On the first Sunday that she was at Ongar Park she went to the parish church. She had resolved strongly that she would do this, and she did it; but when the moment for starting came, her courage almost failed her. The church was but a few yards from her own gate, and she walked there without any attendant. She had, however, sent word to the sexton to say that she would be there, and the old man was ready to show her into the family pew. She wore a thick veil, and was dressed, of course, in all the deep ceremonious woe of widowhood. As she walked up the centre of the church she thought of her dress, and told herself that all there would know how it had been between her and her husband. She was pretending to mourn for the man to whom she had sold herself; for the man who through happy chance had died so quickly, leaving her with the price in her hand! All of course knew that, and all thought that they knew, moreover, that she had been foully false to her bargain, and had not earned the price! That, also, she told herself. But she went through it, and walked out of the church among the village crowd with her head on high.

Three days afterward, she wrote to the clergyman, asking him to call on her. She had come, she said, to live in the parish, and hoped to be able, with his assistance, to be of some use among the people. She would hardly know how to act without some counsel from him. The schools might be all that was excellent, but if there was anything required she hoped he would tell her. On the following morning the clergyman called, and, with many thanks for her generosity, listened to her plans, and accepted her subsidies. But he was a married man, and he said nothing of his wife, nor during the next week did his wife come to call on her. She was to be left desolate by all, because men had told lies of her!

She had the price in her hands, but she felt herself tempted to do as Judas did—to go out and hang herself.



Chapter XIII

A Visitor Calls At Ongar Park



It will be remembered that Harry Clavering, on returning one evening to his lodgings in Bloomsbury Square, had been much astonished at finding there the card of Count Pateroff, a man of whom he had only heard, up to that moment, as the friend of the late Lord Ongar. At first he had been very angry with Lady Ongar, thinking that she and this count were in some league together, some league of which he would greatly disapprove; but his anger had given place to a new interest when he learned direct from herself that she had not seen the count, and that she was simply anxious that he, as her friend, should have an interview with the man. He had then become very eager in the matter, offering to subject himself to any amount of inconvenience so that he might effect that which Lady Ongar asked of him. He was not, however, called upon to endure any special trouble or expense, as he heard nothing more from Count Pateroff till he had been back in London for two or three weeks.

Lady Ongar's statement to him had been quite true. It had been even more than true; for when she had written she had not even heard directly from the count. She had learned by letter from another person that Count Pateroff was in London, and had then communicated the fact to her friend. This other person was a sister of the count's, who was now living in London, one Madame Gordeloup—Sophie Gordeloup—a lady whom Harry had found sitting in Lady Ongar's room when last he had seen her in Bolton Street. He had not then heard her name; nor was he aware then, or for some time subsequently, that Count Pateroff had any relative in London.

Lady Ongar had been a fortnight in the country before she received Madame Gordeloup's letter. In that letter the sister had declared herself to be most anxious that her brother should see Lady Ongar. The letter had been in French, and had been very eloquent—more eloquent in its cause than any letter with the same object could have been if written by an Englishwoman in English; and the eloquence was less offensive than it might, under all concurrent circumstances, have been had it reached Lady Ongar in English. The reader must not, however, suppose that the letter contained a word that was intended to support a lover's suit. It was very far indeed from that, and spoke of the count simply as a friend; but its eloquence went to show that nothing that had passed should be construed by Lady Ongar as offering any bar to a fair friendship. What the world said!—Bah! Did not she know—she, Sophie—and did not her friend know—her friend Julie—that the world was a great liar? Was it not even now telling wicked venomous lies about her friend Julie? Why mind what the world said, seeing that the world could not be brought to speak one word of truth? The world indeed! Bah!

But Lady Ongar, though she was not as yet more than half as old as Madame Gordeloup, knew what she was about almost as well as that lady knew what Sophie Gordeloup was doing. Lady Ongar had known the count's sister in France and Italy, having seen much of her in one of those sudden intimacies to which English people are subject when abroad; and she had been glad to see Madame Gordeloup in London—much more glad than she would have been had she been received there on her return by a crowd of loving native friends. But not on that account was she prepared to shape her conduct in accordance with her friend Sophie's advice, and especially not so when that advice had reference to Sophie's brother. She had, therefore, said very little in return to the lady's eloquence, answering the letter on that matter very vaguely; but, having a purpose of her own, had begged that Count Pateroff might be asked to call upon Harry Clavering. Count Pateroff did not feel himself to care very much about Harry Clavering, but wishing to do as he was bidden, did leave his card in Bloomsbury Square.

And why was Lady Ongar anxious that the young man who was her friend should see the man who had been her husband's friend, and whose name had been mixed with her own in so grievous a manner? She had called Harry her friend, and it might be that she desired to give this friend every possible means of testing the truth of that story which she herself had told. The reader, perhaps, will hardly have believed in Lady Ongar's friendship; will, perhaps, have believed neither the friendship nor the story. If so, the reader will have done her wrong, and will not have read her character aright. The woman was not heartless because she had once, in one great epoch of her life, betrayed her own heart; nor was she altogether false because she had once lied; nor altogether vile, because she had once taught herself that, for such an one as her, riches were a necessity. It might be that the punishment of her sin could meet with no remission in this world, but not on that account should it be presumed that there was no place for repentance left to her.

As she walked alone through the shrubberies at Ongar Park she thought much of those other paths at Clavering, and of the walks in which she had not been alone; and she thought of that interview in the garden when she had explained to Harry—as she had then thought so successfully—that they two, each being poor, were not fit to love and marry each other. She had brooded over all that, too, during the long hours of her sad journey home to England. She was thinking of it still when she had met him, and had been so cold to him on the platform of the railway station, when she had sent him away angry because she had seemed to slight him. She had thought of it as she had sat in her London room, telling him the terrible tale of her married life, while her eyes were fixed on his and her head was resting on her hands. Even then, at that moment, she was asking herself whether he believed her story, or whether, within his breast, he was saying that she was vile and false. She knew that she had been false to him, and that he must have despised her when, with her easy philosophy, she had made the best of her own mercenary perfidy. He had called her a jilt to her face, and she had been able to receive the accusation with a smile. Would he now call her something worse, and in a louder voice, within his own bosom? And if she could convince him that to that accusation she was not fairly subject, might the old thing come back again? Would he walk with her again, and look into her eyes as though he only wanted her commands to show himself ready to be her slave? She was a widow, and had seen many things, but even now she had not reached her six-and-twentieth year.

The apples at her rich country-seat had quickly become ashes between her teeth, but something of the juice of the fruit might yet reach her palate if he would come and sit with her at the table. As she complained to herself of the coldness of the world, she thought that she would not care how cold might be all the world if there might be but one whom she could love, and who would love her. And him she had loved. To him, in old days—in days which now seemed to her to be very old—she had made confession of her love. Old as were those days, it could not be but he should still remember them. She had loved him, and him only. To none other had she ever pretended love. From none other had love been offered to her. Between her and that wretched being to whom she had sold herself, who had been half dead before she had seen him, there had been no pretence of love. But Harry Clavering she had loved. Harry Clavering was a man, with all those qualities which she valued, and also with those foibles which saved him from being too perfect for so slight a creature as herself. Harry had been offended to the quick, and had called her a jilt; but yet it might be possible that he would return to her.

It should not be supposed that since her return to England she had had one settled, definite object before her eyes with regard to this renewal of her love. There had been times in which she had thought that she would go on with the life which she had prepared for herself, and that she would make herself contented, if not happy, with the price which had been paid to her. And there were other times, in which her spirits sank low within her, and she told herself that no contentment was longer possible to her. She looked at herself in the glass, and found herself to be old and haggard. Harry, she said, was the last man in the world to sell himself for wealth, when there was no love remaining. Harry would never do as she had done with herself! Not for all the wealth that woman ever inherited—so she told herself—would he link himself to one who had made herself vile and tainted among women! In this, I think, she did him no more than justice, though it maybe that in some other matters she rated his character too highly. Of Florence Burton she had as yet heard nothing, though had she heard of her, it may well be that she would not on that account have desisted. Such being her thoughts and her hopes, she had written to Harry, begging him to see this man who had followed her—she knew not why—from Italy; and had told the sister simply that she could not do as she was asked, because she was away from London, alone in a country house.

And quite alone she was sitting one morning, counting up her misery, feeling that the apples were, in truth, ashes, when a servant came to her, telling her that there was a gentleman in the hall desirous of seeing her. The man had the visitor's card in his hand, but before she could read the name, the blood had mounted into her face as she told herself that it was Harry Clavering. There was joy for a moment at her heart; but she must not show it—not as yet. She had been but four months a widow, and he should not have come to her in the country. She must see him and in some way make him understand this—but she would be very gentle with him. Then her eye fell upon the card, and she saw, with grievous disappointment, that it bore the name of Count Pateroff. No; she was not going to be caught in that way. Let the result be what it might, she would not let Sophie Gordeloup, or Sophie's brother, get the better of her by such a ruse as that! "Tell the gentleman, with my compliments," she said, as she handed back the card, "that I regret it greatly, but I can see no one now." Then the servant went away, and she sat wondering whether the count would be able to make his way into her presence. She felt rather than knew that she had some reason to fear him. All that had been told of him and of her had been false. No accusation brought against her had contained one spark of truth. But there had been things between Lord Ongar and this man which she would not care to have told openly in England. And though, in his conduct to her, he had been customarily courteous, and on one occasion had been generous, still she feared him. She would much rather that he should have remained in Italy. And though, when all alone in Bolton Street, she had in her desolation welcomed his sister Sophie, she would have preferred that Sophie should not have come to her, claiming to renew their friendship. But with the count she would hold no communion now, even though he should find his way into the room.

