"God bless you, my dear friend!" said Lady Rowley, crying.
"Good night, Sir Marmaduke," said Hugh.
"Good night, Mr. Stanbury."
Then he gave a hand to the two girls, each of whom, as she took it, sobbed, and looked away from Nora. Nora was standing away from them, by herself, and away from the door, holding on to her chair, and with her hands clasped together. She had prepared nothing,—not a word, or an attitude, not a thought, for his farewell. But she had felt that it was coming, and had known that she must trust to him for a cue for her own demeanour. If he could say adieu with a quiet voice, and simply with a touch of the hand, then would she do the same,—and endeavour to think no worse of him. Nor had he prepared anything; but when the moment came he could not leave her after that fashion. He stood a moment hesitating, not approaching her, and merely called her by her name,—"Nora!" For a moment she was still; for a moment she held by her chair; and then she rushed into his arms. He did not much care for her father now, but kissed her hair and her forehead, and held her closely to his bosom. "My own, own Nora!"
It was necessary that Sir Marmaduke should say something. There was at first a little scene between all the women, during which he arranged his deportment. "Mr. Stanbury," he said, "let it be so. I could wish for my child's sake, and also for your own, that your means of living were less precarious." Hugh accepted this simply as an authority for another embrace, and then he allowed them all to go to bed.
CHAPTER XCII.
TREVELYAN DISCOURSES ON LIFE.
Stanbury made his journey without pause or hindrance till he reached Florence, and as the train for Siena made it necessary that he should remain there for four or five hours, he went to an inn, and dressed and washed himself, and had a meal, and was then driven to Mr. Spalding's house. He found the American Minister at home, and was received with cordiality; but Mr. Spalding could tell him little or nothing about Trevelyan. They went up to Mrs. Spalding's room, and Hugh was told by her that she had seen Mrs. Trevelyan once since her niece's marriage, and that then she had represented her husband as being very feeble. Hugh, in the midst of his troubles, was amused by a second and a third, perhaps by a fourth, reference to "Lady Peterborough." Mrs. Spalding's latest tidings as to the Trevelyans had been received through "Lady Peterborough" from Nora Rowley. "Lady Peterborough" was at the present moment at Naples, but was expected to pass north through Florence in a day or two. They, the Spaldings themselves, were kept in Florence in this very hot weather by this circumstance. They were going up to the Tyrolese mountains for a few weeks as soon as "Lady Peterborough" should have left them for England. "Lady Peterborough" would have been so happy to make Mr. Stanbury's acquaintance, and to have heard something direct from her friend Nora. Then Mrs. Spalding smiled archly, showing thereby that she knew all about Hugh Stanbury and his relation to Nora Rowley. From all which, and in accordance with the teaching which we got,—alas, now many years ago,—from a great master on the subject, we must conclude that poor, dear Mrs. Spalding was a snob. Nevertheless, with all deference to the memory of that great master, we think that Mrs. Spalding's allusions to the success in life achieved by her niece were natural and altogether pardonable; and that reticence on the subject,—a calculated determination to abstain from mentioning a triumph which must have been very dear to her,—would have betrayed on the whole a condition of mind lower than that which she exhibited. While rank, wealth, and money are held to be good things by all around us, let them be acknowledged as such. It is natural that a mother should be as proud when her daughter marries an Earl's heir as when her son becomes Senior Wrangler; and when we meet a lady in Mrs. Spalding's condition who purposely abstains from mentioning the name of her titled daughter, we shall be disposed to judge harshly of the secret workings of that lady's thoughts on the subject. We prefer the exhibition, which we feel to be natural. Mr. Spalding got our friend by the button-hole, and was making him a speech on the perilous condition in which Mrs. Trevelyan was placed; but Stanbury, urged by the circumstances of his position, pulled out his watch, pleaded the hour, and escaped.
He found Mrs. Trevelyan waiting for him at the station at Siena. He would hardly have known her,—not from any alteration that was physically personal to herself, not that she had become older in face, or thin, or grey, or sickly,—but that the trouble of her life had robbed her for the time of that brightness of apparel, of that pride of feminine gear, of that sheen of high-bred womanly bearing with which our wives and daughters are so careful to invest themselves. She knew herself to be a wretched woman, whose work in life now was to watch over a poor prostrate wretch, and who had thrown behind her all ideas of grace and beauty. It was not quickly that this condition had come upon her. She had been unhappy at Nuncombe Putney; but unhappiness had not then told upon the outward woman. She had been more wretched still at St. Diddulph's, and all the outward circumstances of life in her uncle's parsonage had been very wearisome to her; but she had striven against it all, and the sheen and outward brightness had still been there. After that her child had been taken from her, and the days which she had passed in Manchester Street had been very grievous;—but even yet she had not given way. It was not till her child had been brought back to her, and she had seen the life which her husband was living, and that her anger,—hot anger,—had been changed to pity, and that with pity love had returned, it was not till this point had come in her sad life that her dress became always black and sombre, that a veil habitually covered her face, that a bonnet took the place of the jaunty hat that she had worn, and that the prettinesses of her life were lain aside. "It is very good of you to come," she said; "very good. I hardly knew what to do, I was so wretched. On the day that I sent he was so bad that I was obliged to do something." Stanbury, of course, inquired after Trevelyan's health, as they were being driven up to Mrs. Trevelyan's lodgings. On the day on which she had sent the telegram her husband had again been furiously angry with her. She had interfered, or had endeavoured to interfere, in some arrangements as to his health and comfort, and he had turned upon her with an order that the child should be at once sent back to him, and that she should immediately quit Siena. "When I said that Louey could not be sent,—and who could send a child into such keeping,—he told me that I was the basest liar that ever broke a promise, and the vilest traitor that had ever returned evil for good. I was never to come to him again,—never; and the gate of the house would be closed against me if I appeared there."