Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume II.

“A husband need not fight for his wife’s flirtations; be-. sides, he can make her give these up if he likes. There are insults, however, that a man” – ; and she said the word with a fierce emphasis – “resents with the same instinct that makes him defend his life.”

“I know well enough what he ‘d say; he ‘d say that there was nothing serious in it, that he was merely indulging in that sort of larking talk one offers to a pretty woman who does not seem to dislike it. The chances are he ‘d turn the tables a bit, and say that you rather led him on than repressed him.”

“And would these pleas diminish your desire to have his heart’s blood?” cried she, wild with passion and indignation together.

“Having his heart’s blood is very fine, if I was sure – quite sure – he might not have mine. The fellow is a splendid shot.”

“I thought so. I could have sworn it,” cried she, with a taunting laugh.

“I admit no man my superior with a pistol,” said Sewell, stung far more by her laughter than her words; “but what have I to gain if I shoot him? His family would prosecute me to a certainty; and it went devilish close with that last fellow who was tried at Newgate.”

“If you care so little for my honor, sir, I ‘ll show you how cheaply I can regard yours. I will go back to Sir Brook to-morrow, and return him his money. I will tell him, besides, that I am married to one so hopelessly lost to every sentiment and feeling, not merely of the gentleman, but of the man, that it is needless to try to help him; and that I will accept nothing for him, – not a shilling; that he may deal with you on those other matters he spoke of as he pleases; that it will be no favor shown me when he spares you. There, sir, I leave you now to compute whether a little courage would not have served you better than all your cunning.”

“You do not leave this room till you give me that pocket-book,” said he, rising, and placing his back to the door.

“I foresaw this, sir,” said she, laughing quietly, “and took care to deposit the money in a safe place before I came here. You are welcome to every farthing I have about me.”

“Your scheme is too glaring, too palpable by half. There is a vulgar shamelessness in the way you ‘make your book,’ standing to win whichever of us should kill the other. I read it at a glance,” said he, as he threw himself into a chair; “but I ‘ll not help to make you an interesting widow. Are you going? Good-night.”

She moved towards the door? and just as she reached it he arose and said, “On what pretext could I ask this man to meet me? What do I charge him with? How could I word my note to him?”

“Let me write it,” said she, with a bitter laugh. “You will only have to copy it.”

“And if I consent will you do all the rest? Will you go to Fossbrooke and ask him for the increased allowance?”

“I will.”

“Will you do your best – your very best – to obtain it? Will you use all the power and influence you have over him to dissuade him from any act that might injure me? Will you get his pledge that he will not molest me in any way?”

“I will promise to do all that I can with him.” “And when must this come off, – this meeting, I mean?”

“At once, of course. You ought to leave this by the early packet for Bangor. Harding or Vaughan – any one – will go with you. Trafford can follow you by the midday mail, as your note will have reached him early.”

“You seem to have a capital head for these sort of things; you arrange all to perfection,” said he, with a sneer.

“I had need of it, as I have to think for two;” and the sarcasm stung him to the quick. “I will go to your room and write the note. I shall find paper and ink there?”

“Yes; everything. I’ll carry these candles for you;” and he arose and preceded her to his study. “I wish he would not mix old Fossbrooke in the affair. I hope he’ll not name him as his friend.”

“I have already thought of that,” said she, as she sat down at the table and began to write. After a few seconds she said, “This will do, I think: —

“‘Sir, – I have just learned from my wife how grossly insulting was your conduct towards her yesterday, on the occasion of her calling at Sir Brook Fossbrooke’s house. The shame and distress in which she returned here would fully warrant any chastisement I might inflict upon you; but for the sake of the cloth you wear, I offer you the alternative which I would extend to a man of honor, and desire you will meet me at once with a friend. I shall leave by the morning packet for Holyhead, and be found at the chief hotel, Bangor, where, waiting your pleasure, I am your obedient servant.

“‘I hope it is needless to say that my wife’s former guardian, Sir B. F., should not be chosen to act for you on this occasion.’”

“I don’t think I’d say that about personal chastisement. People don’t horsewhip nowadays.”

“So much the worse. I would leave it there, however. It will insult him like a blow.”

“Oh, he’s ready enough, – he’ll not need poking to rouse his pluck. I’ll say that for him.”