A few minutes passed before the servant returned, and then he brought a note with him. As the door opened Lady Ongar rose, ready to leave the room by another passage; but she took the note and read it. It was as follows: "I cannot understand why you should refuse to see me, and I feel aggrieved. My present purpose is to say a few words to you on private matters connected with papers that belonged to Lord Ongar. I still hope that you will admit me—P." Having read these words while standing, she made an effort to think what might be the best course for her to follow. As for Lord Ongar's papers, she did not believe in the plea. Lord Ongar could have had no papers interesting to her in such a manner as to make her desirous of seeing this man or of hearing of them in private. Lord Ongar, though she had nursed him to the hour of his death, earning her price, had been her bitterest enemy; and though there had been something about this count that she had respected, she had known him to be a man of intrigue and afraid of no falsehoods in his intrigues—a dangerous man, who might perhaps now and again do a generous thing, but one who would expect payment for his generosity. Besides, had he not been named openly as her lover? She wrote to him, therefore, as follows: "Lady Ongar presents her compliments to Count Pateroff and finds it to be out of her power to see him at present." This answer the visitor took and walked away from the front door without showing any disgust to the servant, either by his demeanor or in his countenance. On that evening she received from him a long letter, written at the neighboring inn, expostulating with her as to her conduct toward him, and saying in the last line, that it was "impossible now that they should be strangers to each other." "Impossible that we should be strangers," she said almost out aloud. "Why impossible? I know no such impossibility." After that she carefully burned both the letter and the note.

She remained at Ongar Park something over six weeks, and then, about the beginning of May, she went back to London. No one had been to see her, except Mr. Sturm, the clergyman of the parish; and he, though something almost approaching to an intimacy had sprung up between them, had never yet spoken to her of his wife. She was not quite sure whether her rank might not deter him—whether under such circumstances as those now in question, the ordinary social rules were not ordinarily broken—whether a countess should not call on a clergyman's wife first, although the countess might be the stranger; but she did not dare to do as she would have done, had no blight attached itself to her name. She gave, therefore, no hint; she said no word of Mrs. Sturm, though her heart was longing for a kind word from some woman's mouth. But she allowed herself to feel no anger against the husband, and went through her parish work, thanking him for his assistance.

Of Mr. Giles she had seen very little, and since her misfortune with Enoch Gubby, she had made no further attempt to interfere with the wages of the persons employed. Into the houses of some of the poor she had made her way, but she fancied that they were not glad to see her. They might, perhaps, have all heard of her reputation, and Gubby's daughter may have congratulated herself that there was another in the parish as bad as herself, or perhaps, happily, worse. The owner of all the wealth around strove to make Mrs. Button become a messenger of charity between herself and some of the poor; but Mrs. Button altogether declined the employment, although, as her mistress had ascertained, she herself performed her own little missions of charity with zeal. Before the fortnight was over, Lady Ongar was sick of her house and her park, utterly disregardful of her horses and oxen, and unmindful even of the pleasant stream which in these Spring days rippled softly at the bottom of her gardens.

She had undertaken to be back in London early in May, by appointment with her lawyer, and had unfortunately communicated the fact to Madame Gordeloup. Four or five days before she was due in Bolton Street, her mindful Sophie, with unerring memory, wrote to her, declaring her readiness to do all and anything that the most diligent friendship could prompt. Should she meet her dear Julie at the station in London? Should she bring any special carriage? Should she order any special dinner in Bolton Street? She herself would of course come to Bolton Street, if not allowed to be present at the station. It was still chilly in the evenings, and she would have fires lit. Might she suggest a roast fowl and some bread sauce, and perhaps a sweetbread—and just one glass of champagne? And might she share the banquet? There was not a word in the note about the too obtrusive brother, either as to the offence committed by him, or the offence felt by him.

The little Franco-Polish woman was there in Bolton Street, of course—for Lady Ongar had not dared to refuse her. A little, dry, bright woman she was, with quick eyes, and thin lips, and small nose, and mean forehead, and scanty hair drawn back quite tightly from her face and head; very dry, but still almost pretty with her quickness and her brightness. She was fifty, was Sophie Gordeloup, but she had so managed her years that she was as active on her limbs as most women are at twenty-five. And the chicken and the bread sauce, and the sweetbread, and the champagne were there, all very good of their kind; for Sophie Gordeloup liked such things to be good, and knew how to indulge her own appetite, and to coax that, of another person.

Some little satisfaction Lady Ongar received from the fact that she was not alone; but the satisfaction was not satisfactory. When Sophie had left her at ten o'clock, running off by herself to her lodgings in Mount Street, Lady Ongar, after but one moment's thought, sat down and wrote, a note to Harry Clavering.

"DEAR HARRY—I am back in town. Pray come and see me to-morrow evening.

"Yours ever,

"J. O."



Chapter XIV

Count Pateroff



After an interval of some weeks, during which Harry had been down at Clavering and had returned again to his work at the Adelphi, Count Pateroff called again in Bloomsbury Square; but Harry was at Mr. Beilby's office. Harry at once returned the count's visit at the address given in Mount Street. Madame was at home, said the servant-girl, from which Harry was led to suppose that the count was a married man; but Harry felt that he had no right to intrude upon madame, so he simply left his card. Wishing, however, really to have this interview, and having been lately elected at a club of which he was rather proud, he wrote to the count asking him to dine with him at the Beaufort. He explained that there was a stranger's room—which Pateroff knew very well, having often dined at the Beaufort—and said something as to a private little dinner for two, thereby apologizing for proposing to the count to dine without other guests. Pateroff accepted the invitation, and Harry, never having done such a thing before, ordered his dinner with much nervousness.

The count was punctual, and the two men introduced themselves. Harry had expected to see a handsome foreigner, with black hair, polished whiskers, and probably a hook nose—forty years of age or thereabouts, but so got up as to look not much more than thirty. But his guest was by no means a man of that stamp. Excepting that the count's age was altogether uncertain, no correctness of guess on that matter being possible by means of his appearance, Harry's preconceived notion was wrong in every point. He was a fair man, with a broad fair face, and very light blue eyes; his forehead was low, but broad; he wore no whiskers, but bore on his lip a heavy moustache which was not gray, but perfectly white—white it was with years, of course, but yet it gave no sign of age to his face. He was well made, active, and somewhat broad in the shoulders, though rather below the middle height. But for a certain ease of manner which he possessed, accompanied by something of restlessness in his eye, any one would have taken him for an Englishman. And his speech hardly betrayed that he was not English. Harry, knowing that he was a foreigner, noticed now and again some little acquired distinctness of speech which is hardly natural to a native; but otherwise there was nothing in his tongue to betray him.

"I am sorry that you should have had so much trouble," he said, shaking hands with Harry. Clavering declared that he had incurred no trouble, and declared also that he would be only too happy to have taken any trouble in obeying a behest from his friend Lady Ongar. Had he been a Pole as was the count, he would not have forgotten to add that he would have been equally willing to exert himself with the view of making the count's acquaintance; but being simply a young Englishman, he was much too awkward for any such courtesy as that. The count observed the omission, smiled, and bowed. Then he spoke of the weather, and said that London was a magnificent city. Oh, yes, he knew London well; had known it these twenty years; had been for fifteen years a member of the Travellers'; he liked everything English, except hunting. English hunting he had found to be dull work. But he liked shooting for an hour or two. He could not rival, he said, the intense energy of an Englishman, who would work all day with his gun harder than ploughmen with their ploughs. Englishmen sported, he said, as though more than their bread—as though their honor, their wives, their souls, depended on it. It was very fine! He often wished that he was an Englishman. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

Harry was very anxious to commence a conversation about Lady Ongar, but he did not know how at first to introduce her name. Count Pateroff had come to him at Lady Ongar's request, and therefore, as he thought, the count should have been the first to mention her. But the count seemed to be enjoying his dinner without any thought either of Lady Ongar or of her late husband. At this time he had been down to Ongar Park, on that mission which had been, as we know, futile; but he said no word of that to Harry. He seemed to enjoy his dinner thoroughly, and made himself very agreeable. When the wine was discussed he told Harry that a certain vintage of Moselle was very famous at the Beaufort. Harry ordered the wine of course, and was delighted to give his guest the best of everything; but he was a little annoyed at finding that the stranger knew his club better than he knew it himself. Slowly the count ate his dinner, enjoying every morsel that he took with that thoughtful, conscious pleasure which young men never attain in eating and drinking, and which men as they grow older so often forget to acquire. But the count never forgot any of his own capacities for pleasure, and in all things made the most of his own resources. To be rich is not to have one or ten thousand a year, but to be able to get out of that one or ten thousand all that every pound, and every shilling, and every penny will give you. After this fashion the count was a rich man.

