CHAPTER XXIV.
A COTTAGE BY THE SEA.
All Mr. Large’s sympathies had been with Lady Gwendolyn at starting; but now he began to think there might possibly be another side to the question. He knew Lady Gwendolyn was naturally impulsive—and legal men generally look upon impulsiveness as a fault, or, at best, an inconvenient quality which stands in the way of anything like calm, dispassionate judgment. Of course she had seen and heard something, since she said so; but then “trifles light as air are, to the jealous, confirmation strong as proofs of holy writ,” and a person who jumps to conclusions is not to be trusted in any way.
He felt for this girl more than a lawyer’s interest in his client, for he had known her since she was a child. He could not bear that she should throw away her happiness, and, therefore, when Sir Lawrence said:
“If I write a letter to my wife, explaining matters fully, will you forward it to her as soon as you know her address, Mr. Large?”
He answered readily:
“With great pleasure, Sir Lawrence. She did not forbid me to do that.”
“Then I won’t detain you any longer just now,” said Sir Lawrence. “I am exceedingly obliged to you for befriending me, Mr. Large,” he added, with a sad smile; “and I do assure you, on my honor as a gentleman, that I am perfectly guiltless of any offense toward my wife. Where I have sinned is against Heaven, in setting myself up an earthly idol, and for this I am being punished deservedly now.”
His tone was one of deep emotion and unmistakable sincerity. Mr. Large could not help saying:
“I will do the best I can for you, Sir Lawrence; but I am afraid you will need all your patience. Her ladyship gave me to understand that she should not write to me until she wanted money, and as she is supposed to have her half-year’s allowance with her, that will not be yet.”
“My only hope is that not being accustomed to economize, she will find her income insufficient. She has been accustomed to spend more than she has now upon her dress and charities, and will, I am sure, find it very difficult to make both ends meet now. Excuse me for dwelling on this possibility; but it is my one hope.”
“Then it is not to be wondered you should dwell on it, under the circumstances,” replied Mr. Large. “But may I venture to ask, Sir Lawrence, what your present plans are?”
“Certainly. I shall remain in London, in order that I may be on the spot whenever you have any news for me. But I do not mean any of my friends to know of my whereabouts, and I shall not show myself either at Borton or Milworth until Lady Gwendolyn returns to me. In this way I hope to shield her from remark, and make it easier for her to take up her married life again without awkwardness or pain. We have been abroad for six months—let the world suppose we are still there.”
“I think you are quite right,” Mr. Large said; “and I feel sure that your consideration will touch Lady Gwendolyn when she comes to her senses. You will bring me your letter soon, Sir Lawrence?”
“To-morrow you may count upon it,” he answered; and then, with a polite apology for having taken up so much of the other’s time, Sir Lawrence departed.
The next day he took the letter to Mr. Large’s office, and put it into the worthy lawyer’s own hand. Then he went back to his solitary lodgings, to wait for the moment when his wife should repent of her hasty desertion, and come back to him timidly, humbly, to find such a generous pardon ready for her, that she would never dream of leaving him again.
“I am sorry I came to the seaside now,” said Lady Gwendolyn languidly, to her faithful abigail, one morning; “the wind kept me awake all night.”
“Yes, my lady, it does sound dolesome,” answered Phœbe. “They say there haven’t been such gales for years. A ship was wrecked close to the pier last night, and three poor souls drowned within sight of the coastguard.”
“And could nothing be done to help them?” inquired Lady Gwendolyn, with a shudder.
“No, my lady. The sea was running so high the life-boat couldn’t get out. It makes me feel quite sad to live where such things are always happening.”
“Nonsense! Phœbe, you exaggerate,” exclaimed her mistress, almost sharply. “This is the first shipwreck we have had since we came here.”
“But if we are to have one every three months, it will be cheerful, my lady,” answered Phœbe, who did not wish to make the best of the present state of affairs, and thought it very foolish of Lady Gwendolyn to live in a little cottage by the sea, with a couple of women servants to wait upon her, when she might have the run of two mansions, and twenty dependents at least.
And it was terribly dull at Wintertown. Phœbe had been accustomed to a good deal of change, and not a soul came near Cliff Cottage, except the clergyman of the parish, and he never brought his wife.