“And yet I half suspect he ‘ll write some blundering sort of apology; some attempt to show that I was mistaken. I know – I know it as well as if I saw it – he ‘ll not fire at you.”

“What makes you think that?” “He could n’t. It would be impossible for him.” “I ‘m not so sure of that. There’s something very provocative in the sight of a pistol muzzle staring at one a few paces off. I’d fire at my father if I saw him going to shoot at me.”

“I think you would,” said she, dryly. “Sit down and copy that note. We must send it by a messenger at once.”

“I don’t think you put it strongly enough about old Foss-brooke. I ‘d have said distinctly, – I object to his acting on account of his close and intimate connection with my wife’s family.”

“No, no; leave it all as it stands. If we begin to change, we shall never have an end of the alterations.”

“If I believed he would not fire at me, I’d not shoot him,” said Sewell, biting the end of his pen.

“He ‘ll not fire the first time; but if you go on to a second shot, I’m certain he will aim at you.”

“I’ll try and not give him this chance, then,” said he, laughing. “Remember,” added he, “I’m promising to cross the Channel, and I have not a pound in my pocket.”

“Write that, and I ‘ll go fetch you the money,” said she, leaving the room; and, passing out through the hall and the front door, she put her arm and hand into a large marble vase, several of which stood on the terrace, and drew forth the pocket-book which Sir Brook had given her, and which she had secretly deposited there as she entered the house.

“There, that’s done,” said he, handing her his note as she came in.

“Put it in an envelope and address it. And now, where are you to find Harding, or whoever you mean to take with you?”

“That’s easy enough; they ‘ll be at supper at the Club by this time. I’ll go in at once. But the money?”

“Here it is. I have not counted it; he gave me the pocket-book as you see.”

“There’s more than he said. There are two hundred and eighty-five pounds. He must be in funds.”

“Don’t lose time. It is very late already, – nigh two o’clock; these men will have left the Club, possibly?”

“No, no; they play on till daybreak. I suppose I’d better put my traps in a portmanteau at once, and not require to come back here.”

“I ‘ll do all that for you.”

“How amiable a wife can be at the mere prospect of getting rid of her husband!”

“You will send me a telegram?”

“Very likely. Good-bye. Adieu.”

“Adieu et bonne chance,” said she, gayly.

“That means a good aim, I suppose,” said he, laughing.

She nodded pleasantly, kissed her hand to him, and he was gone.

CHAPTER XXIV. A MOMENT OF CONFIDENCE

Mrs. Sewell’s maid made two ineffectual efforts to awaken her mistress on the following morning, for agitation had drugged her like a narcotic, and she slept the dull, heavy sleep of one overpowered by opium. “Why, Jane, it is nigh twelve o’clock,” said she, looking at her watch. “Why did you let me sleep so late?”

“Indeed, ma’am, I did my best to rouse you. I opened the shutters, and I splashed the water into your bath, and made noise enough, I ‘m sure, but you did n’t mind it all; and I brought up the doctor to see if there was anything the matter with you, and he felt your pulse, and put his hand on your heart, and said, No, it was just overfatigue; that you had been sitting up too much of late, and hadn’t strength for it.”

“Where ‘s Colonel Sewell?” asked she, hurriedly.

“He’s gone off to the country, ma’am; leastways, he went away early this morning, and George thinks it was to Killaloe.”

“Is Dr. Beattie here?”

“Yes, ma’am; they all breakfasted with the children at nine o’clock.”

“Whom do you mean by all?”

“Mr. Lendrick, ma’am, and Miss Lucy. I hear as how they are coming back to live here. They were up all the morning in his Lordship’s room, and there was much laughing, as if it was a wedding.”

“Whose wedding? What were you saying about a wedding?”

“Nothing, ma’am; only that they were as merry, – that’s all.”

“Sir William must be better, then?”

“Yes, ma’am, – quite out of danger; and he ‘s to have a partridge for dinner, and the doctor says he ‘ll be downstairs and all right before this day week; and I ‘m sure it will be a real pleasure to see him lookin’ like himself again, for he told Mr. Cheetor to take them wigs away, and all the pomatum-pots, and that he ‘d have the shower-bath that he always took long ago. It’s a fine day for Mr. Cheetor, for he has given him I don’t know how many colored scarfs, and at least a dozen new waistcoats, all good as the day they were made; and he says he won’t wear anything but black, like long ago; and, indeed, some say that old Rives, the butler as was, will be taken back, and the house be the way it used to be formerly. I wonder, ma’am, if the Colonel will let it be, – they say below stairs that he won’t.”