"You don't sit after dinner here, I suppose," said the count, when he had completed an elaborate washing of his mouth and moustache. "I like this club because we who are strangers have so charming a room for our smoking. It is the best club in London for men who do not belong to it."

It occurred to Harry that in the smoking-room there could be no privacy. Three or four men had already spoken to the count, showing that he was well known, giving notice, as it were, that Pateroff would become a public man when once he was placed in a public circle. To have given a dinner to the count, and to have spoken no word to him about Lady Ongar, would be by no means satisfactory to Harry's feelings, though, as it appeared, it might be sufficiently satisfactory to the guest. Harry therefore suggested one bottle of claret. The count agreed, expressing an opinion that the 51 Lafitte was unexceptional. The 51 Lafitte was ordered, and Harry, as he filled his glass, considered the way in which his subject should be introduced.

"You knew Lord Ongar, I think, abroad?"

"Lord Ongar—abroad! Oh, yes, very well; and for many years here in London; and at Vienna; and very early in life at St. Petersburg. I knew Lord Ongar first in Russia, when he was attached to the embassy as Frederic Courton. His father, Lord Courton, was then alive, as was also his grandfather. He was a nice, good-looking lad then."

"As regards his being nice, he seems to have changed a good deal before he died." This the count noticed by simply shrugging his shoulders and smiling as he sipped his wine. "By all that I can hear, he became a horrid brute when he married," said Harry, energetically.

"He was not pleasant when he was ill at Florence," said the count.

"She must have had a terrible time with him," said Harry.

The count put up his hands, again shrugged his shoulders, and then shook his head. "She knew he was no longer an Adonis when he married her."

"An Adonis! No; she did not expect an Adonis; but she thought he would have something of the honor and feelings of a man."

"She found it uncomfortable, no doubt. He did too much of this, you know," said the count, raising his glass to his lips; "and he didn't do it with 51 Lafitte. That was Ongar's fault. All the world knew it for the last ten years. No one knew it better than Hugh Clavering."

"But—" said Harry, and then he stopped. He hardly knew what it was that he wished to learn from the man, though he certainly did wish to learn something. He had thought that the count would himself have talked about Lady Ongar and those Florentine days, but this he did not seem disposed to do. "Shall we have our cigars now?" said Count Pateroff.

"One moment, if you don't mind."

"Certainly, certainly. There is no hurry."

"You will take no more wine?"

"No more wine. I take my wine at dinner, as you saw."

"I want to ask you one special question—about Lady Ongar."

"I will say anything in her favor that you please. I am always ready to say anything in the favor of any lady, and, if needs be, to swear it. Bu anything against any lady nobody ever heard me say."

Harry was sharp enough to perceive that any assertion made under such a stipulation was worse than nothing. It was as when a man, in denying the truth of a statement, does so with an assurance that on that subject he should consider himself justified in telling any number of lies. "I did not write the book—but you have no right to ask the question; and I should say that I had not, even if I had." Pateroff was speaking of Lady Ongar in this way, and Harry hated him for doing so.

"I don't want you to say any good of her," said he, "or any evil."

"I certainly shall say no evil of her."

"But I think you know that she has been most cruelly treated."

"Well, there is about seven-thousand-pounds a year, I think! Seven-thousand a year! Not francs, but pounds! We poor foreigners lose ourselves in amazement when we hear about your English fortunes. Seven-thousand pounds a year for a lady all alone, and a beautiful house! A house so beautiful, they tell me!"

"What has that to do with it?" said Harry; whereupon the count again shrugged his shoulders. "What has that to do with it? Because the man was rich he was not justified in ill-treating his wife. Did he not bring false accusations against her, in order that he might rob her after his death of all that of which you think so much? Did he not hear false witness against her, to his own dishonor?"

"She has got the money, I think—and the beautiful house."

"But her name has been covered with lies."

"What can I do? Why do you ask me? I know nothing. Look here, Mr. Clavering, if you want to make any inquiry you had better go to my sister. I don't see what good it will do, but she will talk to you by the hour together, if you wish it. Let us smoke."

"Your sister?"

"Yes, my sister. Madame Gordeloup is her name. Has not Lady Ongar mentioned my sister? They are inseparables. My sister lives in Mount Street."

"With you?"

"No, not with me; I do not live in Mount Street. I have my address sometimes at her house."

"Madame Gordeloup?"

"Yes, Madame Gordeloup. She is Lady Ongar's friend. She will talk to you."

"Will you introduce me, Count Pateroff?"

"Oh, no; it is not necessary. You can go to Mount Street, and she will be delighted. There is the card. And now we will smoke."

Harry felt that he could not, with good-breeding, detain the count any longer, and, therefore, rising from his chair, led the way into the smoking-room. When there, the man of the world separated himself from his young friend, of whose enthusiasm he had perhaps had enough, and was soon engaged in conversation with sundry other men of his own standing. Harry soon perceived that his guest had no further need of his countenance, and went home to Bloomsbury Square by no means satisfied with his new acquaintance.

On the next day he dined in Onslow Crescent with the Burtons, and when there he said nothing about Lady Ongar or Count Pateroff. He was not aware that he had any special reason for being silent on the subject, but he made up his mind that the Burtons were people so far removed in their sphere of life from Lady Ongar, that the subject would not be suitable in Onslow Crescent. It was his lot in life to be concerned with people of the two classes. He did not at all mean to say—even to himself—that he liked the Ongar class better; but still, as such was his lot, he must take it as it came, and entertain both subjects of interest, without any commingling of them one with another. Of Lady Ongar and his early love he had spoken to Florence at some length, but he did not find it necessary in his letters to tell her anything of Count Pateroff and his dinner at the Beaufort. Nor did he mention the dinner to his dear friend Cecilia. On this occasion he made himself very happy in Onslow Crescent, playing with the children, chatting with his friend, and enduring, with a good grace, Theodore Burton's sarcasm, when that ever-studious gentleman told him that he was only fit to go about tied to a woman's apron-string.



Chapter XV

Madame Gordeloup



On the afternoon of the day following his dinner at the Beaufort with Count Pateroff Harry Clavering called on the Count's sister in Mount Street. He had doubted much as to this, thinking at any rate he ought, in the first place, to write and ask permission. But at last he resolved that he would take the count at his word, and presenting himself at the door, he sent up his name. Madame Gordeloup was at home, and in a few moments he found himself in the room in which the lady was sitting, and recognized her whom he had seen with Lady Ongar in Bolton Street. She got up at once, having glanced at the name upon the card, and seemed to know all about him. She shook hands with him cordially, almost squeezing his hand, and bade him sit down near her on the sofa. "She was so glad to see him, for her dear Julie's sake. Julie, as of course he knew, was at 'Ongere' Park. Oh! so happy"—which, by the by, he did not know—"and would be up in the course of next week. So many things to do, of course, Mr. Clavering. The house, and the servants, and the park, and the beautiful things of a large country establishment! But it was delightful, and Julie was quite happy!"

No people could be more unlike to each other than this brother and his sister. No human being could have taken Madame Gordeloup for an English-woman, though it might be difficult to judge, either from her language or her appearance, of the nationality to which she belonged. She spoke English with great fluency, but every word uttered declared her not to be English. And when she was most fluent she was most incorrect in her language. She was small, eager, and quick, and appeared quite as anxious to talk as her brother had been to hold his tongue. She lived in a small room on the first floor of a small house; and it seemed to Harry that she lived alone. But he had not been long there before she had told him all her history, and explained to him most of her circumstances. That she kept back something is probable; but how many are there who can afford to tell everything?

Her husband was still living, but he was at St. Petersburg. He was a Frenchman by family, but had been born in Russia. He had been attached to the Russian embassy in London, but was now attached to diplomacy in general in Russia. She did not join him, because she loved England—oh, so much! And, perhaps, her husband might come back again some day. She did not say that she had not seen him for ten years, and was not quite sure whether he was dead or alive; but had she made a clean breast in all things, she might have done so. She said that she was a good deal still at the Russian embassy; but she did not say that she herself was a paid spy. Nor do I say so now, positively; but that was the character given to her by many who knew her. She called her brother Edouard, as though Harry had known the count all his life; and always spoke of Lady Ongar as Julie. She uttered one or two little hints which seemed to imply that she knew everything that had passed between "Julie" and Harry Clavering in early days; and never mentioned Lord Ongar without some term of violent abuse.

"Horrid wretch!" she said, pausing over all the r's in the name she had called him. "It began, you know, from the very first. Of course he had been a fool. An old roue is always a fool to marry. What does he get, you know, for his money? A pretty face. He's tired of that as soon as it's his own. Is it not so, Mr. Clavering? But other people ain't tired of it, and then he becomes jealous. But Lord Ongar was not jealous. He was not man enough to be jealous. Hor-r-rid wr-retch!" She then went on telling many things which, as he listened, almost made Harry Clavering's hair stand on end, and which must not be repeated here. She herself had met her brother in Paris, and had been with him when they encountered the Ongars in that capital. According to her showing, they had, all of them, been together nearly from that time to the day of Lord Ongar's 'death. But Harry soon learned to feel that he could not believe all that the little lady told him.

