Wenderholme Part 33

"Very well, is it? It's very well that you are to live in one place, and I in another."

"A distance sufficient to protect me from your rudeness would certainly be an advantage."

"Would it, indeed? You really think so, do you? Well, if you think so, it shall be so."

"Very well."

She spoke with a calmness that was perfectly exasperating, and John Stanburne's brain was too much overwrought by the terrible trial of that day for him to bear things with any patience. He was half insane temporarily; he could not bear to see that calm little woman sitting there, with her jarring self-control.

"I say, Lady Helena, if you mean to go to old Adisham's, the sooner you go the better. All this house is crumbling over our heads as if it were rotten."

Lady Helena rose quietly from her seat, took up her work, and walked towards the door. Just as she was opening it, she turned towards the Colonel, and p.r.o.nounced with the clearest possible articulation the following sentences:--

"You will please remember, Colonel Stanburne, that it was you who turned me out of your house, and the sort of language you used in doing so. _I_ shall always remember it."

Then the door closed quietly upon her--the great heavy door, slowly moving on its smooth hinges.

CHAPTER IV.

ALONE.

It happened that the hall-door was open, as it usually was in the fine weather, and John Stanburne, without knowing it, went out upon the lawn.

The balmy evening air, fragrant from the sweet breath of innumerable flowers, caressed his hot flushed face. He became gradually calmer as he walked in a purposeless way about the garden, and, looking at his mansion from many a different point of view, began to feel a strange, dreamy, independent enjoyment of its beauty, as if he had been some tourist or visitor for whom the name of Wenderholme had no painful a.s.sociations. Then he pa.s.sed out into the park, down the rich dark avenues whose ma.s.sive foliage made a premature night, and wandered farther and farther, till, by pure accident, he came upon the carriage-drive.

A man whose mind is quite absent, and who is wandering without purpose, will, when he comes upon a road, infallibly follow it in one direction or another, not merely because it is plain before the feet, but from a deep instinct in our being which impels us to prefer some human guidance to the wilderness of nature. It happened that the Colonel went in the direction which led him away from the house, perhaps because the road sloped invitingly that way.

Suddenly he heard a noise behind him, and had barely time to get out of the way when a carriage dashed pa.s.sed him at full speed, with two great glittering lamps. He caught no glimpse of its occupant, but he knew the carriage--Lady Helena's.

For a few seconds he stood immovable. Then, bounding forward, he cried aloud, "Helena! Helena!" and again and again, "Helena!"

Too late! The swift high-spirited horses were already on the public road, hurrying to catch the last train at the little station ten miles off. The sudden impulse of tenderness which drew John Stanburne's heart after her, as she pa.s.sed, had no magnetism to arrest her fatal course.

They had parted now, and for ever.

He would have pa.s.sed that night more easily if he could have gone at once to the Cottage, and unburdened his wretchedness to his mother, and become, for his hour of weakness, a little child again in her dear presence. But he dreaded to inflict upon her the blow which in any event would only come too soon, and he resolved to leave her whatever hours might yet remain to her of peace.

Somehow he went back to the Hall, and got to his own den. The place was more supportable to him than any other in the house, being absolutely devoid of splendor. A poor man might feel himself at home _there_. He rang the bell.

"Fyser, her ladys.h.i.+p has been obliged to go away this evening for an absence of some days, and I mean to live here. Make up my camp-bed, will you, in that corner?"

It was not the first time that the Colonel had retreated in this manner to his den; for when there were no guests in the house, and her ladys.h.i.+p was away, he found himself happier there than in the great reception-rooms. I think, perhaps, in his place I should have preferred something between the two, and would have allowed myself a couple of tolerably large rooms in a pleasant part of the house; but his mind seems to have needed the reaction from the extreme splendor of new Wenderholme to a simplicity equally extreme. Here, in his den, it must be admitted that he had pa.s.sed many of his happiest hours, either in making artificial flies, or in reading the sort of literature that suited him; and though the place was so crammed with things that the occupant could hardly stir, and in such a state of apparent disorder that no woman would have stayed in it ten minutes, he here found all he wanted, ready to his hand.

This night, however, not even the little camp-bed that he loved could give him refres.h.i.+ng sleep; and the leathern cylindrical pillow, on which his careless head had pa.s.sed so many hours of perfect oblivion, became as hard to him morally as it certainly was materially. He found it utterly impossible to get rest; and after rolling and tossing an hour or two, and vainly trying to read, finished by getting up and dressing himself.

It was only one o'clock in the morning, but the Colonel determined to go out. Unfastening a side door, he was soon in the fresh cool air.

