"I don't suppose we shall be back before October."
"Not before October?"
"No. We are talking of putting in on the coast of Normandy somewhere; and probably may run down to Brittany. I shall be back, at any rate, for the hunting. As for the partridges, the game has gone so much to the devil here, that they are not worth coming for."
"You'll be away four months!"
"I suppose I shall if I don't come back till October." Then he left her, calculating that she would have considered the matter before he returned, and have decided that no good could come to her from complaint. She knew his purpose now, and would no doubt reconcile herself to it quickly;—perhaps with a few tears, which would not hurt him if he did not see them.
But this blow was almost more than Lady Clavering could bear,—was more than she could bear in silence. Why she should have grudged her husband his trip abroad, seeing that his presence in England could hardly have been a solace to her, it is hard to understand. Had he remained in England, he would rarely have been at Clavering Park; and when he was at the Park he would rarely have given her the benefit of his society. When they were together he was usually scolding her, or else sitting in gloomy silence, as though that phase of his life was almost insupportable to him. He was so unusually disagreeable in his intercourse with her, that his absence, one would think, must be preferable to his presence. But women can bear anything better than desertion. Cruelty is bad, but neglect is worse than cruelty, and desertion worse even than neglect. To be treated as though she were not in existence, or as though her existence were a nuisance simply to be endured, and, as far as possible, to be forgotten, was more than even Lady Clavering could bear without complaint. When her husband left her, she sat meditating how she might turn against her oppressor. She was a woman not apt for fighting,—unlike her sister, who knew well how to use the cudgels in her own behalf; she was timid, not gifted with a full flow of words, prone to sink and become dependent; but she,—even she,—with all these deficiencies,—felt that she must make some stand against the outrage to which she was now to be subjected.
"Hugh," she said, when next she saw him, "you can't really mean that you are going to leave me from this time till the winter?"
"I said nothing about the winter."
"Well,—till October?"
"I said that I was going, and I usually mean what I say."