IS SHE MAD?
Lady Ongar was at Tenby when she received Mrs. Clavering's letter,
and had not heard of the fate of her brother-in-law till the news
reached her in that way. She had gone down to a lodging at Tenby
with no attendant but one maid, and was preparing herself for the
great surrender of her property which she meditated. Hitherto she had
heard nothing from the Courtons or their lawyer as to the offer she
had made about Ongar Park; but the time had been short, and lawyers'
work, as she knew, was never done in a hurry. She had gone to Tenby,
flying, in truth, from the loneliness of London to the loneliness
of the sea-shore,--but expecting she knew not what comfort from the
change. She would take with her no carriage, and there would, as she
thought, be excitement even in that. She would take long walks by
herself;--she would read;--nay, if possible, she would study and
bring herself to some habits of industry. Hitherto she had failed in
everything, but now she would try if some mode of success might not
be open to her. She would ascertain, too, on what smallest sum she
could live respectably and without penury, and would keep only so
much out of Lord Ongar's wealth.
But hitherto her life at Tenby had not been successful. Solitary days
were longer there even than they had been in London. People stared
at her more; and, though she did not own it to herself, she missed
greatly the comforts of her London house. As for reading, I doubt
whether she did much better by the seaside than she had done in the
town. Men and women say that they will read, and think so,--those,
I mean, who have acquired no habit of reading,--believing the work
to be, of all works, the easiest. It may be work, they think, but of
all works it must be the easiest of achievement. Given the absolute
faculty of reading, the task of going through the pages of a book
must be, of all tasks, the most certainly within the grasp of the
man or woman who attempts it! Alas, no;--if the habit be not there,
of all tasks it is the most difficult. If a man have not acquired
the habit of reading till he be old, he shall sooner in his old age
learn to make shoes than learn the adequate use of a book. And worse
again;--under such circumstances the making of shoes shall be more
pleasant to him than the reading of a book. Let those who are not
old,--who are still young, ponder this well. Lady Ongar, indeed, was
not old, by no means too old to clothe herself in new habits. But
even she was old enough to find that the doing so was a matter of
much difficulty. She had her books around her; but, in spite of her
books, she was sadly in want of some excitement when the letter from
Clavering came to her relief.
It was indeed a relief. Her brother-in-law dead, and he also who had
so lately been her suitor! These two men whom she had so lately seen
in lusty health,--proud with all the pride of outward life,--had
both, by a stroke of the winds, been turned into nothing. A terrible
retribution had fallen upon her enemy,--for as her enemy she had
ever regarded Hugh Clavering since her husband's death. She took
no joy in this retribution. There was no feeling of triumph at her
heart in that he had perished. She did not tell herself that she
was glad,--either for her own sake or for her sister's. But mingled
with the awe she felt there was a something of unexpressed and
inexpressible relief. Her present life was very grievous to her,--and
now had occurred that which would open to her new hopes and a new
mode of living. Her brother-in-law had oppressed her by his very
existence, and now he was gone. Had she had no brother-in-law who
ought to have welcomed her, her return to England would not have been
terrible to her as it had been. Her sister would be now restored
to her, and her solitude would probably be at an end. And then the
very excitement occasioned by the news was salutary to her. She was,
in truth, shocked. As she said to her maid, she felt it to be very
dreadful. But, nevertheless, the day on which she received those
tidings was less wearisome to her than any other of the days that she
had passed at Tenby.
Poor Archie! Some feeling of a tear, some half-formed drop that
was almost a tear, came to her eye as she thought of his fate. How
foolish he had always been, how unintelligent, how deficient in all
those qualities which recommend men to women! But the very memory
of his deficiencies created something like a tenderness in his
favour. Hugh was disagreeable, nay hateful, by reason of the power
which he possessed; whereas Archie was not hateful at all, and was
disagreeable simply because nature had been a niggard to him. And
then he had professed himself to be her lover. There had not been
much in this; for he had come, of course, for her money; but even
when that is the case a woman will feel something for the man who
has offered to link his lot with hers. Of all those to whom the fate
of the two brothers had hitherto been matter of moment, I think that
Lady Ongar felt more than any other for the fate of poor Archie.
