TOO PRUDENT BY HALF.
Florence Burton thought herself the happiest girl in the world.
There was nothing wanting to the perfection of her bliss. She could
perceive, though she never allowed her mind to dwell upon the fact,
that her lover was superior in many respects to the men whom her
sisters had married. He was better educated, better looking, in fact
more fully a gentleman at all points than either Scarness or any of
the others. She liked her sisters' husbands very well, and in former
days, before Harry Clavering had come to Stratton, she had never
taught herself to think that she, if she married, would want anything
different from that which Providence had given to them. She had never
thrown up her head, or even thrown up her nose, and told herself that
she would demand something better than that. But not the less was she
alive to the knowledge that something better had come in her way, and
that that something better was now her own. She was very proud of her
lover, and, no doubt, in some gently feminine way showed that she was
so as she made her way about among her friends at Stratton. Any idea
that she herself was better educated, better looking, or more clever
than her elder sisters, and that, therefore, she was deserving of a
higher order of husband, had never entered her mind. The Burtons in
London,--Theodore Burton and his wife,--who knew her well, and who,
of all the family, were best able to appreciate her worth, had long
been of opinion that she deserved some specially favoured lot in
life. The question with them would be, whether Harry Clavering was
good enough for her.
Everybody at Stratton knew that she was engaged, and when they wished
her joy she made no coy denials. Her sisters had all been engaged in
the same way, and their marriages had gone off in regular sequence to
their engagements. There had never been any secret with them about
their affairs. On this matter the practice is very various among
different people. There are families who think it almost indelicate
to talk about marriage as a thing actually in prospect for any of
their own community. An ordinary acquaintance would be considered to
be impertinent in even hinting at such a thing, although the thing
were an established fact. The engaged young ladies only whisper
the news through the very depths of their pink note-paper, and are
supposed to blush as they communicate the tidings by their pens, even
in the retirement of their own rooms. But there are other families in
which there is no vestige of such mystery, in which an engaged couple
are spoken of together as openly as though they were already bound in
some sort of public partnership. In these families the young ladies
talk openly of their lovers, and generally prefer that subject of
conversation to any other. Such a family,--so little mysterious,--so
open in their arrangements, was that of the Burtons at Stratton.
The reserve in the reserved families is usually atoned for by the
magnificence of the bridal arrangements, when the marriage is at last
solemnized; whereas, among the other set,--the people who have no
reserve,--the marriage, when it comes, is customarily an affair
of much less outward ceremony. They are married without blast of
trumpet, with very little profit to the confectioner, and do their
honeymoon, if they do it at all, with prosaic simplicity.
Florence had made up her mind that she would be in no hurry about
it. Harry was in a hurry; but that was a matter of course. He was a
quick-blooded, impatient, restless being. She was slower, and more
given to consideration. It would be better that they should wait,
even if it were for five or six years. She had no fear of poverty
for herself. She had lived always in a house in which money was
much regarded, and among people who were of inexpensive habits.
But such had not been his lot, and it was her duty to think of the
mode of life which might suit him. He would not be happy as a poor
man,--without comforts around him, which would simply be comforts to
him though they would be luxuries to her. When her mother told her,
shaking her head rather sorrowfully as she heard Florence talk, that
she did not like long engagements, Florence would shake hers too, in
playful derision, and tell her mother not to be so suspicious. "It is
not you that are going to marry him, mamma."
"No, my dear; I know that. But long engagements never are good. And
I can't think why young people should want so many things, now, that
they used to do without very well when I was married. When I went
into housekeeping, we only had one girl of fifteen to do everything;
and we hadn't a nursemaid regular till Theodore was born; and there
were three before him."
Florence could not say how many maid-servants Harry might wish to
have under similar circumstances, but she was very confident that he
would want much more attendance than her father and mother had done,
or even than some of her brothers and sisters. Her father, when he
first married, would not have objected, on returning home, to find
his wife in the kitchen, looking after the progress of the dinner;
nor even would her brother Theodore have been made unhappy by such a
circumstance. But Harry, she knew, would not like it; and therefore
Harry must wait. "It will do him good, mamma," said Florence. "You
can't think that I mean to find fault with him; but I know that he is
young in his ways. He is one of those men who should not marry till
they are twenty-eight, or thereabouts."
"You mean that he is unsteady?"
"No,--not unsteady. I don't think him a bit unsteady; but he will be
happier single for a year or two. He hasn't settled down to like his
tea and toast when he is tired of his work, as a married man should
do. Do you know that I am not sure that a little flirtation would not
be very good for him?"