“I’m sure Colonel Sewell cares very little on the subject. Do you know if they are going to dine here to-day?”

“Yes, ma’am, they are. Miss Lucy said the butler was to take your orders as to what hour you ‘d like dinner.”

“Considerate, certainly,” said she, with a faint smile.

“And I heard Mr. Lendrick say, ‘I think you ‘d better go up yourself, Lucy, and see Mrs. Sewell, and ask if we inconvenience her in any way;’ but the doctor said, ‘You need not; she will be charmed to meet you.’”

“He knows me perfectly, Jane,” said she, calmly. “Is Miss Lucy so very handsome? Colonel Sewell called her beautiful.”

“Indeed, I don’t think so, ma’am. Mr. Cheetor and me thought she was too robusteous for a young lady; and she’s freckled, too, quite dreadful. The picture of her below in the study’s a deal more pretty; but perhaps she was delicate in health when it was done.”

“That would make a great difference, Jane.”

“Yes, ma’am, it always do; every one is much genteeler-looking when they ‘re poorly. Not but old Mr. Haire said she was far more beautiful than ever.”

“And is he here too?”

“Yes, ma’am. It was he that pushed Miss Lucy down into the arm-chair, and said, ‘Take your old place there, darling, and pour out the tea, and we’ll forget that you were ever away at all.’”

“How pretty and how playful! The poor children must have felt themselves quite old in such juvenile company.”

“They was very happy, ma’am. Miss Cary sat in Miss Lucy’s lap all the time, and seemed to like her greatly.”

“There’s nothing worse for children than taking them out of their daily habits. I ‘m astonished Mrs. Groves should let them go and breakfast below-stairs without orders from me.”

“It’s what Miss Lucy said, ma’am. ‘Are we quite sure Mrs. Sewell would like it?’”

“She need never have asked the question; or if she did, she might have waited for the answer. Mrs. Sewell could have told her that she totally disapproved of any one interfering with the habits of her children.”

“And then old Mr. Haire said, ‘Even if she should not like it, when she knows all the pleasure it has given us, she will forgive it.’”

“What a charming disposition I must have, Jane, without my knowing it!”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the girl, with a pursed-up mouth, as though she would not trust herself to expatiate on the theme.

“Did Colonel Sewell take Capper with him?”

“No, ma’am; Mr. Capper is below. The Colonel gave him a week’s leave, and he’s going a-fishing with some other gentlemen down into Wicklow.”

“I suspect, Jane, that you people below-stairs have the pleasantest life of all. You have little to trouble you. When you take a holiday, you can enjoy it with all your hearts.”

“The gentlemen does, I believe, ma’am; but we don’t. We can’t go a-pleasuring like them; and if it a’n’t a picnic, or a thing of the kind that’s arranged for us, we have nothing for it but a walk to church and back, or a visit to one of our friends.”

“So that you know what it is to be bored!” said she, sighing drearily, – “I mean to be very tired of life, and sick of everything and everybody.”

“Not quite so bad as that, ma’am; put out, ma’am, and provoked at times, – not in despair, like.”

“I wish I was a housemaid.”

“A housemaid, ma’am!” cried the girl, in almost horror.

“Well, a lady’s-maid. I mean, I’d like a life where my heaviest sorrow would be a refused leave to go out, or a sharp word or two for an ill-ironed collar. See who is that at the door; there’s some one tapping there the last two minutes.”

“It’s Miss Lucy, ma’am; she wants to know if she may come in?”

Mrs. Sewell looked in the glass before which she was sitting, and as speedily passed her hands across her brow, and by the action seeming to chase away the stern expression of her eyes; then, rising up with a face all smiles, she rushed to the door and clasped Lucy in her arms, kissing her again and again, as she said, “I never dreamed of such happiness as this; but why didn’t you come and awaken me? Why did you rob me of one precious moment of your presence?”

“I knew how tired and worn-out you were. Grandpapa has told me of all your unwearying kindness.”

“Come over to the light, child, and let me see you well. I ‘m wildly jealous of you, I must own, but I ‘ll try to be fair and judge you honestly. My husband says you are the loveliest creature he ever saw; and I declare I ‘m afraid he spoke truly. What have you done with your eyes? they are far darker than they used to be; and this hair, – you need not tell me it’s all your own, child. Gold could not buy it. Yes, Jane, you are right, she is perfectly beautiful.”