And how would it affect Harry Clavering? She had desired to give
Harry all the good things of the world, thinking that they would
become him well,--thinking that they would become him very well as
reaching him from her hand. Now he would have them all, but would
not have them from her. Now he would have them all, and would share
them with Florence Burton. Ah,--if she could have been true to
him in those early days,--in those days when she had feared his
poverty,--would it not have been well now with her also? The measure
of her retribution was come full home to her at last! Sir Harry
Clavering! She tried the name and found that it sounded very well.
And she thought of the figure of the man and of his nature, and she
knew that he would bear it with a becoming manliness. Sir Harry
Clavering would be somebody in his county,--would be a husband of
whom his wife would be proud as he went about among his tenants and
his gamekeepers,--and perhaps on wider and better journeys, looking
up the voters of his neighbourhood. Yes; happy would be the wife of
Sir Harry Clavering. He was a man who would delight in sharing his
house, his hopes, his schemes and councils with his wife. He would
find a companion in his wife. He would do honour to his wife, and
make much of her. He would like to see her go bravely. And then, if
children came, how tender he would be to them! Whether Harry could
ever have become a good head to a poor household might be doubtful,
but no man had ever been born fitter for the position which he was
now called upon to fill. It was thus that Lady Ongar thought of Harry
Clavering as she owned to herself that the full measure of her just
retribution had come home to her.
Of course she would go at once to Clavering Park. She wrote to her
sister saying so, and the next day she started. She started so
quickly on her journey that she reached the house not very many hours
after her own letter. She was there when the rector started for
London, and there when Mr. Fielding preached his sermon; but she did
not see Mr. Clavering before he went, nor was she present to hear the
eloquence of the younger clergyman. Till after that Sunday the only
member of the family she had seen was Mrs. Clavering, who spent some
period of every day up at the great house. Mrs. Clavering had not
hitherto seen Lady Ongar since her return, and was greatly astonished
at the change which so short a time had made. "She is handsomer
than ever she was," Mrs. Clavering said to the rector; "but it is
that beauty which some women carry into middle life, and not the
loveliness of youth." Lady Ongar's manner was cold and stately when
first she met Mrs. Clavering. It was on the morning of her marriage
when they had last met,--when Julia Brabazon was resolving that she
would look like a countess, and that to be a countess should be
enough for her happiness. She could not but remember this now, and
was unwilling at first to make confession of her failure by any
meekness of conduct. It behoved her to be proud, at any rate till she
should know how this new Lady Clavering would receive her. And then
it was more than probable that this new Lady Clavering knew all that
had taken place between her and Harry. It behoved her, therefore, to
hold her head on high.
But before the week was over, Mrs. Clavering,--for we will still call
her so,--had broken Lady Ongar's spirit by her kindness; and the poor
woman who had so much to bear had brought herself to speak of the
weight of her burden. Julia had, on one occasion, called her Lady
Clavering, and for the moment this had been allowed to pass without
observation. The widowed lady was then present, and no notice of the
name was possible. But soon afterwards Mrs. Clavering made her little
request on the subject. "I do not quite know what the custom may be,"
she said, "but do not call me so just yet. It will only be reminding
Hermy of her bereavement."
"She is thinking of it always," said Julia.
"No doubt she is; but still the new name would wound her. And,
indeed, it perplexes me also. Let it come by-and-by, when we are more
settled."
Lady Ongar had truly said that her sister was as yet always thinking
of her bereavement. To her now it was as though the husband she had
lost had been a paragon among men. She could only remember of him his
manliness, his power,--a dignity of presence which he possessed,--and
the fact that to her he had been everything. She thought of that
last and vain caution which she had given him, when with her hardly
permitted last embrace she had besought him to take care of himself.
She did not remember now how coldly that embrace had been received,
how completely those words had been taken as meaning nothing, how he
had left her not only without a sign of affection, but without an
attempt to repress the evidences of his indifference. But she did
remember that she had had her arm upon his shoulder, and tried to
think of that embrace as though it had been sweet to her. And she did
remember how she had stood at the window, listening to the sounds of
the wheels which took him off, and watching his form as long as her
eye could rest upon it. Ah! what falsehoods she told herself now of
her love to him, and of his goodness to her; pious falsehoods which
would surely tend to bring some comfort to her wounded spirit.
But her sister could hardly bear to hear the praises of Sir Hugh.