"Edouard was always with him. Poor Edouard!" she said. "There was some money matter between them about ecarte. When that wr-retch got to be so bad, he did not like parting with his money—not even when he had lost it! And Julie had been so good always! Julie and Edouard had done everything for the nasty wr-retch." Harry did not at all like this mingling of the name of Julie and Edouard, though it did not for a moment fill his mind with any suspicion as to Lady Ongar. It made him feel, however, that this woman was dangerous, and that her tongue might be very mischievous if she talked to others as she did to him. As he looked at her—and being now in her own room she was not dressed with scrupulous care—and as he listened to her, he could not conceive what Lady Ongar had seen in her that she should have made a friend of her. Her brother, the count, was undoubtedly a gentleman in his manners and way of life, but he did not know by what name to call this woman, who called Lady Ongar Julie. She was altogether unlike any ladies whom he had known.

"You know that Julie will be in town next week?"

"No; I did not know when she was to return."

"Oh, yes; she has business with those people in South Audley Street on Thursday. Poor dear! Those lawyers are so harassing! But when people have seven—thousand—pounds a year, they must put up with lawyers." As she pronounced those talismanic words, which to her were almost celestial, Harry perceived for the first time that there was some sort of resemblance between her and the count. He could see that they were brother and sister. "I shall go to her directly she comes, and of course I will tell her how good you have been to come to me. And Edouard has been dining with you? How good of you. He told me how charming you are"—Harry was quite sure then that she was fibbing—"and that it was so pleasant! Edouard is very much attached to Julie; very much. Though, of course, all that was mere nonsense; just lies told by that wicked lord. Bah! what did he know?" Harry by this time was beginning to wish that he had never found his way to Mount Street.

"Of course they were lies," he said roughly.

"Of course, mon cher. Those things always are lies, and so wicked! What good do they do?"

"Lies never do any good," said Harry.

To so wide a proposition as this madame was not prepared to give an unconditional assent; she therefore shrugged her shoulders, and once again looked like her brother.

"Ah!" she said. "Julie is a happy woman now. Seven—thousand—pounds a year! One does not know how to believe it; does one?"

"I never heard the amount of her income," said Harry.

"It is all that," said the Franco-Pole, energetically; "every franc of it, beside the house! I know it. She told me herself. Yes. What woman would risk that, you know; and his life, you may say, as good as gone? Of course they were lies."

"I don't think you understand her, Madame Gordeloup."

"Oh, yes; I know her, so well. And love her—oh, Mr. Clavering, I love her so dearly! Is she not charming? So beautiful, you know, and grand. Such a will, too! That is what I like in a woman. Such a courage! She never flinched in those horrid days, never. And when he called her—you know what—she only looked at him, just looked at him, miserable object. Oh, it was beautiful!" And Madame Gordeloup, rising in her energy from her seat for the purpose, strove to throw upon Harry such another glance as the injured, insulted wife had thrown upon her foul-tongued, dying lord.

"She will marry," said Madame Gordeloup, changing her tone with a suddenness that made Harry start; "yes, she will marry, of course. Your English widows always marry if they have money. They are wrong, and she will be wrong; but she will marry."

"I do not know how that may be," said Harry, looking foolish.

"I tell you I know she will marry, Mr. Clavering; I told Edouard so yesterday. He merely smiled. It would hardly do for him, she has so much will. Edouard has a will also."

"All men have, I suppose."

"Ah, yes; but there is a difference. A sum of money down, if a man is to marry, is better than a widow's dower. If she dies, you know, he looks so foolish. And she is grand and will want to spend everything. Is she much older than you, Mr. Clavering? Of course I know Julie's age, though perhaps you do not. What will you give me to tell?" And the woman leered at him with a smile which made Harry think that she was almost more than mortal. He found himself quite unable to cope with her in conversation, and soon after this got up to take his leave. "You will come again," she said. "Do. I like you so much. And when Julie is in town, we shall be able to see her together, and I will be your friend. Believe me."

Harry was very far from believing her, and did not in the least require her friendship. Her friendship, indeed! How could any decent English man or woman wish for the friendship of such a creature as that? It was thus that he thought of her as he walked away from Mount Street, making heavy accusations, within his own breast, against Lady Ongar as he did so. Julia! He repeated the name over to himself a dozen times, thinking that the flavor of it was lost since it had been contaminated so often by that vile tongue. But what concern was it of his? Let her be Julia to whom she would, she could never be Julia again to him. But she was his friend—Lady Ongar, and he told himself plainly that his friend had been wrong in having permitted herself to hold any intimacy with such a woman as that. No doubt Lady Ongar had been subjected to very trying troubles in the last months of her husband's life, but no circumstances could justify her, if she continued to endorse the false cordiality of that horribly vulgar and evil-minded little woman. As regarded the grave charges brought against Lady Ongar, Harry still gave no credit to them, still looked upon them as calumnies, in spite of the damning advocacy of Sophie and her brother; but he felt that she must have dabbled in very dirty water to have returned to England with such claimants on her friendship as these. He had not much admired the count, but the count's sister had been odious to him. "I will be your friend. Believe me." Harry Clavering stamped upon the pavement as he thought of the little Pole's offer to him. She be his friend! No, indeed; not if there were no other friend for him in all London.

Sophie, too, had her thoughts about him. Sophie was very anxious in this matter, and was resolved to stick as close to her Julie as possible. "I will be his friend or his enemy; let him choose." That had been Sophie's reflection on the matter when she was left alone.

Ten days after his visit in Mount Street, Harry received the note which Lady Ongar had written to him on the night of her arrival in London. It was brought to Mr. Beilby's office by her own footman early in the morning; but Harry was there at the time, and was thus able to answer it, telling Lady Ongar that he would come as she had desired. She had commenced her letter "Dear Harry," and he well remembered that when she had before written she had called him "Dear Mr. Clavering." And though the note contained only half-a-dozen ordinary words, it seemed to him to be affectionate, and almost loving. Had she not been eager to see him, she would hardly thus have written to him on the very instant of her return. "Dear Lady Ongar," he wrote, "I shall dine at my club, and be with you about eight. Yours always, H.C." After that he could hardly bring himself to work satisfactorily during the whole day. Since his interview with the Franco-Polish lady he had thought a good deal about himself and had resolved to work harder and to love Florence Burton more devotedly than ever. The nasty little woman had said certain words to him which had caused him to look into his own breast and to tell himself that this was necessary. As the love was easier than the work, he began his new tasks on the following morning by writing a long and very affectionate letter to his own Flo, who was still staying at Clavering rectory—a letter so long and so affectionate that Florence, in her ecstasy of delight, made Fanny read it, and confess that, as a love-letter, it was perfect.

"It's great nonsense, all the same," said Fanny.

"It isn't nonsense at all," said Florence; "and if it were it would not signify. Is it true? That's the question."

"I'm sure it's true," said Fanny.

"And so am I," said Florence. "I don't want any one to tell me that."

"Then why did you ask, you simpleton?" Florence indeed was having a happy time of it at Clavering rectory. When Fanny called her a simpleton, she threw her arms round Fanny's neck and kissed her.

And Harry kept his resolve about the work too, investigating plans with a resolution to understand them which was almost successful. During those days he would remain at his office till past four o'clock, and would then walk away with Theodore Burton, dining sometimes in Onslow Crescent, and going there sometimes in the evening after dinner. And when there he would sit and read; and once when Cecilia essayed to talk to him, he told her to keep her apron-strings to herself. Then Theodore laughed and apologized, and Cecilia said that too much work made Jack a dull boy; and then Theodore laughed again, stretching out his legs and arms as he rested a moment from his own study, and declared that, under those circumstances, Harry never would be dull. And Harry, on those evenings, would be taken up-stairs to see the bairns in their cots; and as he stood with their mother looking down upon the children, pretty words would be said about Florence and his future life; and all was going merry as a marriage bell. But on that morning, when the note had come from Lady Ongar, Harry could work no more to his satisfaction. He scrawled upon his blotting-paper, and made no progress whatsoever toward the understanding of anything. It was the day on which, in due course, he would write to Florence; and he did write to her. But Florence did not show this letter to Fanny, claiming for it any need of godlike perfection. It was a stupid, short letter, in which he declared that he was very busy and that his head ached. In a postscript he told her that he was going to see Lady Ongar that evening. This he communicated to her under an idea that by doing so he made everything right. And I think that the telling of it did relieve his conscience.

He left the office soon after three, having brought himself to believe in the headache, and sauntered down to his club. He found men playing whist there, and, as whist might be good for his head, he joined them. They won his money, and scolded him for playing badly till he was angry, and then he went out for a walk by himself. As he went along Piccadilly, he saw Sophie Gordeloup coming toward him, trotting along, with her dress held well up over her ankles, eager, quick, and, as he said to himself clearly intent upon some mischief. He endeavored to avoid her by turning up the Burlington Arcade, but she was too quick for him, and was walking up the arcade by his side before he had been able to make up his mind as to the best mode of ridding himself of such a companion.