"Oh, my dear!"
"It should be very moderate, you know."
"But then, suppose it wasn't moderate. I don't like to see engaged
young men going on in that way. I suppose I'm very old-fashioned; but
I think when a young man is engaged, he ought to remember it and to
show it. It ought to make him a little serious, and he shouldn't be
going about like a butterfly, that may do just as it pleases in the
sunshine."
During the three months which Harry remained in town before the
Easter holidays he wrote more than once to Florence, pressing her to
name an early day for their marriage. These letters were written, I
think, after certain evenings spent under favourable circumstances in
Onslow Crescent, when he was full of the merits of domestic comfort,
and perhaps also owed some of their inspiration to the fact that Lady
Ongar had left London without seeing him. He had called repeatedly in
Bolton Street, having been specially pressed to do so by Lady Ongar,
but he had only once found her at home, and then a third person
had been present. This third person had been a lady who was not
introduced to him, but he had learned from her speech that she was
a foreigner. On that occasion Lady Ongar had made herself gracious
and pleasant, but nothing had passed which interested him, and, most
unreasonably, he had felt himself to be provoked. When next he went
to Bolton Street he found that Lady Ongar had left London. She had
gone down to Ongar Park, and, as far as the woman at the house knew,
intended to remain there till after Easter. Harry had some undefined
idea that she should not have taken such a step without telling
him. Had she not declared to him that he was her only friend?
When a friend is going out of town, leaving an only friend behind,
that friend ought to tell her only friend what she is going to do,
otherwise such a declaration of only-friendship means nothing. Such
was Harry Clavering's reasoning, and having so reasoned, he declared
to himself that it did mean nothing, and was very pressing to
Florence Burton to name an early day. He had been with Cecilia,
he told her,--he had learned to call Mrs. Burton Cecilia in his
letters,--and she quite agreed with him that their income would be
enough. He was to have two hundred a year from his father, having
brought himself to abandon that high-toned resolve which he had made
some time since that he would never draw any part of his income from
the parental coffers. His father had again offered it, and he had
accepted it. Old Mr. Burton was to add a hundred, and Harry was of
opinion that they could do very well. Cecilia thought the same, he
said, and therefore Florence surely would not refuse. But Florence
received, direct from Onslow Crescent, Cecilia's own version of her
thoughts, and did refuse. It may be surmised that she would have
refused even without assistance from Cecilia, for she was a young
lady not of a fickle or changing disposition. So she wrote to Harry
with much care, and as her letter had some influence on the story to
be told, the reader shall read it,--if the reader so pleases.
Stratton. March, 186--.
DEAR HARRY,--
I received your letter this morning, and answer it at
once, because I know you will be impatient for an answer.
You are impatient about things,--are you not? But it was
a kind, sweet, dear, generous letter, and I need not tell
you now that I love the writer of it with all my heart. I
am so glad you like Cecilia. I think she is the perfection
of a woman. And Theodore is every bit as good as Cecilia,
though I know you don't think so, because you don't say
so. I am always happy when I am in Onslow Crescent. I
should have been there this spring, only that a certain
person who chooses to think that his claims on me are
stronger than those of any other person wishes me to go
elsewhere. Mamma wishes me to go to London also for a
week, but I don't want to be away from the old house too
much before the final parting comes at last.
And now about the final parting; for I may as well rush at
it at once. I need hardly tell you that no care for father
or mother shall make me put off my marriage. Of course I
owe everything to you now; and as they have approved it,
I have no right to think of them in opposition to you.
And you must not suppose that they ask me to stay. On the
contrary, mamma is always telling me that early marriages
are best. She has sent all the birds out of the nest but
one; and is impatient to see that one fly away, that
she may be sure that there is no lame one in the brood.
You must not therefore think that it is mamma; nor is it
papa, as regards himself,--though papa agrees with me in
thinking that we ought to wait a little.
Dear Harry, you must not be angry, but I am sure that we
ought to wait. We are, both of us, young, and why should
we be in a hurry? I know what you will say, and of course
I love you the more because you love me so well; but I
fancy that I can be quite happy if I can see you two or
three times in the year, and hear from you constantly.
It is so good of you to write such nice letters, and the
longer they are the better I like them. Whatever you put
in them, I like them to be full. I know I can't write nice
letters myself, and it makes me unhappy. Unless I have got
something special to say, I am dumb.
