the Stratton men, and no more than any other had he
gone unscathed through the Stratton fire. He had been made to do the
regular thing, as Granger, Scarness, and others had done it. Stratton
would be safer ground now, as Clavering had taken the last. That was
the feeling on the matter which seemed to belong to others. It was
not that Harry thought in this way of his own Florence. He knew well
enough what a lucky fellow he was to have won such a girl. He was
well aware how widely his Florence differed from Carry Scarness. He
denied to himself indignantly that he had any notion of repenting
what he had done. But he did wish that these private matters might
have remained private, and that all the men at Beilby's had not
known of his engagement. When Walliker, on the fourth day of their
acquaintance, asked him if it was all right at Stratton, he made up
his mind that he hated Walliker, and that he would hate Walliker to
the last day of his life. He had declined the first invitation given
to him by Theodore Burton; but he could not altogether avoid his
future brother-in-law, and had agreed to dine with him on this day.
On that same afternoon Harry, when he left Mr. Beilby's office, went
direct to Bolton Street, that he might call on Lady Ongar. As he went
thither he bethought himself that these Wallikers and the like had
had no such events in life as had befallen him! They laughed at him
about Florence Burton, little guessing that it had been his lot to
love, and to be loved by such a one as Julia Brabazon had been,--such
a one as Lady Ongar now was. But things had gone well with him. Julia
Brabazon could have made no man happy, but Florence Burton would be
the sweetest, dearest, truest little wife that ever man took to his
home. He was thinking of this, and determined to think of it more and
more daily, as he knocked at Lady Ongar's door. "Yes; her ladyship
was at home," said the servant whom he had seen on the railway
platform; and in a few moments' time he found himself in the
drawing-room which he had criticized so carefully when he was taking
it for its present occupant.
He was left in the room for five or six minutes, and was able to make
a full mental inventory of its contents. It was very different in its
present aspect from the room which he had seen not yet a month since.
She had told him that the apartments had been all that she desired;
but since then everything had been altered, at least in appearance.
A new piano had been brought in, and the chintz on the furniture was
surely new. And the room was crowded with small feminine belongings,
indicative of wealth and luxury. There were ornaments about, and
pretty toys, and a thousand knickknacks which none but the rich can
possess, and which none can possess even among the rich unless they
can give taste as well as money to their acquisition. Then he heard a
light step; the door opened, and Lady Ongar was there.
He expected to see the same figure that he had seen on the railway
platform, the same gloomy drapery, the same quiet, almost deathlike
demeanour, nay, almost the same veil over her features; but the Lady
Ongar whom he now saw was as unlike that Lady Ongar as she was unlike
that Julia Brabazon whom he had known in old days at Clavering Park.
She was dressed, no doubt, in black; nay, no doubt, she was dressed
in weeds; but in spite of the black and in spite of the weeds there
was nothing about her of the weariness or of the solemnity of woe.
He hardly saw that her dress was made of crape, or that long white
pendants were hanging down from the cap which sat so prettily upon
her head. But it was her face at which he gazed. At first he thought
that she could hardly be the same woman, she was to his eyes so much
older than she had been! And yet as he looked at her, he found that
she was as handsome as ever,--more handsome than she had ever been
before. There was a dignity about her face and figure which became
her well, and which she carried as though she knew herself to be in
very truth a countess. It was a face which bore well such signs of
age as those which had come upon it. She seemed to be a woman fitter
for womanhood than for girlhood. Her eyes were brighter than of yore,
and, as Harry thought, larger; and her high forehead and noble stamp
of countenance seemed fitted for the dress and headgear which she
wore.
"I have been expecting you," said she, stepping up to him. "Hermione
wrote me word that you were to come up on Monday. Why did you not
come sooner?" There was a smile on her face as she spoke, and a
confidence in her tone which almost confounded him.
"I have had so many things to do," said he lamely.
"About your new profession. Yes, I can understand that. And so you
are settled in London now? Where are you living;--that is, if you are
settled yet?" In answer to this, Harry told her that he had taken
lodgings in Bloomsbury Square, blushing somewhat as he named so
unfashionable a locality. Old Mrs. Burton had recommended him to the
house in which he was located, but he did not find it necessary to
explain that fact to Lady Ongar.