"Ah, Mr. Clavering, I am so glad to see you. I was with Julie last night. She was fagged, very much fagged; the journey, you know, and the business. But yet so handsome! And we talked of you. Yes, Mr. Clavering; and I told her how good you had been in coming to me. She said you were always good; yes, she did. When shall you see her?"

Harry Clavering was a bad hand at fibbing, and a bad hand also at leaving a question unanswered. When questioned in this way he did not know what to do but to answer the truth. He would much rather not have said that he was going to Bolton Street that evening, but he could find no alternative. "I believe I shall see her this evening," he said, simply venturing to mitigate the evil of making the communication by rendering it falsely doubtful. There are men who fib with so bad a grace and with so little tact that they might as well not fib at all. They not only never arrive at success, but never even venture to expect it.

"Ah, this evening. Let me see. I don't think I can be there to-night; Madame Berenstoff receives at the embassy."

"Good afternoon," said Harry, turning into Truefit's, the hairdresser's, shop.

"Ah, very well," said Sophie to herself; "just so. It will be better, much better. He is simply one lout, and why should he have it all? My God, what fools, what louts, are these Englishmen!" in having read Sophie's thoughts so far, we will leave her to walk up the remainder of the arcade by herself.

I do not know that Harry's visit to Truefit's establishment had been in any degree caused by his engagement for the evening. I fancy that he had simply taken to ground at the first hole, as does a hunted fox. But now that he was there he had his head put in order, and thought that he looked the better for the operation. He then went back to his club, and when he sauntered into the card-room one old gentleman looked askance at him, as though inquiring angrily whether he had come there to make fresh misery. "Thank you; no—I won't play again," said Harry. Then the old gentleman was appeased, and offered him a pinch of snuff. "Have you seen the new book about whist?" said the old gentleman. "It is very useful—very useful. I'll send you a copy if you will allow me." Then Harry left the room, and went down to dinner.



Chapter XVI

An Evening In Bolton Street



It was a little past eight when Harry knocked at Lady Ongar's door. I fear he had calculated that if he were punctual to the moment, she would think that he thought the matter to be important. It was important to him, and he was willing that she should know that it was so. But there are degrees in everything, and therefore he was twenty minutes late. He was not the first man who has weighed the diplomatic advantage of being after his time. But all those ideas went from him at once when she met him almost at the door of the room, and, taking him by the hand, said that she was "so glad to see him—so very glad. Fancy, Harry, I haven't seen an old friend since I saw you last. You don't know how hard all that seems."

"It is hard," said he; and when he felt the pressure of her hand and saw the brightness of her eye, and when her dress rustled against him as he followed her to her seat, and he became sensible of the influence of her presence, all his diplomacy vanished, and he was simply desirous of devoting himself to her service. Of course, any such devotion was to be given without detriment to that other devotion which he owed to Florence Burton. But this stipulation, though it was made, was made quickly, and with a confused brain.

"Yes—it is hard," she said. "Harry, sometimes I think I shall go mad. It is more than I can bear. I could bear it if it hadn't been my own fault—all my own fault."

There was a suddenness about this which took him quite by surprise. No doubt it had been her own fault. He also had told himself that; though, of course, he would make no such charge to her. "You have not recovered yet," he said, "from what you have suffered lately. Things will look brighter to you after a while."

"Will they? Ah—I do not know. But come, Harry; come and sit down, and let me get you some tea. There is no harm, I suppose, in having you here—is there ?"

"Harm, Lady Ongar?"

"Yes—harm, Lady Ongar." As she repeated her own name after him, nearly in his tone, she smiled once again; and then she looked as she used in the old days, when she would be merry with him. "It is hard to know what a woman may do, and what she may not. When my husband was ill and dying, I never left his bedside. From the moment of my marrying him till his death, I hardly spoke to a man but in his presence; and when once I did, it was he that had sent him. And for all that people have turned their backs upon me. You and I were old friends, Harry, and something more once—were we not? But I jilted you, as you were man enough to tell me. How I did respect you when you dared to speak the truth to me. Men don't know women, or they would be harder to them."

"I did not mean to be hard to you."

"If you had taken me by the shoulders and shaken me, and have declared that before God you would, not allow such wickedness, I should have obeyed you. I know I should." Harry thought of Florence, and could not bring himself to say that he wished it had been so. "But where would you have been then, Harry? I was wrong and false and a beast to marry that man; but I should not, therefore, have been right to marry you and ruin you. It would have been ruin, you know, and we should simply have been fools."

"The folly was very pleasant," said he.

"Yes, yes; I will not deny that. But then the wisdom and the prudence afterward! Oh, Harry, that was not pleasant. That was not pleasant! But what was I saying? Oh! about the propriety of your being here. It is so hard to know what is proper. As I have been married, I suppose I may receive whom I please. Is not that the law?"

"You may receive me, I should think. Your sister is my cousin's wife." Harry's matter-of-fact argument did as well as anything else, for it turned her thought at the moment.

"My sister, Harry! If there was nothing to make us friends but our connection through Sir Hugh Clavering, I do not know that I should be particularly anxious to see you. How unmanly he has been, and how cruel."

"Very cruel," said Harry. Then he thought of Archie and Archie's suit. "But he is willing to change all that now. Hermione asked me the other day to persuade you to go to Clavering."

"And have you come here to use your eloquence for that purpose? I will never go to Clavering again, Harry, unless it should be yours and your wife should offer to receive me. Then I'd pack up for the dear, dull, solemn old place though I was on the other side of Europe."

"It will never be mine."

"Probably not, and probably, therefore, I shall never be there again. No; I can forgive an injury, but not an insult—not an insult such as that. I will not go to Clavering; so, Harry, you may save your eloquence. Hermione I shall be glad to see whenever she will come to me. If you can persuade her to that, you will persuade her to a charity."

"She goes nowhere, I think, without his—his—"

"Without his permission. Of course she does not. That, I suppose, is all as it should be. And he is such a tyrant that he will give no such permission. He would tell her, I suppose, that her sister was no fit companion for her."

"He could not say that now, as he has asked you there."

"Ah, I don't know that. He would say one thing first and another after, just as it would suit him. He has some object in wishing that I should go there, I suppose." Harry, who knew the object, and who was too faithful to betray Lady Clavering, even though he was altogether hostile to his cousin Archie's suit, felt a little proud of his position, but said nothing in answer to this. "But I shall not go; nor will I see him, or go to his house when he comes up to London. When do they come, Harry?"

"He is in town, now."

"What a nice husband, is he not? And when does Hermione come?"

"I do not know; she did not say. Little Hughy is ill, and that may keep her."

"After all, Harry, I may have to pack up and go to Clavering even yet—that is, if the mistress of the house will have me."

"Never in the way you mean, Lady Ongar. Do not propose to kill all my relations in order that I might have their property. Archie intends to marry, and have a dozen children."

"Archie marry! Who will have him? But such men as he are often in the way by marrying some cookmaid at last. Archie is Hugh's body-slave. Fancy being body-slave to Hugh Clavering! He has two, and poor Hermy is the other; only he prefers not to have Hermy near him, which is lucky for her. Here is some tea. Let us sit down and be comfortable, and talk no more about our horrid relations. I don't know what made me speak of them. I did not mean it."

Harry sat down and took the cup from her hand, as she had bidden the servant to leave the tray upon the table.

"So you saw Count Pateroff," she said.

"Yes, and his sister."

"So she told me. What do you think of them?" To this question Harry made no immediate answer. "You may speak out. Though I lived abroad with such as them for twelve months, I have not forgotten the sweet scent of our English hedgerows, nor the wholesomeness of English household manners. What do you think of them?"

"They are not sweet or wholesome," said he.

"Oh, Harry, you are so honest! Your honesty is beautiful. A spade will ever be a spade with you."

He thought that she was laughing at him, and colored.

"You pressed me to speak," he said, "and I did but use your own words."

"Yes, but you used them with such straightforward violence! Well, you shall use what words you please, and how you please, because a word of truth is so pleasant after living in a world of lies. I know you will not lie to me, Harry. You never did."

He felt that now was the moment in which he should tell her of his engagement, but he let the moment pass without using it. And, indeed, it would have been hard for him to tell. In telling such a story he would have been cautioning her that it was useless for her to love him—and this he could not bring himself to do. And he was not sure even now that she had not learned the fact from her sister. "I hope not," he said. In all that he was saying he knew that his words were tame and impotent in comparison with hers, which seemed to him to mean so much. But then his position was so unfortunate! Had it not been for Florence Burton he would have been long since at her feet; for, to give Harry Clavering his due, he could be quick enough at swearing to a passion. He was one of those men to whom love-making comes so readily that it is a pity that they should ever marry. He was ever making love to women, usually meaning no harm. He made love to Cecilia Burton over her children's beds, and that discreet matron liked it. But it was a love-making without danger. It simply signified on his part the pleasure he had in being on good terms with a pretty woman. He would have liked to have made love in the same way to Lady Ongar; but that was impossible, and in all love-making with Lady Ongar there must be danger. There was a pause after the expression of his last hopes, during which he finished his tea, and then looked at his boots.