But now I have something special to say. In spite of all
that you tell me about Cecilia, I do not think it would do
for us to venture upon marrying yet. I know that you are
willing to sacrifice everything, but I ought not on that
account to accept a sacrifice. I could not bear to see
you poor and uncomfortable; and we should be very poor in
London now-a-days with such an income as we should have.
If we were going to live here at Stratton perhaps we might
manage, but I feel sure that it would be imprudent in
London. You ought not to be angry with me for saying
this, for I am quite as anxious to be with you as you
can possibly be to be with me; only I can bear to look
forward, and have a pleasure in feeling that all my
happiness is to come. I know I am right in this. Do write
me one little line to say that you are not angry with your
little girl.
I shall be quite ready for you by the 29th. I got such a
dear little note from Fanny the other day. She says that
you never write to them, and she supposes that I have the
advantage of all your energy in that way. I have told her
that I do get a good deal. My brother writes to me very
seldom, I know; and I get twenty letters from Cecilia for
one scrap that Theodore ever sends me. Perhaps some of
these days I shall be the chief correspondent with the
rectory. Fanny told me all about the dresses, and I have
my own quite ready. I've been bridesmaid to four of my own
sisters, so I ought to know what I'm about. I'll never
be bridesmaid to anybody again, after Fanny; but whom on
earth shall I have for myself? I think we must wait till
Cissy and Sophy are ready. Cissy wrote me word that you
were a darling man. I don't know how much of that came
directly from Cissy, or how much from Cecilia.
God bless you, dear, dearest Harry. Let me have one letter
before you come to fetch me, and acknowledge that I am
right, even if you say that I am disagreeable. Of course
I like to think that you want to have me; but, you see,
one has to pay the penalty of being civilized.--Ever and
always your own affectionate
FLORENCE BURTON.
Harry Clavering was very angry when he got this letter. The primary
cause of his anger was the fact that Florence should pretend to know
what was better for him than he knew himself. If he was willing to
encounter life in London on less than four hundred a year, surely
she might be contented to try the same experiment. He did not for a
moment suspect that she feared for herself, but he was indignant with
her because of her fear for him. What right had she to accuse him
of wanting to be comfortable? Had he not for her sake consented to
be very uncomfortable at that old house at Stratton? Was he not
willing to give up his fellowship, and the society of Lady Ongar,
and everything else, for her sake? Had he not shown himself to be
such a lover as there is not one in a hundred? And yet she wrote and
told him that it wouldn't do for him to be poor and uncomfortable!
After all that he had done in the world, after all that he had gone
through, it would be odd if, at this time of day, he did not know
what was good for himself! It was in that way that he regarded
Florence's pertinacity.
He was rather unhappy at this period. It seemed to him that he was
somewhat slighted on both sides,--or, if I may say so, less thought
of on both sides than he deserved. Had Lady Ongar remained in town,
as she ought to have done, he would have solaced himself, and at the
same time have revenged himself upon Florence, by devoting some of
his spare hours to that lady. It was Lady Ongar's sudden departure
that had made him feel that he ought to rush at once into marriage.
Now he had no consolation, except that of complaining to Mrs. Burton,
and going frequently to the theatre. To Mrs. Burton he did complain a
great deal, pulling her worsteds and threads about the while, sitting
in idleness while she was working, just as Theodore Burton had
predicted that he would do.
"I won't have you so idle, Harry," Mrs. Burton said to him one day.
"You know you ought to be at your office now." It must be admitted
on behalf of Harry Clavering, that they who liked him, especially
women, were able to become intimate with him very easily. He had
comfortable, homely ways about him, and did not habitually give
himself airs. He had become quite domesticated at the Burtons' house
during the ten weeks that he had been in London, and knew his way
to Onslow Crescent almost too well. It may, perhaps, be surmised
correctly that he would not have gone there so frequently if Mrs.
Theodore Burton had been an ugly woman.
"It's all her fault," said he, continuing to snip a piece of worsted
with a pair of scissors as he spoke. "She's too prudent by half."
"Poor Florence!"
"You can't but know that I should work three times as much if she had
given me a different answer. It stands to reason any man would work
under such circumstances as that. Not that I am idle, I believe. I do
as much as any other man about the place."
"I won't have my worsted destroyed all the same. Theodore says that
Florence is right."
"Of course he does; of course he'll say I'm wrong. I won't ask her
again,--that's all."
