The Claverings Part 80

"And in a year she will have taken some other one for her husband."

"What is that to me? But look here, Sophie, far you may as well understand me at once, if I were ever to think of Lady Ongar again as my wife, I should not tell you."

"And why not tell me--your sister?"

"Because it would do me no good. If you had not been there she would have been my wife now."

"Edouard!"

"What I say is true. But I do not want to reproach you because of that.

Each of us was playing his own game, and your game was not my game. You are going now, and if I play my game again I can play it alone."

Upon hearing this, Sophie sat a while in silence, looking at him. "You will play it alone," she said at last. "You would rather do that?"

"Much rather, if I play any game at all."

"And you will give me something to go?"

"Not one sou."

"You will not--not a sou?"

"Not half a sou--for you to go or stay. Sophie, are you not a fool to ask me for money?"

"And you are a fool--a fool who knows nothing. You need not look at me like that. I am not afraid. I shall remain here. I shall stay and do as the lawyer tells me. He says that if I bring my action she must pay me for my expenses. I will bring my action. I am not going to leave it all to you. No. Do you remember those days in Florence? I have not been paid yet, but I will be paid. One hundred and seventy-five thousand francs a year--and, after all, I am to have none of it! Say--should it become yours, will you do something for your sister?"

"Nothing at all--nothing. Sophie, do you think I am fool enough to bargain in such a matter?"

"Then I will stay. Yes, I will bring my action. All the world shall hear, and they shall know how you have destroyed me and yourself. Ah!

you think I am afraid--that I will not spend my money. I will spend all--all--all; and I will be revenged."

"You may go or stay, it is the same thing to me. Now, if you please, I will take my leave." And he got up from his chair to leave her.

"It is the same thing to you?"

"Quite the same."

"Then I will stay, and she shall hear my name every day of her life--every hour. She shall be so sick of me and of you that--that--that--Oh, Edouard!" This last appeal was made to him because he was already at the door, and could not be stopped in any other way.

"What else have you to say, my sister?"

"Oh, Edouard, what would I not give to see all those riches yours? Has it not been my dearest wish? Edouard, you are ungrateful. All men are ungrateful." Now, having succeeded in stopping him, she buried her face in the corner of the sofa and wept plentifully. It must be presumed that her acting before her brother must have been altogether thrown away; but the acting was, nevertheless, very good.

"If you are in truth going to St. Petersburg," he said, "I will bid you adieu now. If not--au revoir."

"I am going. Yes, Edouard, I am. I can not bear this country longer. My heart is being torn to pieces. All my affections are outraged. Yes, I am going--perhaps on Monday--perhaps on Monday week. But I go in truth. My brother, adieu." Then she got up, and, putting a hand on each of his shoulders, lifted up her face to be kissed. He embraced her in the manner proposed, and turned to leave her. But before he went she made to him one other pet.i.tion, holding him by the arm as she did so. "Edouard, you can lend me twenty napoleons till I am at St. Petersburg?"

"No, Sophie, no."

"Not lend your sister twenty napoleons!"

"No, Sophie. I never lend money. It is a rule."

"Will you give me five? I am so poor. I have almost nothing."

"Things are not so bad with you as that, I hope?"

"Ah! yes, they are very bad. Since I have been in this accursed city--now, this time, what have I got? Nothing--nothing. She was to be all in all to me, and she has given me nothing! It is very bad to be so poor. Say that you will give me five napoleons--oh my brother." she was still hanging by his arm, and, as she did so, she looked up into his face with tears in her eyes. As he regarded her, bending down his face over hers, a slight smile came upon his countenance. Then he put his hand into his pocket, and, taking out his purse, handed to her five sovereigns.

"Only five!" she said.

"Only five," he answered.

"A thousand thanks, oh my brother." Then she kissed him again, and after that he went. She accompanied him to the top of the stairs, and from thence showered blessings on his head till she heard the lock of the door closed behind him. When he was altogether gone she unlocked an inner drawer in her desk, and, taking out an uncompleted rouleau of gold, added her brother's sovereigns thereto. The sum he had given her was exactly wanted to make up the required number of twenty-five. She counted them half a dozen times to be quite sure, and then rolled them carefully in paper, and sealed the little packet at each end. "Ah!" she said, speaking to herself, "they are very nice. Nothing else English is nice, but only these." There were many rolls of money there before her in the drawer of the desk--some ten, perhaps, or twelve. These she took out one after another, pa.s.sing them lovingly through her fingers, looking at the little seals at the ends of each, weighing them in her hand as though to make sure that no wrong had been done to them in her absence, standing them up one against another to see that they were of the same length. We may be quite sure that Sophie Gordeloup brought no sovereigns with her to England when she came over with Lady Ongar after the earl's death, and that the h.o.a.rd before her contained simply the plunder which she had collected during this her latest visit to the "accursed" country which she was going to leave.

But before she started she was resolved to make one more attempt upon that mine of wealth which, but a few weeks ago, had seemed to lie open before her. She had learned from the servants in Bolton Street that Lady Ongar was with Lady Clavering at Clavering Park, and she addressed a letter to her there. This letter she wrote in English, and she threw into her appeal all the pathos of which she was capable.

Mount Street, October 186--

DEAREST JULIE:--I do not think you would wish me to go away from this country forever--forever, without one word of farewell to her I love so fondly. Yes, I have loved you with all my heart, and now I am going away--forever. Shall we not meet each other once, and have one embrace? No trouble will be too much to me for that. No journey will be too long. Only say, Sophie, come to your Julie.