"You do not ask me what I have been doing at my country-house."

"And what have you been doing there?"

"Hating it."

"That is wrong."

"Everything is wrong that I do; everything must be wrong. That is the nature of the curse upon me."

"You think too much of all that now."

"Ah, Harry, that is so easily said. People do not think of such things if they can help themselves. The place is full of him and his memories; full of him, though I do not as yet know whether he ever put his foot in it. Do you know, I have a plan, a scheme, which would, I think, make me happy for one half-hour. It is to give everything back to the family. Everything! money, house, and name; to call myself Julia Brabazon, and let the world call me what it pleases. Then I would walk out into the streets, and beg some one to give me my bread. Is there one in all the wide world that would give me a crust? Is there one, except yourself, Harry—one, except yourself?"

Poor Florence! I fear it fared badly with her cause at this moment. How was it possible that he should not regret, that he should not look back upon Stratton with something akin to sorrow? Julia had been his first love, and to her he could have been always true. I fear he thought of this now. I fear that it was a grief to him that he could not place himself close at her side, bid her do as she had planned, and then come to him, and share all his crusts. Had it been open to him to play that part, he would have played it well, and would have gloried in the thoughts of her poverty. The position would have suited him exactly. But Florence was in the way, and he could not do it. How was he to answer Lady Ongar? It was more difficult now than ever to tell her of Florence Burton.

His eyes were full of tears, and she accepted that as his excuse for not answering her. "I suppose they would say that I was a romantic fool. When the price has been taken one cannot cleanse oneself of the stain. With Judas, you know, it was not sufficient that he gave back the money. Life was too heavy for him, and so he went out and hanged himself."

"Julia," he said, getting up from his chair, and going over to where she sat on a sofa, "Julia, it is horrid to hear you speak of yourself in that way. I will not have it. You are not such a one as the Iscariot." And as he spoke to her, he found her hand in his.

"I wish you had my burden, Harry, for one half day, so that you might know its weight."

"I wish I could bear it for you—for life."

"To be always alone, Harry; to have none that come to me and scold me, and love me, and sometimes make me smile! You will scold me at any rate; will you not? It is terrible to have no one near one that will speak to one with the old easiness of familiar affection. And then the pretence of it where it does not, cannot, could not, exist! Oh, that woman, Harry; that woman who comes here and calls me Julie! And she has got me to promise too that I would call her Sophie! I know that you despise me because she comes here. Yes; I can see it. You said at once that she was not wholesome, with your dear outspoken honesty."

"It was your word."

"And she is not wholesome, whosever word it was. She was there, hanging about him when he was so bad, before the worst came. She read novels to him—books that I never saw, and played ecarte with him for what she called gloves. I believe in my heart she was spying me, and I let her come and go as she would, because I would not seem to be afraid of her. So it grew. And once or twice she was useful to me. A woman, Harry, wants to have a woman near her sometimes—even though it be such an unwholesome creature as Sophie Gordeloup. You must not think too badly of me on her account."

"I will not; I will not think badly of you at all."

"He is better, is he not? I know little of him or nothing, but he has a more reputable outside than she has. Indeed I liked him. He had known Lord Ongar well; and though he did not toady him nor was afraid of him, yet he was gentle and considerate. Once to me he said words that I was called on to resent; but he never repeated them, and I know that he was prompted by him who should have protected me. It is too bad, Harry, is it not? Too bad almost to be believed by such as you."

"It is very bad," said Harry.

"After that he was always courteous; and when the end came and things were very terrible, he behaved well and kindly. He went in and out quietly, and like an old friend. He paid for everything, and was useful. I know that even this made people talk—yes, Harry, even at such a moment as that! But in spite of the talking I did better with him then than I could have done without him."

"He looks like a man who could be kind if he chooses."

"He is one of those, Harry, who find it easy to be good-natured, and who are soft by nature, as cats are—not from their heart, but through instinctive propensity to softness. When it suits them, they scratch, even though they have been ever so soft before. Count Pateroff is a cat. You, Harry, I think are a dog." She perhaps expected that he would promise to her that he would be her dog—a dog in constancy and affection; but he was still mindful in part of Florence, and restrained himself.

"I must tell you something further," she said. "And indeed it is this that I particularly want to tell you. I have not seen him, you know, since I parted with him at Florence."

"I did not know," said Harry.

"I thought I had told you. However, so it is. And now, listen: He came down to Ongar Park the other day while I was there, and sent in his card. When I refused to receive him, he wrote to me pressing his visit. I still declined, and he wrote again. I burned his note, because I did not choose that anything from him should be in my possession. He told me some story about papers of Lord Ongar. I have nothing to do with Lord Ongar's papers. Everything of which I knew was sealed up in the count's presence and in mine, and was sent to the lawyers for the executors. I looked at nothing; not at one word in a single letter. What could he have to say to me of Lord Ongar's papers?"

"Or he might have written?"

"At any rate he should not have come there, Harry. I would not see him, nor, if I can help it, will I see him here. I will be open with you, Harry. I think that perhaps it might suit him to make me his wife. Such an arrangement, however, would not suit me. I am not going to be frightened into marrying a man, because he has been falsely called my lover. If I cannot escape the calumny in any other way, I will not escape it in that way."

"Has he said anything?"

"No; not a word. I have not seen him since the day after Lord Ongar's funeral. But I have seen his sister."

"And has she proposed such a thing?"

"No, she has not proposed it. But she talks of it, saying that it would not do. Then when I tell her that of course it would not do, she shows me all that would make it expedient. She is so sly and so false, that with all my eyes open I cannot quite understand her, or quite know what she is doing. I do not feel sure that she wishes it herself."

"She told me that it would not do."

"She did, did she? If she speaks of it again, tell her that she is right, that it will never do. Had he not come down to Ongar Park, I should not have mentioned this to you. I should not have thought that he had in truth any such schemes in his head. He did not tell you that he had been there?"

"He did not mention it. Indeed, he said very little about you at all."

"No, he would not. He is cautious. He never talks of anybody to anybody. He speaks only of the outward things of the world. Now, Harry, what you must do for me is this." As she was speaking to him she was leaning again upon the table, with her forehead resting upon her hands. Her small widow's cap had become thus thrust back, and was now nearly off her head, so that her rich brown hair was to be seen in its full luxuriance, rich and lovely as it had ever been. Could it be that she felt—half thought, half felt, without knowing that she thought it—that while the signs of her widowhood were about her, telling in their too plain language the tale of what she had been, he could not dare to speak to her of his love? She was indeed a widow, but not as are other widows. She had confessed, did hourly confess to herself, the guilt which she had committed in marrying that man; but the very fact of such confessions, of such acknowledgment, absolved her from the necessity of any show of sorrow. When she declared how she had despised and hated her late lord, she threw off mentally all her weeds. Mourning, the appearance even of mourning, became impossible to her, and the cap upon her head was declared openly to be a sacrifice to the world's requirements. It was now pushed back, but I fancy that nothing like a thought on the matter had made itself plain to her mind. "What you must do for me is this," she continued. "You must see Count Pateroff again, and tell him from me—as my friend—that I cannot consent to see him. Tell him that if he will think of it, he must know the reason why."

"Of course he will know."

"Tell him what I say, all the same; and tell him that as I have hitherto had cause to be grateful to him for his kindness, so also I hope he will not put an end to that feeling by anything now, that would not be kind. If there be papers of Lord Ongar's, he can take them either to my lawyers, if that be fit, or to those of the family. You can tell him that, can you not?"

"Oh, yes; I can tell him."

"And have you any objection?"

"None for myself. But would it not come better from some one else?"

"Because you are a young man, you mean? Whom else can I trust, Harry? To whom can I go? Would you have me to ask Hugh to do this? Or, would Archie Clavering be a proper messenger? Whom else have I?"

"Would not his sister be better?"

"How should I know that she had told him? She would tell him her own story—what she herself wished. And whatever story she told, he would not believe it. They know each other better than you and I know them. It must be you, Harry, if you will do it."

"Of course I will. I will try to-morrow. Where does he live?"

"How should I know? Perhaps nobody knows; no one, perhaps, of all those with whom he associates constantly. They do not live after our fashion, do they, these foreigners? But you will find him at his club, or hear of him at the house in Mount Street. You will do it; eh, Harry?"

"I will."

"That is my good Harry. But I suppose you would do anything I asked you. Ah, well; it is good to have one friend, if one has no more. Look, Harry! if it is not near eleven o'clock! Did you know that you had been here nearly three hours? And I have given you nothing but a cup of tea!"

"What else do you think I have wanted?"

"At your club you would have had cigars and brandy-and-water, and billiards, and broiled bones, and oysters, and tankards of beer. I know all about it. You have been very patient with me. If you go quick perhaps you will not be too late for the tankards and the oysters."

"I never have any tankards or any oysters."