"Oh, Harry! don't say that. You know you'll ask her. You would
to-morrow, if she were here."
"You don't know me, Cecilia, or you would not say so. When I have
made up my mind to a thing, I am generally firm about it. She said
something about two years, and I will not say a word to alter that
decision. If it be altered, it shall be altered by her."
In the meantime he punished Florence by sending her no special answer
to her letter. He wrote to her as usual; but he made no reference to
his last proposal, nor to her refusal. She had asked him to tell her
that he was not angry, but he would tell her nothing of the kind. He
told her when and where and how he would meet her, and convey her
from Stratton to Clavering; gave her some account of a play he had
seen; described a little dinner-party in Onslow Crescent; and told
her a funny story about Mr. Walliker and the office at the Adelphi.
But he said no word, even in rebuke, as to her decision about their
marriage. He intended that this should be felt to be severe, and took
pleasure in the pain that he would be giving. Florence, when she
received her letter, knew that he was sore, and understood thoroughly
the working of his mind. "I will comfort him when we are together,"
she said to herself. "I will make him reasonable when I see him."
It was not the way in which he expected that his anger would be
received.
One day on his return home he found a card on his table which
surprised him very much. It contained a name but no address, but over
the name there was a pencil memorandum, stating that the owner of the
card would call again on his return to London after Easter. The name
on the card was that of Count Pateroff. He remembered the name well
as soon as he saw it, though he had never thought of it since the
solitary occasion on which it had been mentioned to him. Count
Pateroff was the man who had been Lord Ongar's friend, and respecting
whom Lord Ongar had brought a false charge against his wife. Why
should Count Pateroff call on him? Why was he in England? Whence had
he learned the address in Bloomsbury Square? To that last question he
had no difficulty in finding an answer. Of course he must have heard
it from Lady Ongar. Count Pateroff had now left London! Had he gone
to Ongar Park? Harry Clavering's mind was instantly filled with
suspicion, and he became jealous in spite of Florence Burton. Could
it be that Lady Ongar, not yet four months a widow, was receiving at
her house in the country this man with whose name her own had been so
fatally joined? If so, what could he think of such behaviour? He was
very angry. He knew that he was angry, but he did not at all know
that he was jealous. Was he not, by her own declaration to him, her
only friend; and as such could he entertain such a suspicion without
anger? "Her friend!" he said to himself. "Not if she has any dealings
whatever with that man after what she has told me of him!" He
remembered at last that perhaps the count might not be at Ongar Park;
but he must, at any rate, have had some dealing with Lady Ongar or
he would not have known the address in Bloomsbury Square. "Count
Pateroff!" he said, repeating the name, "I shouldn't wonder if I
have to quarrel with that man." During the whole of that night he
was thinking of Lady Ongar. As regarded himself, he knew that he
had nothing to offer to Lady Ongar but a brotherly friendship; but,
nevertheless, it was an injury to him that she should be acquainted
intimately with any unmarried man but himself.
On the next day he was to go to Stratton, and in the morning a letter
was brought to him by the postman; a letter, or rather a very short
note. Guildford was the postmark, and he knew at once that it was
from Lady Ongar.
DEAR MR. CLAVERING [the note said],--
I was so sorry to leave London without seeing you; I shall
be back by the end of April, and am keeping on the same
rooms. Come to me, if you can, on the evening of the 30th,
after dinner. He at last bade Hermy to write and ask me
to go to Clavering for the Easter week. Such a note! I'll
show it you when we meet. Of course I declined.
But I write on purpose to tell you that I have begged
Count Pateroff to see you. I have not seen him, but I
have had to write to him about things that happened in
Florence. He has come to England chiefly with reference to
the affairs of Lord Ongar. I want you to hear his story.
As far as I have known him he is a truth-telling man,
though I do not know that I am able to say much more in
his favour.
Ever yours, J. O.
When he had read this he was quite an altered man. See Count
Pateroff! Of course he would see him. What task could be more
fitting for a friend than this, of seeing such a man under such
circumstances. Before he left London he wrote a note for Count
Pateroff, to be given to the count by the people at the lodgings
should he call during Harry's absence from London. In this he
explained that he would be at Clavering for a fortnight, but
expressed himself ready to come up to London at a day's notice should
Count Pateroff be necessitated again to leave London before the day
named.
As he went about his business that day, and as he journeyed down to
Stratton, he entertained much kinder ideas about Lady Ongar than he
had previously done since seeing Count Pateroff's card.