I must go, because I am so poor. Yes, I can not live longer here without the means. I am not ashamed to say to my Julie, who is rich, that I am poor. No; nor would I be ashamed to wait on my Julie like a slave if she would let me. My Julie was angry with me because of my brother! Was it my fault that he came upon us in our little retreat, where we were so happy? Oh, no. I told him not to come. I knew his coming was for nothing--nothing at all. I knew where was the heart of my Julie--my poor Julie! But he was not worth that heart, and the pearl was thrown before a pig. But my brother--Ah!

he has ruined me. Why am I separated from my Julie but for him?

Well, I can go away, and in my own countries there are those who will not wish to be separated from Sophie Gordeloup.

May I now tell my Julie in what condition is her poor friend? She will remember how it was that my feet brought me to England--to England, to which I had said farewell forever--to England, where people must be rich like my Julie before they can eat and drink. I thought nothing then but of my Julie. I stopped not on the road to make merchandise--what you call a bargain--about my coming. No; I came at once, leaving all things--my little affairs--in confusion, because my Julie wanted me to come! It was in the Winter. Oh, that Winter! My poor bones shall never forget it. They are racked still with the pains which your savage winds have given them. And now it is Autumn. Ten months have I been here, and I have eaten up my little substance. Oh, Julie, you, who are so rich, do not know what is the poverty of your Sophie!

A lawyer have told me--not a French lawyer, but an English--that somebody should pay me everything. He says the law would give it me.

He have offered me the money himself, just to let him make an action. But I have said no. No, Sophie will not have an action with her Julie. She would scorn that; and so the lawyer went away. But if my Julie will think of this, and will remember her Sophie--how much she have expended, and now at last there is nothing left. She must go and beg among her friends. And why? Because she have loved her Julie too well. You, who are so rich, would miss it not at all. What would two-three hundred pounds be to my Julie?

Shall I come to you? Say so; say so, and I will go at once, if I did crawl on my knees. Oh, what a joy to see my Julie! And do not think I will trouble you about money. No, your Sophie will be too proud for that. Not a word will I say but to love you. Nothing will I do but to print one kiss on my Julie's forehead, and then to retire forever, asking G.o.d's blessing for her dear head.

Thine-always thine,

Sophie.

Lady Ongar, when she received this letter, was a little perplexed by it, not feeling quite sure in what way she might best answer it. It was the special severity of her position that there was no one to whom, in such difficulties, she could apply for advice. Of one thing she was quite sure--that, willingly, she would never again see her devoted Sophie. And she knew that the woman deserved no money from her; that she had deserved none, but had received much. Every a.s.sertion in her letter was false. No one had wished her to come, and the expense of her coming had been paid for her over and over again. Lady Ongar knew that she had money, and knew also that she would have had immediate recourse to law if any lawyer would have suggested to her, with a probability of success, that he could get more for her. No doubt she had been telling her story to some attorney, in the hope that money might thus he extracted, and had been dragging her Julie's name through the mud, telling all she knew of that wretched Florentine story. As to all that Lady Ongar had no doubt, and yet she wished to send the woman money!

There are services for which one is ready to give almost any amount of money payment, if only one can be sure that that money payment will be taken as sufficient recompense for the service in question. Sophie Gordeloup had been useful. She had been very disagreeable, but she had been useful. She had done things which n.o.body else could have done, and she had done her work well. That she had been paid for her work over and over again there was no doubt; but Lady Ongar was willing to give her yet further payment, if only there might be an end of it. But she feared to do this, dreading the nature and cunning of the little woman--lest she should take such payment as an acknowledgment of services for which secret compensation must be made, and should then proceed to further threats. Thinking much of all this, Julie at last wrote to her Sophie as follows:

Lady Ongar presents her compliments to Madam Gordeloup, and must decline to see Madam Gordeloup again after what has pa.s.sed. Lady Ongar is very sorry to hear that Madam Gordeloup is in want of funds.

Whatever a.s.sistance Lady Ongar might have been willing to afford, she now feels that she is prohibited from giving any by the allusion which Madam Gordeloup has made to legal advice. If Madam Gordeloup has legal demands on Lady Ongar which are said by a lawyer to be valid, Lady Ongar would strongly recommend Madam Gordeloup to enforce them.

Clavering Park, October, 186--.

This she wrote, acting altogether on her own judgment, and sent off by return of post. She almost wept at her own cruelty after the letter was gone, and greatly doubted her own discretion. But of whom could she have asked advice? Could she have told all the story of Madam Gordeloup to the rector or to the rector's wife? The letter, no doubt, was a discreet letter, but she greatly doubted her own discretion, and when she received her Sophie's rejoinder, she hardly dared to break the envelope.

Poor Sophie! Her Julie's letter nearly broke her heart. For sincerity little credit was due to her--but some little was perhaps due. That she should be called Madam Gordeloup, and have compliments presented to her by the woman--by the countess with whom and with whose husband she had been on such closely familiar terms, did in truth wound some tender feelings within her breast. Such love as she had been able to give, she had given to her Julie. That she had always been willing to rob her Julie--to make a milch-cow of her Julie--to sell her Julie--to threaten her Julie--to quarrel with her Julie, if aught might be done in that way--to expose her Julie--nay, to destroy her Julie, if money was to be made--all this did not hinder her love. She loved her Julie, and was broken-hearted that her Julie should have written to her in such a strain.