"I have to thank you for what you did for me," continued she. "You
ran away from me in such a hurry on that night that I was unable to
speak to you. But to tell the truth, Harry, I was in no mood then to
speak to any one. Of course you thought that I treated you ill."
"Oh, no," said he.
"Of course you did. If I thought you did not, I should be angry with
you now. But had it been to save my life I could not have helped
it. Why did not Sir Hugh Clavering come to meet me? Why did not my
sister's husband come to me?" To this question Harry could make no
answer. He was still standing with his hat in his hand, and now
turned his face away from her and shook his head.
"Sit down, Harry," she said, "and let me talk to you like a
friend;--unless you are in a hurry to go away."
"Oh, no," said he, seating himself.
"Or unless you, too, are afraid of me."
"Afraid of you, Lady Ongar?"
"Yes, afraid; but I don't mean you. I don't believe that you are
coward enough to desert a woman who was once your friend because
misfortune has overtaken her, and calumny has been at work with her
name."
"I hope not," said he.
"No, Harry; I do not think it of you. But if Sir Hugh be not a
coward, why did he not come and meet me? Why has he left me to stand
alone, now that he could be of service to me? I knew that money was
his god, but I have never asked him for a shilling and should not
have done so now. Oh, Harry, how wicked you were about that cheque!
Do you remember?"
"Yes; I remember."
"So shall I; always, always. If I had taken that money how often
should I have heard of it since?"
"Heard of it?" he asked. "Do you mean from me?"
"Yes; how often from you? Would you have dunned me, and told me of it
once a week? Upon my word, Harry, I was told of it more nearly every
day. Is it not wonderful that men should be so mean?"
It was clear to him now that she was talking of her husband who was
dead, and on that subject he felt himself at present unable to speak
a word. He little dreamed at that moment how openly she would soon
speak to him of Lord Ongar and of Lord Ongar's faults!
"Oh, how I have wished that I had taken your money! But never mind
about that now, Harry. Wretched as such taunts were, they soon became
a small thing. But it has been cowardly in your cousin, Hugh; has it
not? If I had not lived with him as one of his family, it would not
have mattered. People would not have expected it. It was as though my
own brother had cast me forth."
"Lady Clavering has been with you; has she not?"
"Once, for half-an-hour. She came up for one day, and came here by
herself, cowering as though she were afraid of me. Poor Hermy! She
has not a good time of it either. You lords of creation lead your
slaves sad lives when it pleases you to change your billing and
cooing for matter-of-fact masterdom and rule. I don't blame Hermy.
I suppose she did all she could, and I did not utter one word of
reproach of her. Nor should I to him. Indeed, if he came now the
servant would deny me to him. He has insulted me, and I shall
remember the insult."
Harry Clavering did not clearly understand what it was that Lady
Ongar had desired of her brother-in-law,--what aid she had required;
nor did he know whether it would be fitting for him to offer to act
in Sir Hugh's place. Anything that he could do, he felt himself at
that moment willing to do, even though the necessary service should
demand some sacrifice greater than prudence could approve. "If I had
thought that anything was wanted, I should have come to you sooner,"
said he.
"Everything is wanted, Harry. Everything is wanted;--except that
cheque for six hundred pounds which you sent me so treacherously. Did
you ever think what might have happened if a certain person had heard
of that? All the world would have declared that you had done it for
your own private purposes;--all the world, except one."
Harry, as he heard this, felt that he was blushing. Did Lady Ongar
know of his engagement with Florence Burton? Lady Clavering knew it,
and might probably have told the tidings; but then, again, she might
not have told them. Harry at this moment wished that he knew how it
was. All that Lady Ongar said to him would come with so different
a meaning according as she did, or did not know that fact. But he
had no mind to tell her of the fact himself. He declared to himself
that he hoped she knew it, as it would serve to make them both more
comfortable together; but he did not think that it would do for him
to bring forward the subject, neck and heels as it were. The proper
thing would be that she should congratulate him, but this she did not
do. "I certainly meant no ill," he said, in answer to the last words
she had spoken.
"You have never meant ill to me, Harry; though you know you have
abused me dreadfully before now. I daresay you forget the hard names
you have called me. You men do forget such things."
"I remember calling you one name."
"Do not repeat it now, if you please. If I deserved it, it would
shame me; and if I did not, it should shame you."
"No; I will not repeat it."