“Oh, do not turn my head with vanity,” said Lucy, blushing.

“I wish I could, – I wish I could do anything to lessen any of your fascinations. Do you know it’s very hard – very hard indeed – to forgive any one being so beautiful, and hardest of all for me to do so?”

“Why for you?” said Lucy, anxiously.

“I’ll tell you another time,” said she, in a half-whisper, and with a significant glance at her maid, who, with the officiousness of her order, was taking far more than ordinary trouble to put things to rights. “There, Jane,” said her mistress, at last, “all that opening and shutting of drawers is driving me distracted; leave everything as it is, and let us have quiet. Go and fetch me a cup of chocolate.”

“Nothing else, ma’am?”

“Nothing; and ask if there are any letters for me. It’s a dreadful house, Lucy, for sending one’s letters astray. The Chief used to have scores of little scented notes sent up to him that were meant for me, and I used to get masses of formal-looking documents that should have gone to him; but everything is irregular here. There was no master, and, worse, no mistress; but I ‘ll hope, as they tell me here, that there will soon be one.”

“I don’t know, – I have not heard.”

“What a diplomatic damsel it is! Why, child, can’t you be frank, and say if you are coming back to live here?”

“I never suspected that I was in question at all; if I had, I ‘d have told you, as I tell you now, there is not the most remote probability of such an event. We are going back to live at the Nest. Sir Brook has bought it, and made it over to papa or myself, – I don’t know which, but it means the same in the sense I care for, that we are to be together again.”

“How delightful! I declare, child, my envy of you goes on increasing every minute. I never was able to captivate any man, old or young, who would buy a beautiful house and give it to me. Of all the fortunate creatures I ever heard or read of, you are the luckiest.”

“Perhaps I am. Indeed I own as much to myself when I bethink me how little I have contributed to my own good fortune.”

“And I,” said she, with a heavy sigh, “about the most unlucky! I suppose I started in life with almost as fair a promise as your own. Not so handsome, I admit. I had neither these long lashes nor that wonderful hair, that gives you a look of one of those Venetian beauties Giorgione used to paint; still less that lovely mouth, which I envy you more even than your eyes or your skin; but I was good-looking enough to be admired, and I was admired, and some of my admirers were very great folk indeed; but I rejected them all and married Sewell! I need not tell you what came of that. Poor papa foresaw it all. I believe it helped to break his heart; it might have broken mine too, if I happened to have one. There, don’t look horrified, darling. I was n’t born without one; but what with vanity and distrust, a reckless ambition to make a figure in the world, and a few other like good qualities, I made of the heart that ought to have been the home of anything that was worthy in my nature, a scene of plot and intrigue, till at last I imagine it wore itself out, just as people do who have to follow uncongenial labor. It was like a lady set down to pick oakum! Why don’t you laugh, dear, at my absurd simile?”

“Because you frighten me,” said Lucy, almost shuddering.

“I ‘m certain,” resumed the other, “I was very like yourself when I was married. I had been very carefully brought up, – had excellent governesses, and was trained in all the admirable discipline of a well-ordered family. All I knew of life was the good side. I saw people at church on Sundays, and fancied that they wore the same tranquil and virtuous faces throughout the week. Above all things I was trustful and confiding. Colonel Sewell soon uprooted such delusions. He believed in nothing nor in any one. If he had any theory at all of life, it was that the world consisted of wolves and lambs, and that one must make an early choice which flock he would belong to. I ‘m ashamed to own what a zest it gave to existence to feel that the whole thing was a great game in which, by the exercise of skill and cleverness, one might be almost sure to win. He soon made me as impassioned a gambler as himself, as ready to risk anything – everything – on the issue. But I have made you quite ill, child, with this dark revelation; you are pale as death.”

“No, I am only frightened, – frightened and grieved.”

“Don’t grieve for me,” said the other, haughtily. “There is nothing I could n’t more easily forgive than pity. But let me turn from my odious self and talk of you. I want you to tell me everything about your own fortune, where you have been all this time, what seeing and doing, and what is the vista in front of you?”