Lady Gwendolyn received him because his visits comforted her, and, moreover, she knew that he was too much of a gentleman to pry into her affairs, but she never allowed him to suppose that she was other than what she called herself—Mrs. St. Maur.
Her beauty and aristocratic air made her an object of great curiosity in Wintertown, and, of course, the women were all against her, and felt sure that her seclusion was the cover for some disgraceful secret; but what did all this matter to her?
She believed that she was doing right at the sacrifice of all her earthly happiness, and when her heart yearned with a great yearning toward her husband, she knelt down and prayed wildly not to be delivered into temptation, but to have strength to endure even to the end.
One night, just as the earth was beginning to grow green again, and primrose and violets were sweetening the hedgerows, Lady Gwendolyn, only half-conscious still, came stupefied out of her hour of anguish to find a little face nestling against her bosom, and to hear with deep thankfulness that a man child was born into the world, and born to her.
Coming back to life herself from the very edge of the grave, the joy of maternity swallowed up the recollection of past peril, and she thrilled through her whole being as she pressed her white lips to the soft, wrinkled cheek.
“I never saw a bonnier babe, ma’am,” said the nurse cheerfully. “How proud his poor pa would be of him if he could see him.”
Lady Gwendolyn shivered, and her joy was poisoned in a moment. This child belonged to her husband as well as to herself, and how could she ever look at it without being reminded of the saddest page in her life—of the wrong and treachery that had made her future a blank. The boy had his father’s deep blue eyes, and when they began to open fuller, Lady Gwendolyn had a strange fancy that they reproached her, and would turn uneasily away.
Was it possible that she had been too hasty? She had, of course, done right to leave Sir Lawrence, but she might have written and explained her motives, and given him a chance of excusing himself, for her own sake. In trying to punish him, she had left herself without any comfort, and the position was irretrievable now, since, if she showed any signs of relenting, he would imagine that she was ready to condone the past, and live with him, anyhow, rather than not live with him at all.
The boy was a month old before Lady Gwendolyn began to recover her strength, and, meanwhile, her expenses were very large. Doctors and nurses cost money, and the young mother’s extreme delicacy made economy out of the question for the present. Then, in her maternal pride, she was apt to forget that Master Lawrence was not heir to Milworth Abbey and Borton Hall, and indulged in extravagances her income would not stand.
Keeping no accounts, she did not realize, indeed, what she was spending, and was horrified one day, when, in looking in what she called her reserve purse, she found that it only contained five pounds.
And it wanted a month yet of dividend day. What was to be done? She had been in the habit of paying ready money for everything, and did not even know that she could obtain credit in the town, neither would her pride allow her to ask it.
She had left all her jewels in Mr. Large’s charge, otherwise she would have sacrificed a diamond ornament, and taken care to be more careful for the future. But under present circumstances this was out of the question, and meanwhile she must have sufficient to pay her weekly bills. She pondered the question anxiously all night, and by morning she had come to the conclusion that there was no help for it, and she must write to Mr. Large.
This was a sore humiliation to Lady Gwendolyn, the more so that Mr. Large had seemed to think she would not be able to manage on her income, having been accustomed to such lavish expenditure, and she had assured him that she intended to make it do, and had taken rather a lofty tone on the occasion. But it was better to eat humble pie than to run into debt, in a place where her only claim to consideration was the punctuality of her payments; so she put her pride in her pocket, and wrote off to Mr. Large, saying that her expenses had been much greater than she had anticipated of late, that she must ask him to advance her fifty pounds, and deduct them from her dividends when they became due.
Directly this letter was despatched, Lady Gwendolyn felt easier in her mind, although the effort it had cost her to write it had made her quite ill.
“And if I am embarrassed now,” she said to herself grimly, “what will it be when baby gets a big boy, and wants educating, and all that sort of thing? I haven’t even a rich maiden aunt to leave me money, and I have always heard that boys are expensive things to bring up. If we were in our right position now——But I will not think of that, since it is so impossible,” she added quickly. “I must do my best, and trust all the rest to Providence. I have heard of people who lived upon even less than six hundred a year, and now that I always dress in black, my clothes won’t cost me much.”