"Then it is cigars and brandy-and-water. Go quick, and perhaps you may not be too late."

"I will go, but not there. I cannot change my thoughts so suddenly."

"Go, then; and do not change your thoughts. Go and think of me, and pity me. Pity me for what I have got, but pity me most for what I have lost." Harry silently took her hand, and kissed it, and then left her.

Pity her for what she had lost! What had she lost! What did she mean by that? He knew well what she meant by pitying her for what she had got. What had she lost? She had lost him. Did she intend to evoke his pity for that loss? She had lost him. Yes, indeed. Whether or no the loss was one to regret, he would not say to himself; or rather, he, of course, declared that it was not; but such as it was, it had been incurred. He was now the property of Florence Burton, and, whatever happened, he would be true to her.

Perhaps he pitied himself also. If so, it is to be hoped that Florence may never know of such pity. Before he went to bed, when he was praying on his knees, he inserted it in his prayers that God in whom he believed might make him true in his faith to Florence Burton.



Chapter XVII

The Rivals



Lady Ongar sat alone, long into the night, when Harry Clavering had left her. She sat there long, getting up occasionally from her seat, once or twice attempting to write at her desk, looking now and then at a paper or two, and then at a small picture which she had, but passing the long hours in thinking—in long, sad, solitary thoughts. What should she do with herself—with herself, her title, and her money? Would it be still well that she should do something, that she should make some attempt; or should she, in truth, abandon all, as the arch-traitor did, and acknowledge that for her foot there could no longer be a resting-place on the earth? At six-and-twenty, with youth, beauty and wealth at her command, must she despair? But her youth had been stained, her beauty had lost its freshness, and as for her wealth, had she not stolen it? Did not the weight of the theft sit so heavy on her, that her brightest thought was one which prompted her to abandon it?

As to that idea of giving up her income and her house, and calling herself again Julia Brabazon, though there was something in the poetry of it which would now and again for half an hour relieve her, yet she hardly proposed such a course to herself as a reality. The world in which she had lived had taught her to laugh at romance, to laugh at it even while she liked its beauty; and she would tell herself that for such a one as her to do such a thing as this, would be to insure for herself the ridicule of all who knew her name. What would Sir Hugh say, and her sister? What Count Pateroff and the faithful Sophie? What all the Ongar tribe, who would reap the rich harvest of her insanity? These latter would offer to provide her a place in some convenient asylum, and the others would all agree that such would be her fitting destiny. She could bear the idea of walking forth, as she had said, penniless into the street, without a crust; but she could not bear the idea of being laughed at when she got there.

To her, in her position, her only escape was by marriage. It was the solitude of her position which maddened her: its solitude, or the necessity of breaking that solitude by the presence of those who were odious to her. Whether it were better to be alone, feeding on the bitterness of her own thoughts, or to be comforted by the fulsome flatteries and odious falsenesses of Sophie Gordeloup, she could not tell. She hated herself for her loneliness, but she hated herself almost worse for submitting herself to the society of Sophie Gordeloup. Why not give all that she possessed to Harry Clavering—herself, her income, her rich pastures and horses and oxen, and try whether the world would not be better to her when she had done so.

She had learned to laugh at romance, but still she believed in love. While that bargain was going on as to her settlement, she had laughed at romance, and had told herself that in this world worldly prosperity was everything. Sir Hugh then had stood by her with truth, for he had well understood the matter, and could enter into it with zest. Lord Ongar, in his state of health, had not been in a position to make close stipulations as to the dower in the event of his proposed wife becoming a widow. "No, no; we wont stand that," Sir Hugh had said to the lawyers. "We all hope, of course, that Lord Ongar may live long; no doubt he'll turn over a new leaf and die at ninety. But in such a case as this the widow must not be fettered." The widow had not been fettered, and Julia had been made to understand the full advantage of such an arrangement. But still she had believed in love when she had bade farewell to Harry in the garden. She had told herself then, even then, that she would have better liked to have taken him and his love—if only she could have afforded it. He had not dreamed that in leaving him she had gone from him to her room, and taken out his picture—the same that she had with her now in Bolton Street—and had kissed it, bidding him farewell there with a passion which she could not display in his presence. And she had thought of his offer about the money over and over again. "Yes," she would say, "that man loved me. He would have given me all he had to relieve me, though nothing was to come to him in return." She had, at any rate been loved once; and she almost wished that she had taken the money, that she might now have an opportunity of repaying it.

And she was again free, and her old lover was again by her side. Had that fatal episode in her life been so fatal that she must now regard herself as tainted and unfit for him? There was no longer anything to separate them—anything of which she was aware, unless it was that. And as for his love—did he not look and speak as though he loved her still? Had he not pressed her hand passionately, and kissed it, and once more called her Julia? How should it be that he should not love her? In such a case as his, love might have been turned to hatred or to enmity; but it was not so with him. He called himself her friend. How could there be friendship between them without love?

And then she thought how much with her wealth she might do for him. With all his early studies and his talent, Harry Clavering was not the man, she thought, to make his way in the world by hard work; but with such an income as she could give him, he might shine among the proud ones of his nation. He should go into Parliament, and do great things. He should be lord of all. It should all be his without a word of reserve. She had been mercenary once, but she would atone for that now by open-handed, undoubting generosity. She herself had learned to hate the house and fields and widespread comforts of Ongar Park. She had walked among it all alone, and despised. But it would be a glory to her to see him go forth, with Giles at his heels, boldly giving his orders, changing this and improving that. He would be rebuked for no errors, let him do with Enoch Gubby and the rest of them what he pleased! And then the parson's wife would be glad enough to come to her, and the house would be full of smiling faces. And it might be that God would be good to her, and that she would have treasures, as other women had them, and that the flavor would come back to the apples, and, that the ashes would cease to grate between her teeth.

She loved him, and why should it not be so? She could go before God's altar with him without disgracing herself with a lie. She could put her hand in his, and swear honestly that she would worship him and obey him. She had been dishonest; but if he would pardon her for that, could she not reward him richly for such pardon? And it seemed to her that he had pardoned her. He had forgiven it all and was gracious to her—coming at her beck and call, and sitting with her as though he liked her presence. She was woman enough to understand this, and she knew that he liked it. Of course he loved her. How could it be otherwise?

But yet he spoke nothing to her of his love. In the old days there had been with him no bashfulness of that kind. He was not a man to tremble and doubt before a woman. In those old days he had bean ready enough—so ready, that she had wondered that one who had just come from his books should know so well how to make himself master of a girl's heart. Nature had given him that art, as she does give it to some, withholding it from many. But now he sat near her, dropping once and again half words of love, hearing her references to the old times; and yet he said nothing.

But how was he to speak of love to one who was a widow but of four months' standing? And with what face could he now again ask for her hand, knowing that it had been filled so full since last it was refused to him? It was thus she argued to herself when she excused him in that he did not speak to her. As to her widowhood, to herself it was a thing of scorn. Thinking of it, she cast her weepers from her, and walked about the room, scorning the hypocrisy of her dress. It needed that she should submit herself to this hypocrisy before the world; but he might know—for had she not told him?—that the clothes she wore were no index of her feeling or of her heart. She had been mean enough, base enough, vile enough, to sell herself to that wretched lord. Mean, base, and vile she had been, and she now confessed it; but she was not false enough to pretend that she mourned the man as a wife mourns. Harry might have seen enough to know, have understood enough to perceive, that he need not regard her widowhood.

And as to her money! if that were the stumbling-block, might it not be well that the first overture should come from her? Could she not find words to tell him that it might all be his? Could she not say to him, "Harry Clavering, all this is nothing in my hands. Take it into your hands, and it will prosper." Then, it was that she went to her desk, and attempted to write to him. She did write to him a completed note, offering herself and all that was hers for his acceptance. In doing so, she strove hard to be honest and yet not over bold; to be affectionate and yet not unfeminine. Long she sat, holding her head with one hand, while the other attempted to use the pen which would not move over the paper. At length, quickly it flew across the sheet, and a few lines were there for her to peruse.

"Harry Clavering," she had written, "I know I am doing what men and women say no woman should do. You may, perhaps, say so of me now; but if you do, I know you so well, that I do not fear that others will be able to repeat it. Harry, I have never loved any one but you. Will you be my husband? You well know that I should not make you this offer if I did not intend that everything I have should be yours. It will be pleasant to me to feel that I can make some reparation for the evil I have done. As for love, I have never loved any one but you. You yourself must know that well. Yours, altogether, if you will have it so—JULIA."

She took the letter with her back across the room to her seat by the fire, and took with her at the same time the little portrait; and there she sat, looking at the one and reading the other. At last she slowly folded the note up into a thin wisp of paper, and, lighting the end of it, watched it till every shred of it was burnt to an ash. "If he wants me," she said, "he can come and take me—as other men do." It was a fearful attempt, that which she had thought of making. How could she have looked him in the face again had his answer to her been a refusal?