When she found how it was to be, she resolved that she would bear
them,--bear them, and not contradict them; but her struggle in doing
so was great, and was almost too much for her.
"He had judged me and condemned me," she said at last, "and
therefore, as a matter of course, we were not such friends when we
last met as we used to be before my marriage."
"But, Julia, there was much for which you owed him gratitude."
"We will say nothing about that now, Hermy."
"I do not know why your mouth should be closed on such a subject
because he has gone. I should have thought that you would be glad to
acknowledge his kindness to you. But you were always hard."
"Perhaps I am hard."
"And twice he asked you to come here since you returned,--but you
would not come."
"I have come now, Hermy, when I have thought that I might be of use."
"He felt it when you would not come before. I know he did." Lady
Ongar could not but think of the way in which he had manifested his
feelings on the occasion of his visit to Bolton Street. "I never
could understand why you were so bitter."
"I think, dear, we had better not discuss that. I also have had much
to bear,--I, as well as you. What you have borne has come in no wise
from your own fault."
"No, indeed; I did not want him to go. I would have given anything to
keep him at home."
Her sister had not been thinking of the suffering which had come
to her from the loss of her husband, but of her former miseries.
This, however, she did not explain. "No," Lady Ongar continued to
say. "You have nothing for which to blame yourself, whereas I have
much,--indeed everything. If we are to remain together, as I hope we
may, it will be better for us both that bygones should be bygones."
"Do you mean that I am never to speak of Hugh?"
"No;--I by no means intend that. But I would rather that you should
not refer to his feelings towards me. I think he did not quite
understand the sort of life that I led while my husband was alive,
and that he judged me amiss. Therefore I would have bygones be
bygones."
Three or four days after this, when the question of leaving Clavering
Park was being mooted, the elder sister started a difficulty as to
money matters. An offer had been made to her by Mrs. Clavering to
remain at the great house, but this she had declined, alleging that
the place would be distasteful to her after her husband's death.
She, poor soul, did not allege that it had been made distasteful to
her for ever by the solitude which she had endured there during her
husband's lifetime! She would go away somewhere, and live as best
she might upon her jointure. It was not very much, but it would be
sufficient. She did not see, she said, how she could live with her
sister, because she did not wish to be dependent. Julia, of course,
would live in a style to which she could make no pretence.
Mrs. Clavering, who was present,--as was also Lady Ongar,--declared
that she saw no such difficulty. "Sisters together," she said, "need
hardly think of a difference in such matters."
Then it was that Lady Ongar first spoke to either of them of her
half-formed resolution about her money, and then too, for the first
time, did she come down altogether from that high horse on which
she had been, as it were, compelled to mount herself while in Mrs.
Clavering's presence. "I think I must explain," said she, "something
of what I mean to do,--about my money that is. I do not think that
there will be much difference between me and Hermy in that respect."
"That is nonsense," said her sister, fretfully.
"There will be a difference in income certainly," said Mrs.
Clavering, "but I do not see that that need create any uncomfortable
feeling."
"Only one doesn't like to be dependent," said Hermione.
"You shall not be asked to give up any of your independence," said
Julia, with a smile,--a melancholy smile, that gave but little sign
of pleasantness within. Then on a sudden her face became stern and
hard. "The fact is," she said, "I do not intend to keep Lord Ongar's
money."
"Not to keep your income!" said Hermione.
"No;--I will give it back to them,--or at least the greater part of
it. Why should I keep it?"
"It is your own," said Mrs. Clavering.
"Yes; legally it is my own. I know that. And when there was some
question whether it should not be disputed I would have fought for it
to the last shilling. Somebody,--I suppose it was the lawyer,--wanted
to keep from me the place in Surrey. I told them then that I would
not abandon my right to an inch of it. But they yielded,--and now I
have given them back the house."
"You have given it back!" said her sister.
"Yes;--I have said they may have it. It is of no use to me. I hate
the place."
"You have been very generous," said Mrs. Clavering.
"But that will not affect your income," said Hermione.
"No;--that would not affect my income." Then she paused, not knowing
how to go on with the story of her purpose.
"If I may say so, Lady Ongar," said Mrs. Clavering, "I would not, if
I were you, take any steps in so important a matter without advice."
"Who is there that can advise me? Of course the lawyer tells me that
I ought to keep it all. It is his business to give such advice as
that. But what does he know of what I feel? How can he understand me?