"Does it not seem odd, Harry, that you and I should be sitting,
talking together in this way?" She was leaning now towards him,
across the table, and one hand was raised to her forehead while her
eyes were fixed intently upon his. The attitude was one which he
felt to express extreme intimacy. She would not have sat in that
way, pressing back her hair from her brow, with all appearance of
widowhood banished from her face, in the presence of any but a dear
and close friend. He did not think of this, but he felt that it was
so, almost by instinct. "I have such a tale to tell you," she said;
"such a tale!"
[Illustration: A friendly talk.]
Why should she tell it to him? Of course he asked himself this
question. Then he remembered that she had no brother,--remembered
also that her brother-in-law had deserted her, and he declared to
himself that, if necessary, he would be her brother. "I fear that you
have not been happy," said he, "since I saw you last."
"Happy!" she replied. "I have lived such a life as I did not think
any man or woman could be made to live on this side the grave. I will
be honest with you, Harry. Nothing but the conviction that it could
not be for long has saved me from destroying myself. I knew that he
must die!"
"Oh, Lady Ongar!"
"Yes, indeed; that is the name he gave me; and because I consented to
take it from him, he treated me;--O heavens! how am I to find words
to tell you what he did, and the way in which he treated me. A woman
could not tell it to a man. Harry, I have no friend that I trust but
you, but to you I cannot tell it. When he found that he had been
wrong in marrying me, that he did not want the thing which he had
thought would suit him, that I was a drag upon him rather than a
comfort,--what was his mode, do you think, of ridding himself of the
burden?" Clavering sat silent looking at her. Both her hands were now
up to her forehead, and her large eyes were gazing at him till he
found himself unable to withdraw his own for a moment from her face.
"He strove to get another man to take me off his hands; and when he
found that he was failing,--he charged me with the guilt which he
himself had contrived for me."
"Lady Ongar!"
"Yes; you may well stare at me. You may well speak hoarsely and look
like that. It may be that even you will not believe me;--but by the
God in whom we both believe, I tell you nothing but the truth. He
attempted that and he failed,--and then he accused me of the crime
which he could not bring me to commit."
"And what then?"
"Yes; what then? Harry, I had a thing to do, and a life to live,
that would have tried the bravest; but I went through it. I stuck to
him to the last! He told me before he was dying,--before that last
frightful illness, that I was staying with him for his money. 'For
your money, my lord,' I said, 'and for my own name.' And so it was.
Would it have been wise in me, after all that I had gone through, to
have given up that for which I had sold myself? I had been very poor,
and had been so placed that poverty, even such poverty as mine, was
a curse to me. You know what I gave up because I feared that curse.
Was I to be foiled at last, because such a creature as that wanted
to shirk out of his bargain? I knew there were some who would say I
had been false. Hugh Clavering says so now, I suppose. But they never
should say I had left him to die alone in a foreign land."
"Did he ask you to leave him?"
"No;--but he called me that name which no woman should hear and stay.
No woman should do so unless she had a purpose such as mine. He
wanted back the price that he had paid, and I was determined to do
nothing that should assist him in his meanness! And then, Harry, his
last illness! Oh, Harry, you would pity me if you could know all!"
"It was his own intemperance!"
"Intemperance! It was brandy,--sheer brandy. He brought himself to
such a state that nothing but brandy would keep him alive, and in
which brandy was sure to kill him;--and it did kill him. Did you ever
hear of the horrors of drink?"
"Yes; I have heard of such a state."
"I hope you may never live to see it. It is a sight that would stick
by you for ever. But I saw it, and tended him through the whole, as
though I had been his servant. I remained with him when that man who
opened the door for you could no longer endure the room. I was with
him when the strong woman from the hospital, though she could not
understand his words, almost fainted at what she saw and heard. He
was punished, Harry. I need wish no farther vengeance on him, even
for all his cruelty, his injustice, his unmanly treachery. Is it
not fearful to think that any man should have the power of bringing
himself to such an end as that?"
Harry was thinking rather how fearful it was that a man should have
it in his power to drag any woman through such a Gehenna as that
which this lord had created. He felt that had Julia Brabazon been
his, as she had once promised him, he never would have allowed
himself to speak a harsh word to her, to have looked at her except
with loving eyes. But she had chosen to join herself to a man who had
treated her with a cruelty exceeding all that his imagination could
have conceived. "It is a mercy that he has gone," said he at last.