Another hour went by before she took herself to her bed, during which her cruelly used maiden was waiting for her half asleep in the chamber above; and during that time she tried to bring herself to some steady resolve. She would remain in London for the coming months, so that he might come to her if he pleased. She would remain there, even though she were subject to the daily attacks of Sophie Gordeloup. She hardly knew why, but in part she was afraid of Sophie. She had done nothing of which Sophie knew the secret. She had no cause to tremble because Sophie might be offended. The woman had seen her in some of her saddest moments, and could indeed tell of indignities which would have killed some women. But these she had borne, and had not disgraced herself in the bearing of them. But still she was afraid of Sophie, and felt that she could not bring herself absolutely to dismiss her friend from her house. Nevertheless, she would remain; because Harry Clavering was in London and could come to her there. To her house at Ongar Park she would never go again, unless she went as his wife. The place had become odious to her. Bad as was her solitude in London, with Sophie Gordeloup to break it, and, perhaps, with Sophie's brother to attack her, it was not so bad as the silent desolation of Ongar Park. Never again would she go there, unless she went there, in triumph—as Harry's wife. Having so far resolved, she took herself at last to her room, and dismissed her drowsy Phoebe to her rest.

And now the reader must be asked to travel down at once into the country, that he may see how Florence Burton passed the same evening at Clavering Rectory. It was Florence's last night there, and on the following morning she was to return to her father's house at Stratton. Florence had not as yet received her unsatisfactory letter from Harry. That was to arrive on the following morning. At present she was, as regarded her letters, under the influence of that one which had been satisfactory in so especial a degree. Not that the coming letter—the one now on its route—was of a nature to disturb her comfort permanently, or to make her in any degree unhappy. "Dear fellow; he must be careful, he is overworking himself." Even the unsatisfactory letter would produce nothing worse than this from her; but now, at the moment of which I am writing, she was in a paradise of happy thoughts.

Her visit to Clavering had been in every respect successful. She had been liked by every one, and every one in return had been liked by her. Mrs. Clavering had treated her as though she were a daughter. The Rector had made her pretty presents, had kissed her, and called her his child. With Fanny she had formed a friendship which was to endure for ever, let destiny separate them how it might. Dear Fanny! She had had a wonderful interview respecting Fanny on this very day, and was at this moment disquieting her mind because she could not tell her friend what had happened without a breach of confidence! She had learned a great deal at Clavering, though in most matters of learning she was a better instructed woman than they were whom she had met. In general knowledge and in intellect she was Fanny's superior, though Fanny Clavering was no fool; but Florence, when she came thither, had lacked something which living in such a house had given to her; or, I should rather say, something had been given to her of which she would greatly feel the want, if it could be again taken from her. Her mother was as excellent a woman as had ever sent forth a family of daughters into the world, and I do not know that any one ever objected to her as being ignorant, or specially vulgar; but the house in Stratton was not like Clavering Rectory in the little ways of living, and this Florence Burton had been clever enough to understand. She knew that a sojourn under such a roof; with such a woman as Mrs. Clavering, must make her fitter to be Harry's wife; and, therefore, when they pressed her to come again in the Autumn, she said that she thought she would. She could understand, too, that Harry was different in many things from the men who had married her sisters, and she rejoiced that it was so. Poor Florence! Had he been more like them it might have been safer for her.

But we must return for a moment to the wonderful interview which has been mentioned. Florence, during her sojourn at Clavering, had become intimate with Mr. Saul, as well as with Fanny. She had given herself for the time heartily to the schools, and matters had so far progressed with her that Mr. Saul had on one occasion scolded her soundly. "It's a great sign that he thinks well of you," Fanny had said. "It was the only sign he ever gave me, before he spoke to me in that sad strain." On the afternoon of this, her last day at Clavering, she had gone over to Cumberly Green with Fanny, to say farewell to the children, and walked back by herself; as Fanny had not finished her work. When she was still about half a mile from the Rectory, she met Mr. Saul, who was on his way out to the Green.

"I knew I should meet you," he said, "so that I might say good-by."

"Yes, indeed, Mr. Saul—for I am going, in truth, to-morrow."

"I wish you were staying. I wish you were going to remain with us. Having you here is very pleasant, and you do more good here, perhaps, than you will elsewhere."

"I will not allow that. You forget that I have a father and mother."

"Yes; and you will have a husband soon."

"No, not soon; some day, perhaps, if all goes well. But I mean to be back here often before that. I mean to be here in October, just for a little visit, if mamma can spare."

"Miss Burton," he said, speaking in a very serious tone—. All his tones were serious, but that which he now adopted was more solemn than usual. "I wish to consult you on a certain matter, if you can give me five minutes of your time."

"To consult me, Mr. Saul?"

"Yes, Miss Burton. I am hard pressed at present, and I know no one else of whom I can ask a certain question, if I cannot ask it of you. I think that you will answer me truly, if you answer me at all. I do not think you would flatter me, or tell me an untruth."

"Flatter you! How could I flatter you?"

"By telling me—; but I must ask you my question first. You and Fanny Clavering are dear friends now. You tell each other everything."

"I do not know," said Florence, doubting as to what she might best say, but guessing something of that which was coming.

"She will have told you, perhaps, that I asked her to be my wife. Did she ever tell you that?" Florence looked into his face for a few moments without answering him, not knowing how to answer such a question. "I know that she has told you," said he. "I can see that it is so."

"She has told me," said Florence.

"Why should she not? How could she be with you so many hours, and not tell you that of which she could hardly fail to have the remembrance often present with her. If I were gone from here, if I were not before her eyes daily, it might be otherwise; but seeing me as she does from day to day, of course she has spoken of me to her friend."

"Yes, Mr. Saul; she has told me of it."

"And now, will you tell me whether I may hope."

"Mr. Saul!"

"I want you to betray no secret, but I ask you for your advice. Can I hope that she will ever return my love?"

"How am I to answer you?"

"With the truth. Only with the truth."

"I should say that she thinks that you have forgotten it."

"Forgotten it! No, Miss Burton; she cannot think that. Do you believe that men or women can forget such things as that? Can you ever forget her brother? Do you think people ever forget when they have loved? No, I have not forgotten her. I have not forgotten that walk which we had down this lane together. There are things which men never forget." Then he paused for an answer.

Florence was by nature steady and self-collected, and she at once felt that she was bound to be wary before she gave him any answer. She had half fancied once or twice that Fanny thought more of Mr. Saul than she allowed even herself to know. And Fanny, when she had spoken of the impossibility of such a marriage, had always based the impossibility on the fact that people should not marry without the means of living—a reason which to Florence, with all her prudence, was not sufficient. Fanny might wait as she also intended to wait. Latterly, too, Fanny had declared more than once to Florence her conviction that Mr. Saul's passion had been a momentary insanity which had altogether passed away; and in these declarations Florence had half fancied that she discovered some tinge of regret. If it were so, what was she now to say to Mr. Saul?

"You think then, Miss Burton," he continued, "that I have no chance of success? I ask the question because if I felt certain that this was so quite certain—I should be wrong to remain here. It has been my first and only parish, and I could not leave it without bitter sorrow. But if I were to remain here hopelessly, I should become unfit for my work. I am becoming so, and shall be better away."

"But why ask me, Mr. Saul?"

"Because I think that you can tell me."

"But why not ask herself? Who can tell you so truly as she can do?"

"You would not advise me to do that if you were sure that she would reject me?"

"That is what I would advise."

"I will take your advice, Miss Burton. Now, good-by, and may God bless you. You say you will be here in the Autumn; but before the Autumn I shall probably have left Clavering. If so our farewells will be for very long, but I shall always remember our pleasant intercourse here." Then he went on toward Cumberly Green; and Florence, as she walked into the vicarage grounds was thinking that no girl had ever been loved by a more single-hearted, pure-minded gentleman than Mr. Saul.

As she sat alone in her bed-room, five or six hours after this interview, she felt some regret that she should leave Clavering without a word to Fanny on the subject. Mr. Saul had exacted no promise of secresy from her; he was not a man to exact such promises. But she felt not the less that she would be betraying confidence to speak, and it might even be that her speaking on the matter would do more harm than good. Her sympathies were doubtless with Mr. Saul, but she could not therefore say that she, thought Fanny ought to accept his love. It would be best to say nothing of the matter, and to allow Mr. Saul to fight his own battle.

Then she turned to her own matters, and there she found that everything was pleasant. How good the world had been to her to give her such a lover as Harry Clavering! She owned with all her heart the excellence of being in love when a girl might be allowed to call such a man her own. She could not but make comparisons between him and Mr. Saul, though she knew that she was making them on points that were hardly worthy of her thoughts. Mr. Saul was plain, uncouth, with little that was bright about him except the brightness of his piety. Harry was like the morning star. He looked and walked and spoke as though he were something more godlike than common men. His very voice created joy, and the ring of his laughter was to Florence as the music of the heavens. What woman would not have loved Harry Clavering? Even Julia Brabazon—a creature so base that she had sold herself to such a thing as Lord Ongar for money and a title, but so grand in her gait and ways, so Florence had been told, that she seemed to despise the earth on which she trod—even she had loved him. Then as Florence thought of what Julia Brabazon might have had and of what she had lost, she wondered that there could be women born so sadly vicious.