He followed the path behind the house that led to the spot where he had made his confession to Lady Helena. A strange attraction drew him to it, and once there, he could not get away. There was no moon, and the details of the scene before him were not visible in the clear starlight, but dark mysterious shades indicated the situation of the Hall and its shrubberies, and the long avenues that led away from it.

And here, in the solitude of the hill, under the silent stars, came upon John Stanburne the hour and crisis of his agony. Until now he had not realized the full extent of his misery, and of the desolation that lay before him. He had _known_ it since five o'clock in the afternoon, but he felt it now for the first time. As some terrible bodily disease lays hold of us at first with gentle hands, and causes us little suffering, but afterwards rages in us, and tears us with intolerable anguish, so it had been with this man's affliction.

His brain was in a state of unnatural lucidity, casting an electric light upon every idea that suggested itself. In ordinary life a man of common powers, he possessed for this hour the insight and the intensity of genius. He reviewed his life with Lady Helena,--the twenty years--for it was twenty years!--that they had eaten at the same table, and lived under the same roof. And in all that long s.p.a.ce of a thousand weeks of marriage, he could not remember a single instance in which she had been clearly in the wrong. On her side, it now seemed to him, there had always been intelligence and justice; on his side, a want of capacity to understand her, and of justice to recognize her merits.

Having now, as I have said, for one hour of excitement, the clear perceptions of genius, it was plain to him where he had erred; and this perception so humbled him that he no longer dared to admit the faults which Lady Helena really had, her constant severity and her lasting _rancune_. Then came the bitterest hour of all, that of remorse for his own folly, for his want of conjugal trust in Lady Helena, for his fatal ambition and pride. How different their life might have been if he had understood her better from the first! how different if he had lived within his means! Had he lived within his means, that great foolish _fete_ would never have been given at Wenderholme, the house would not have been burned down, the money lavished on its restoration would still have been in the Funds, and John Stanburne would have kept out of that fatal Sootythorn Bank. All his ruin was clearly traceable to that fatal entertainment, and to his expensive ways as a colonel of militia. He saw now quite clearly that there had never been any real necessity for the profuse manner in which he had thought it obligatory to do the honor of his rank. There were rich colonels and there were colonels not so rich--he might have done things well enough without going beyond his means. "If I alone suffered from it!" he cried aloud; "but Helena, and Edith, and my mother!"

CHAPTER V.

THE TWO JACOBS.

The twelve years that have pa.s.sed since we had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Ogden have not deducted from her charms. The reader has doubtless observed that, notwithstanding the law of change which governs all sublunary persons and things, there are certain persons, as there are certain things, which, relatively at least to the rest of their species, have the enviable privilege of permanence. Mrs. Ogden was like those precious gems that are found in the sarcophagi of ancient kings, and which astonish us by their freshness and brilliance, when all around them bears the impress of death and of decay. One would be tempted to exclaim, "May my old age be like hers!" were it not that advancing years, whilst deducting so little from her physical or mental vigor, have not enriched her mind with a single new idea, or corrected one of her ancient prejudices. However, though intellectual people may think there is little use in living unless life is an intellectual advance, such people as Mrs. Ogden are not at all of that way of thinking, but seem to enjoy life very well in their own stationary way. There are intellectual policemen who are always telling us to "keep moving;" but what if I find a serener satisfaction in standing still? Then, if we stand still, we are to be insulted, and told that we are rusty, or that we are getting the "blue-mould." _Et apres?_ Suppose we _are_ getting the blue-mould, what then? So far as may be ascertained by the study of such instances as Mrs. Ogden, the blue-mould is a great comfort and a great safeguard to the system--it is moral flannel. Would she have lasted as she has done without it? I say, it is a solace, amidst the rapid changes of the body politic, and the new-fangled ideas which take possession of the heads of ministers, to feel that there is one personage in these realms who will live on in vigor undiminished, yet never advance one inch. And when the British Const.i.tution shall be finally swept away, and the throne itself no more, it will be something amidst the giddiness of universal experiment to know that in Mrs. Ogden this country will still possess an example that all is not given over to mutability.

"Now, young un," said Uncle Jacob, one day at dinner at Milend, "I reckon you've been writing no letters to that la.s.s at Wendrum; and if you've written nout, there's no 'arm done. It isn't a match for such a young felly as you, as 'll have more bra.s.s nor Stanburne iver had in his best days. We 'st 'ave no weddin' wi' bankrupts' dorthers."

"Bankrupts, indeed!" said Mrs. Ogden. "I reckon nout o' bankrupts!

Besides, Stanburne had no need to be a bankrupt if he hadn't been such a fool. And foolishness runs i' th' blood. Like father, like dorther. Th'

father's been a wastril with his money, and it 's easy to see 'at the dorther 'ud be none so kerfle."

