CHAPTER XXIII. TO REPORT
It was long after midnight when Mrs. Sewell reached the Priory. She dismissed her cab at the gate lodge, and was slowly walking up the avenue when Sewell met her.
“I was beginning to think you did n’t mean to come back at all,” cried he, in a voice of mingled taunt and irritation, – “it is close on one o’clock.”
“He had dined in town, and I had to wait till he returned,” said she, in a low, faint tone.
“You saw him, however?”
“Yes, we met at the station.”
“Well, what success?”
“He gave me some money, – he promised me more.”
“How much has he given you?” cried he, eagerly.
“Two hundred, I think; at least I thought he said there was two hundred, – he gave me his pocket-book. Let me reach the house, and have a glass of water before you question me more. I am tired, – very tired.”
“You seem weak, too; have you eaten nothing?”
“No, nothing.”
“There is some supper on the table. We have had guests here. Old Lendrick and his daughter came up with Beattie. They are not above half an hour gone. They thought to see the old man, but Beattie found him so excited and irritable he advised them to defer the visit.”
“Did you see them?”
“Yes; I passed the evening with them most amicably. The girl is wonderfully good-looking; and she has got rid of that shy, half-furtive way she had formerly, and looks at one steadfastly, and with such a pair of eyes too! I had no notion she was so beautiful.”
“Were they cordial in manner, – friendly?”
“I suppose they were. Dr. Lendrick was embarrassed and timid, and with that fidgety uneasiness as if he wanted to be anywhere else than where he was; but she was affable enough, – asked affectionately about you and the children, and hoped to see you to-morrow.”
She made no reply, but, hastening her steps, walked on till she entered the house, when, passing into a small room off the hall, she threw off her bonnet, and, with a deep-drawn sigh, said, “I am dead tired; get me some water.”
“You had better have wine.”
“No, water. I am feverish. My head is throbbing painfully.”
“You want food and support. Come into the dining-room and eat something. I ‘ll keep you company, too, for I could n’t eat while those people were here. I felt, all the time, that they had come to turn us out; and, indeed, Beat-tie, with a delicate tact quite his own, half avowed it, as he said, ‘It is a pity there is not light enough for you to see your old flower-garden, Lucy, for I know you are impatient to be back in it again.’”
“I ‘ll try and eat something,” said Mrs. Sewell, rising, and with weary steps moving into the dining-room.
Sewell placed a chair for her at the table, helped her, and filled her glass, and, telling the servant that he need not wait, sat down opposite her. “From what Beattie said I gather,” said he, “that the Chief is out of danger, the crisis of the attack is over, and he has only to be cautious to come through. Is n’t it like our luck?”
“Hush! – take care.”
“No fear. They can’t hear even when they try; these double doors puzzle them. You are not eating.”
“I cannot eat; give me another glass of wine.”
“Yes, that will do you good; it’s the old thirty-four. I took it out in honor of Lendrick, but he is a water-drinker. I ‘m sure I wish Beattie were. I grudged the rascal every glass of that glorious claret which he threw down with such gusto, telling me the while that it was infinitely finer than when he last tasted it.”
“I feel better now, but I want rest and sleep. You can wait for all I have to tell you till to-morrow, – can’t you?”
“If I must, there ‘s no help for it; but considering that my whole future in a measure hangs upon it, I ‘d rather hear it now.”
“I am well nigh worn out,” said she, plaintively; and she held out her glass to be filled once more; “but I ‘ll try and tell you.”
Supporting her head on both her hands, and with her eyes half closed, she went on in a low monotonous tone, like that of one reading from a book: “We met at the station, and had but a few minutes to confer together. I told him I had been at his house; that I came to see him, and ask his assistance; that you had got into trouble, and would have to leave the country, and were without means to go. He seemed, I thought, to be aware of all this, and asked me, ‘Was it only now that I had learned or knew of this necessity?’ He also asked if it were at your instance, and by your wish, that I had come to him? I said, Yes; you had sent me.” Sewell started as if something sharp had pierced him, and she went on: “There was nothing for it but the truth; and, besides, I know him well, and if he had once detected me in an attempt to deceive him, he would not have forgiven it. He then said, ‘It is not to the wife I will speak harshly of the husband, but what assurance have I that he will go out of the country?’ I said, ‘You had no choice between that and jail. ‘He nodded assent, and muttered, ‘A jail – and worse; and you,’ said he, ‘what is to become of you?’ I told him ‘I did not know; that perhaps Lady Lendrick would take me and the children.’”
“He did not offer you a home with himself?” said Sewell, with a diabolical grin.
“No,” said she, calmly; “but he objected to our being separated. He said that it was to sacrifice our children, and we had no right to do this; and that, come what might, we ought to live together. He spoke much on this, and asked me more than once if our hard-bought experiences had not taught us to be more patient, more forgiving towards each other.”
“I hope you told him that I was a miracle of tolerance, and that I bore with a saintly submission what more irritable mortals were wont to go half mad about, – did you tell him this?”
“Yes; I said you had a very practical way of dealing with life, and never resented an unprofitable insult.”