How, indeed, can I expect that any one shall understand me?"
"But it is possible that people should misunderstand you," said Mrs.
Clavering.
"Exactly. That is just what he says. But, Mrs. Clavering, I care
nothing for that. I care nothing for what anybody says or thinks.
What is it to me what they say?"
"I should have thought it was everything," said her sister.
"No,--it is nothing;--nothing at all." Then she was again silent, and
was unable to express herself. She could not bring herself to declare
in words that self-condemnation of her own conduct which was now
weighing so heavily upon her. It was not that she wished to keep back
her own feelings, either from her sister or from Mrs. Clavering; but
that the words in which to express them were wanting to her.
"And have they accepted the house?" Mrs. Clavering asked.
"They must accept it. What else can they do? They cannot make me call
it mine if I do not choose. If I refuse to take the income which Mr.
Courton's lawyer pays in to my bankers', they cannot compel me to
have it."
"But you are not going to give that up too?" said her sister.
"I am. I will not have his money,--not more than enough to keep me
from being a scandal to his family. I will not have it. It is a
curse to me, and has been from the first. What right have I to all
that money, because,--because,--because--" She could not finish her
sentence, but turned away from them, and walked by herself to the
window.
Lady Clavering looked at Mrs. Clavering as though she thought that
her sister was mad. "Do you understand her?" said Lady Clavering in
a whisper.
"I think I do," said the other. "I think I know what is passing in
her mind." Then she followed Lady Ongar across the room, and taking
her gently by the arm tried to comfort her,--to comfort her, and to
argue with her as to the rashness of that which she proposed to do.
She endeavoured to explain to the poor woman how it was that she
should at this moment be wretched, and anxious to do that which, if
done, would put it out of her power afterwards to make herself useful
in the world. It shocked the prudence of Mrs. Clavering,--this idea
of abandoning money, the possession of which was questioned by no
one. "They do not want it, Lady Ongar," she said.
"That has nothing to do with it," answered the other.
"And nobody has any suspicion but what it is honourably and fairly
your own."
"But does anybody ever think how I got it?" said Lady Ongar, turning
sharply round upon Mrs. Clavering. "You,--you,--you,--do you dare to
tell me what you think of the way in which it became mine? Could you
bear it, if it had become yours after such a fashion? I cannot bear
it, and I will not." She was now speaking with so much violence that
her sister was awed into silence, and Mrs. Clavering herself found a
difficulty in answering her.
"Whatever may have been the past," said she, "the question now is how
to do the best for the future."
"I had hoped," continued Lady Ongar without noticing what was said to
her, "I had hoped to make everything straight by giving his money to
another. You know to whom I mean, and so does Hermy. I thought, when
I returned, that bad as I had been I might still do some good in the
world. But it is as they tell us in the sermons. One cannot make good
come out of evil. I have done evil, and nothing but evil has come
from the evil which I have done. Nothing but evil will come from it.
As for being useful in the world,--I know of what use I am! When
women hear how wretched I have been they will be unwilling to sell
themselves as I did." Then she made her way to the door, and left the
room, going out with quiet steps, and closing the lock behind her
without a sound.
"I did not know that she was such as that," said Mrs. Clavering.
"Nor did I. She has never spoken in that way before."
"Poor soul! Hermione, you see there are those in the world whose
sufferings are worse than yours."
"I don't know," said Lady Clavering. "She never lost what I have
lost,--never."
"She has lost what I am sure you never will lose, her own
self-esteem. But, Hermy, you should be good to her. We must all be
good to her. Will it not be better that you should stay with us for a
while,--both of you?"
"What, here at the park?"
"We will make room for you at the rectory, if you would like it."
"Oh, no; I will go away. I shall be better away. I suppose she will
not be like that often; will she?"
"She was much moved just now."
"And what does she mean about her income? She cannot be in earnest."
"She is in earnest now."
"And cannot it be prevented? Only think,--if after all she were to
give up her jointure! Mrs. Clavering, you do not think she is mad; do
you?"
Mrs. Clavering said what she could to comfort the elder and weaker
sister on this subject, explaining to her that the Courtons would not
be at all likely to take advantage of any wild generosity on the part
of Lady Ongar, and then she walked home across the park, meditating
on the character of the two sisters.