"Who shalln't have th' chance o' spendin' none o' my bra.s.s," said Uncle Jacob. "Do you yer that, young un? Stanburne dorther shall spend none o'

_my_ bra.s.s. If you wed her, yer father 'll 'ave to keep both on ye, an'

all yer chilther beside. He's worth about five hundred a-year, is your father; and I'm worth--n.o.body knows what I 'm worth."

Young Jacob knew both his uncle and his grandmother far too intimately to attempt discussion with either of them; but the news of Colonel Stanburne's bankruptcy, which in their view had put an end to the dream of a possible alliance with his daughter, wore a very different aspect to the young lover. An attachment existed between himself and Edith Stanburne, of which both were perfectly conscious, and yet nothing had been said about it openly on either side. Young Jacob Ogden had felt every year more and more keenly the width of the social gulf which separated them, though his education at Eton and Oxford and his constantly increasing prospects of future riches had already begun to build a bridge across the gulf. Even in his best days Colonel Stanburne had not been what in Lancas.h.i.+re is considered a rich man; in his best days, he had been poorer than the leading manufacturers of Sootythorn; and Jacob Ogden's mill had of itself cost more money than any squire of Wenderholme had ever possessed, whilst Jacob Ogden had property of many kinds besides his mill, and a huge lump of money lying by ready for immediate investment. The superiority in money had therefore for some years been entirely on the side of the Ogdens; but, although aristocracy in England is in reality based on wealth, it has a certain poetic sense which delights also in antiquity and honors. Jacob Ogden and his money might have been agreeable to the matter-of-fact side of English aristocratic feeling, but they were unsatisfying to its poetic sense.

Young Jacob was clearly aware of this, and so indeed, in a cruder form, was his uncle. So long therefore as the Colonel was prosperous, or apparently prosperous, the Ogdens knew that the obstacles in the way of a marriage were all but insurmountable, and no proposal had ever been made. The Colonel's ruin changed the relative situation very considerably; and, if young Jacob Ogden could have permitted himself to rejoice in an event so painful to one who had always been kind to him, he would have rejoiced now. He did, indeed, feel a degree of hope about Edith Stanburne to which he had been a stranger for some years.

As young Jacob had said nothing in answer to his uncle and his grandmother, they both gave him credit for a prudent abandonment of his early dream. There existed, however, between him and his father a much closer confidence and friends.h.i.+p; and Isaac Ogden (who, notwithstanding the errors of his earlier life, had the views and feelings of a gentleman, as well as an especial loyalty and attachment to his unfortunate friend, the Colonel) encouraged his son in his fidelity. The materials were thus acc.u.mulating for a war in the Ogden family; and whenever that war shall be declared, we may rely upon it that it will be prosecuted with great vigor on both sides, for the Ogdens are wilful people, all of them.

Mr. Isaac has been enjoying excellent health for these last twelve years, thanks to his vow of total abstinence, to which he still courageously adheres. A paternal interest in the education of his son has gradually filled many of the voids in his own education, so that, without being aware of it himself, he has become really a well-informed man. His solitary existence at Twistle Farm has been favorable to the habit of study, and, like all men who have acquired the love of knowledge, he sees that life may have other aims and other satisfactions than the interminable acc.u.mulation of wealth. Small as may have been his apparent worldly success, Isaac Ogden has raised himself to a higher standpoint than his brother Jacob is likely ever to attain. Amongst the many expressions of sympathy which reached Colonel Stanburne after his disaster, few pleased him more than the following letter from Twistle Farm:--

"MY DEAR COLONEL STANBURNE,--I am truly grieved to hear that the failure of the Sootythorn Bank has involved you in misfortune. I would have come to Wenderholme to say this personally, but it seemed that, under present circ.u.mstances, you might wish to be alone with your family.

I hardly know how to say what I wish to say in addition to this. For some years I have spent very little, and, although my income is small, I find there is a considerable balance in my favor with Messrs. ----. If this could be of any use to you, pray do not scruple to draw upon my bankers, who will be forewarned that you may possibly do so. Up to 1,000 you will occasion me no inconvenience, and, though this is not much, it might be of temporary service.

"Yours most faithfully, I. OGDEN."

To this letter the Colonel returned the following reply:--

"MY DEAR OGDEN,--Your kind letter gave me great pleasure. I am greatly obliged by your friendly offer of help, which I accept as one brother officer may from another. If, as is probable, I find myself in urgent need of a little ready money, I will draw upon your bankers, but, of course, not to such an extent as would go beyond a reasonable probability of repayment.

"At the last meeting of creditors and shareholders, it appeared that, although we are likely to save nothing from the wreck, the Bank will probably pay nineteen s.h.i.+llings in the pound. This is a great satisfaction.

"Yours most truly, J. STANBURNE."