Lucy gave a full account of Cagliari and their life there, narrating how blank their first hopes had been, and what a glorious fortune had crowned them at last. “I ‘m afraid to say what the mine returns at present; and they say it is a mere nothing to what it may yield when improved means of working are employed, new shafts sunk, and steam power engaged.”

“Don’t get technical, darling; I’ll take your word for Sir Brook’s wealth; only tell me what he means to do with it. You know he gambled away one large fortune already, and squandered another, nobody knows how. Has he gained anything by these experiences to do better with the third?”

“I have only heard of his acts of munificence or generosity,” said Lucy, gravely.

“What a reproachful face to put on, and for so little!” said the other, laughing. “You don’t think that when I said he gambled I thought the worse of him.”

“Perhaps not; but you meant that I should.”

“You are too sharp in your casuistry; but you have been living with only men latterly, and the strong-minded race always impart some of their hardness to the women who associate with them. You’ll have to come down to silly creatures like me, Lucy, to regain your softness.”

“I shall be delighted if you let me keep your company.”

“We will be sisters, darling, if you will only be frank with me.”

“Prove me if you like; ask me anything you will, and see if I will not answer you freely.”

“Have you told me all your Cagliari life, – all?”

“I think so; all at least that was worth telling.”

“You had a shipwreck on your island, we heard here; are such events so frequent that they make slight impression?”

“I was but speaking of ourselves and our fortunes,” said Lucy; “my narrative was all selfish.” “Come, – I never beat about the bush, – tell me one thing, – it’s a very abrupt way to ask, but perhaps it’s the best way, – are you going to be married?”

“I don’t know,” said she; and her face and neck became crimson in a moment.

“You don’t know! Do you mean that you ‘re like one of those young ladies in the foreign convents who are sent for to accept a husband whenever the papas and mammas have agreed upon the terms?”

“Not that; but I mean that I am not sure whether grandpapa will give his consent, and without it papa will not either.”

“And why should not grandpapa say yes? Major Traf-ford, – we need n’t talk riddles to each other, – Major Trafford has a good position, a good name, and will have a good estate; are not these the three gifts the mothers of England go in pursuit of?”

“His family, I suspect, wish him to look higher; at all events, they don’t like the idea of an Irish daughter-in-law.”

“More fools they! Irish women of the better class are more ready to respond to good treatment, and less given to resent bad usage, than any I ever met.”

“Then I have just heard since I came over that Lady Trafford has written to grandpapa in a tone of such condescension and gentle sorrow that it has driven him half crazy. Indeed, his continual inference from the letter is, ‘What must the son of such a woman be!’”

“That’s most unfair!”

“So they have all told him, – papa, and Beattie, and even Mr. Haire, who met Lionel one morning at Beattie’s.”

“Perhaps I might be of service here; what a blush, child! dear me, you are crimson, far too deep for beauty. How I have fluttered the dear little bird! but I ‘m not going to rob its nest, or steal its mate away. All I meant was, that I could exactly contribute that sort of worldly testimony to the goodness of the match that old people like and ask for. You must never talk to them about affections, nor so much as allude to tastes or tempers; never expatiate on anything that cannot be communicated by parchment, and attested by proper witnesses. Whatever is not subject to stamp-duty, they set down as mere moonshine.”

While she thus ran on, Lucy’s thoughts never strayed from a certain letter which had once thrown a dark shadow over her, and even yet left a gloomy memory behind it. The rapidity with which Mrs. Sewell spoke, too, had less the air of one carried away by the strong current of feeling than of a speaker who was uttering everything, anything, to relieve her own overburdened mind.

“You look very grave, Lucy,” went she on. “I suspect I know what’s passing in that little brain. You are doubting if I should be the fittest person to employ on the negotiation; come, now, confess it.”

“You have guessed aright,” said Lucy, gravely.

“But all that ‘s past and over, child. The whole is a mere memory now, if even so much. Men have a trick of thinking, once they have interested a woman on their behalf, that the sentiment survives all changes of time and circumstance, and that they can come back after years and claim the deposit; but it is a great mistake, as he has found by this time. But don’t let this make you unhappy, dear; there never was less cause for unhappiness. It is just of these sort of men the model husbands are made. The male heart is a very tough piece of anatomy, and requires a good deal of manipulation to make it tender, and, as you will learn one day, it is far better all this should be done before marriage than after. – Well, Jane, I did begin to think you had forgotten about the chocolate. It is about an hour since I asked for it.”