“How safe a man’s honor always is in a good wife’s keeping!” said he, with a savage laugh. “I hope your candor encouraged him to more frankness; he must have felt at ease after that?”
“Still he persisted in saying there must be no separation.”
“That was hard upon you; did you not tell him that was hard upon you?”
“No; I avoided mixing myself up in the discussion. I had come to treat for you, and you alone.”
“But you might have said that he had no right to impose upon you a life of – what shall I call it? – incompatibility or cruelty.”
“I did not; I told him I would repeat to you whatever he told me as nearly as I could. He then said: ‘Go abroad and live together in some cheap place, where you can find means to educate the children. I,’ said he, ‘will take the cost of that, and allow you five hundred a year for your own expenses. If I am satisfied with your husband’s conduct, and well assured of his reformation, I will increase this allowance. ‘”
“He said nothing about you nor your reformation, – did he?”
“Not a word.”
“How much will he make it if we separate?”
“He did not say. Indeed, he seemed to make our living together the condition of aiding us.”
“And if he knew of anything harder or harsher he ‘d have added it. Why, he has gone about the world these dozen years back telling every one what a brute and blackguard you had for a husband; that, short of murder, I had gone through every crime towards you. Where was it I beat you with a hunting-whip?”
“At Rangoon,” said she, calmly.
“And where did I turn you into the streets at midnight?”
“At Winchester.”
“Exactly; these were the very lies – the infernal lies – he has been circulating for years; and now he says, ‘If you have not yet found out how suited you are to each other, how admirably your tastes and dispositions agree, it’s quite time you should do so. Go back and live together, and if one of you does not poison the other, I ‘ll give you a small annuity.’”
“Five hundred a year is very liberal,” said she, coldly.
“I could manage on it for myself alone, but it ‘s meant to support a family. It ‘s beggary, neither more nor less.”
“We have no claim upon him.”
“No claim! What! no claim on your godfather, your guardian, not to say the impassioned and devoted admirer who followed you over India just to look at you, and spent a little fortune in getting portraits of you! Why, the man must be a downright impostor if he does not put half his fortune at your feet!”
“I ought to tell you that he annexed certain conditions to any help he tendered us. ‘They were matters,’ he said, ‘could best be treated between you and himself; that I did not, nor need not, know any of them.’”
“I know what he alluded to.”
“Last of all, he said you must give him your answer promptly, for he would not be long in this country.”
“As to that, time is fully as pressing to me as to him. The only question is, Can we make no better terms with him?”
“You mean more money?”.
“Of course I mean more money. Could you make him say one thousand, or at least eight hundred, instead of five?”
“It would not be a pleasant mission,” said she, with a bitter smile.
“I suppose not; a ruined man’s wife need not look for many ‘pleasant missions,’ as you call them. This same one of to-day was not over-gratifying.”
“Less even than you are aware,” said she, slowly.
“Oh, I can very well imagine the tone and manner of the old fellow; how much of rebuke and severity he could throw into his voice; and how minutely and painstakingly he would dwell upon all that could humiliate you.”
“No; you are quite wrong. There was not a word of reproach, not a syllable of blame; his manner was full of gentle and pitying kindness, and when he tried to comfort and cheer me, it was like the affection of a father.”
“Where, then, was this great trial and suffering of which you have just said I could take no full measure?”
“I was thinking of what occurred before I met Sir Brook,” said she, looking up, and with her eyes now widely opened, and a nostril distended as she spoke. “I was thinking of an incident of the morning. I have told you that when I reached the cottage where Sir Brook lived, I found that he was absent, and would not return till a late hour. Tired with my long walk from the station, I wished to sit down and rest before I had determined what to do, whether to await his arrival or go back to town. I saw the door open, I entered the little sitting-room, and found myself face to face with Major Trafford.”
“Lionel Trafford?”
“Yes; he had come by that morning’s packet from England, and gone straight out to see his friend.”
“He was alone, was he?”
“Alone! there was no one in the house but ourselves.”
Sewell shrugged his shoulders, and said, “Go on.”
The insult of his gesture sent the blood to her face and forehead, and for an instant she seemed too much overcome by anger to speak.
“Am I to tell you what this man said to me? Is that what you mean?” said she, in a voice that almost hissed with passion.
“Better not, perhaps,” replied he, calmly, “if the very recollection overcame you so completely.”
“That is to say, it is better I should bear the insult how I may than reveal it to one who will not resent it.”
“When you say resent, do you intend I should call him out? – fight him?”
“If I were the husband instead of the wife, it is what I should do, – ay,” cried she, wildly, “and thank Fortune that gave me the chance.”
“I don’t think I’m going to show any such gratitude,” said he, with a cold grin. “If he made love to you, I take it he fancied you had given him some encouragement When you showed him that he was mistaken, he met his punishment. A woman always knows how to make a man look like a confounded fool at such a moment.”
“And is that enough?”
“Is what enough?”
“I ask, is it enough to make him look like a confounded fool? Will that soothe a wife’s insulted pride, or avenge a husband’s injured honor?”
“I don’t know much of the wife’s part; but as to the husband’s share in the matter, if I had to fight every fellow who made up to you, my wedding garment ought to have been a suit of chain-armor.”
“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.”