"It is a mercy for both. Perhaps you can understand now something of
my married life. And through it all I had but one friend;--if I may
call him a friend who had come to terms with my husband, and was to
have been his agent in destroying me. But when this man understood
from me that I was not what he had been taught to think me,--which my
husband had told him I was,--he relented."
"May I ask what was that man's name?"
"His name is Pateroff. He is a Pole, but he speaks English like an
Englishman. In my presence he told Lord Ongar that he was false and
brutal. Lord Ongar laughed, with that little, low, sneering laughter
which was his nearest approach to merriment, and told Count Pateroff
that that was of course his game before me. There, Harry,--I will
tell you nothing more of it. You will understand enough to know what
I have suffered; and if you can believe that I have not sinned--"
"Oh, Lady Ongar!"
"Well, I will not doubt you again. But as far as I can learn you are
nearly alone in your belief. What Hermy thinks I cannot tell, but she
will soon come to think as Hugh may bid her. And I shall not blame
her. What else can she do, poor creature?"
"I am sure she believes no ill of you."
"I have one advantage, Harry,--one advantage over her and some
others. I am free. The chains have hurt me sorely during my slavery;
but I am free, and the price of my servitude remains. He had written
home,--would you believe that?--while I was living with him he had
written home to say that evidence should be collected for getting rid
of me. And yet he would sometimes be civil, hoping to cheat me into
inadvertencies. He would ask that man to dine, and then of a sudden
would be absent; and during this he was ordering that evidence should
be collected! Evidence, indeed! The same servants have lived with me
through it all. If I could now bring forward evidence I could make it
all clear as the day. But there needs no care for a woman's honour,
though a man may have to guard his by collecting evidence!"
"But what he did cannot injure you."
"Yes, Harry, it has injured me; it has all but destroyed me. Have not
reports reached even you? Speak out like a man, and say whether it is
not so?"
"I have heard something."
"Yes, you have heard something! If you heard something of your sister
where would you be? All the world would be a chaos to you till you
had pulled out somebody's tongue by the roots. Not injured me! For
two years your cousin Hugh's house was my home. I met Lord Ongar in
his house. I was married from his house. He is my brother-in-law, and
it so happens that of all men he is the nearest to me. He stands well
before the world, and at this time could have done me real service.
How is it that he did not welcome me home;--that I am not now at his
house with my sister; that he did not meet me so that the world might
know that I was received back among my own people? Why is it, Harry,
that I am telling this to you;--to you, who are nothing to me; my
sister's husband's cousin; a young man, from your position not fit to
be my confidant? Why am I telling this to you, Harry?"
"Because we are old friends," said he, wondering again at this moment
whether she knew of his engagement with Florence Burton.
"Yes, we are old friends, and we have always liked each other; but
you must know that, as the world judges, I am wrong to tell all this
to you. I should be wrong,--only that the world has cast me out,
so that I am no longer bound to regard it. I am Lady Ongar, and I
have my share of that man's money. They have given me up Ongar Park,
having satisfied themselves that it is mine by right, and must be
mine by law. But he has robbed me of every friend I had in the world,
and yet you tell me he has not injured me!"
"Not every friend."
"No, Harry, I will not forget you, though I spoke so slightingly
of you just now. But your vanity need not be hurt. It is only the
world,--Mrs. Grundy, you know, that would deny me such friendship
as yours; not my own taste or choice. Mrs. Grundy always denies us
exactly those things which we ourselves like best. You are clever
enough to understand that."
He smiled and looked foolish, and declared that he only offered his
assistance because perhaps it might be convenient at the present
moment. What could he do for her? How could he show his friendship
for her now at once?
"You have done it, Harry, in listening to me and giving me your
sympathy. It is seldom that we want any great thing from our friends.
I want nothing of that kind. No one can hurt me much further now. My
money and my rank are safe; and, perhaps, by degrees, acquaintances,
if not friends, will form themselves round me again. At present, of
course, I see no one; but because I see no one, I wanted some one to
whom I could speak. Poor Hermy is worse than no one. Good-by, Harry;
you look surprised and bewildered now, but you will soon get over
that. Don't be long before I see you again."
Then, feeling that he was bidden to go, he wished her good-by, and
went.