And how would it affect Harry Clavering? She had desired to give Harry all the good things of the world, thinking that they would become him well,—thinking that they would become him very well as reaching him from her hand. Now he would have them all, but would not have them from her. Now he would have them all, and would share them with Florence Burton. Ah,—if she could have been true to him in those early days,—in those days when she had feared his poverty,—would it not have been well now with her also? The measure of her retribution was come full home to her at last! Sir Harry Clavering! She tried the name and found that it sounded very well. And she thought of the figure of the man and of his nature, and she knew that he would bear it with a becoming manliness. Sir Harry Clavering would be somebody in his county,—would be a husband of whom his wife would be proud as he went about among his tenants and his gamekeepers,—and perhaps on wider and better journeys, looking up the voters of his neighbourhood. Yes; happy would be the wife of Sir Harry Clavering. He was a man who would delight in sharing his house, his hopes, his schemes and councils with his wife. He would find a companion in his wife. He would do honour to his wife, and make much of her. He would like to see her go bravely. And then, if children came, how tender he would be to them! Whether Harry could ever have become a good head to a poor household might be doubtful, but no man had ever been born fitter for the position which he was now called upon to fill. It was thus that Lady Ongar thought of Harry Clavering as she owned to herself that the full measure of her just retribution had come home to her.
Of course she would go at once to Clavering Park. She wrote to her sister saying so, and the next day she started. She started so quickly on her journey that she reached the house not very many hours after her own letter. She was there when the rector started for London, and there when Mr. Fielding preached his sermon; but she did not see Mr. Clavering before he went, nor was she present to hear the eloquence of the younger clergyman. Till after that Sunday the only member of the family she had seen was Mrs. Clavering, who spent some period of every day up at the great house. Mrs. Clavering had not hitherto seen Lady Ongar since her return, and was greatly astonished at the change which so short a time had made. "She is handsomer than ever she was," Mrs. Clavering said to the rector; "but it is that beauty which some women carry into middle life, and not the loveliness of youth." Lady Ongar's manner was cold and stately when first she met Mrs. Clavering. It was on the morning of her marriage when they had last met,—when Julia Brabazon was resolving that she would look like a countess, and that to be a countess should be enough for her happiness. She could not but remember this now, and was unwilling at first to make confession of her failure by any meekness of conduct. It behoved her to be proud, at any rate till she should know how this new Lady Clavering would receive her. And then it was more than probable that this new Lady Clavering knew all that had taken place between her and Harry. It behoved her, therefore, to hold her head on high.
But before the week was over, Mrs. Clavering,—for we will still call her so,—had broken Lady Ongar's spirit by her kindness; and the poor woman who had so much to bear had brought herself to speak of the weight of her burden. Julia had, on one occasion, called her Lady Clavering, and for the moment this had been allowed to pass without observation. The widowed lady was then present, and no notice of the name was possible. But soon afterwards Mrs. Clavering made her little request on the subject. "I do not quite know what the custom may be," she said, "but do not call me so just yet. It will only be reminding Hermy of her bereavement."
"She is thinking of it always," said Julia.
"No doubt she is; but still the new name would wound her. And, indeed, it perplexes me also. Let it come by-and-by, when we are more settled."
Lady Ongar had truly said that her sister was as yet always thinking of her bereavement. To her now it was as though the husband she had lost had been a paragon among men. She could only remember of him his manliness, his power,—a dignity of presence which he possessed,—and the fact that to her he had been everything. She thought of that last and vain caution which she had given him, when with her hardly permitted last embrace she had besought him to take care of himself. She did not remember now how coldly that embrace had been received, how completely those words had been taken as meaning nothing, how he had left her not only without a sign of affection, but without an attempt to repress the evidences of his indifference. But she did remember that she had had her arm upon his shoulder, and tried to think of that embrace as though it had been sweet to her. And she did remember how she had stood at the window, listening to the sounds of the wheels which took him off, and watching his form as long as her eye could rest upon it. Ah! what falsehoods she told herself now of her love to him, and of his goodness to her; pious falsehoods which would surely tend to bring some comfort to her wounded spirit.
But her sister could hardly bear to hear the praises of Sir Hugh. When she found how it was to be, she resolved that she would bear them,—bear them, and not contradict them; but her struggle in doing so was great, and was almost too much for her.
"He had judged me and condemned me," she said at last, "and therefore, as a matter of course, we were not such friends when we last met as we used to be before my marriage."
"But, Julia, there was much for which you owed him gratitude."
"We will say nothing about that now, Hermy."