CHAPTER XXVI. THE END OF THE FIRST ACT
THE point discussed in our last chapter, if not a momentous one in itself, was destined to exercise a very important influence upon the fortunes of the Onslow family. The interview between Sir Stafford and the Viscount scarcely occupied five minutes; after which the Baronet wrote a note of some length to her Ladyship, to which she as promptly replied; a second, and even a third interchange of correspondence followed. The dinner-party appointed for that day was put off; a certain ominous kind of silence pervaded the house. The few privileged visitors were denied admission. Mr. Proctor, Sir Stafford's man, wore a look of more than common seriousness. Mademoiselle Celestine's glances revealed a haughty sense of triumph. Even the humbler menials appeared to feel that something had occurred, and betrayed in their anxious faces some resemblance to that vague sense of half-curiosity, half-terror, the passengers of a steamboat experience when an accident, of whose nature they know nothing, has occurred to the machinery.
Their doubts and suspicions assumed more shape when the order came that Sir Stafford would dine in the library, and her Ladyship in her own room, George Onslow alone appearing in the dining-room. There was an air of melancholy over everything, the silence deepening as night came on. Servants went noiselessly to and fro, drew the curtains, and closed the doors with a half-stealthy gesture, and seemed as though fearful of awakening some slumbering outbreak of passion.
We neither have, nor desire to have, secrets from our readers. We will therefore proceed to Sir Stafford's dressing-room, where the old Baronet sat moodily over the fire, his anxious features and sorrow-struck expression showing the ravages even a few hours of suffering had inflicted. His table was littered with papers, parchments, and other formidable-looking documents. Some letters lay sealed here, others were half-written there; everything about him showed the conflict of doubt and indecision that was going on within his mind; and truly a most painful struggle was maintained there.
For some time back he had seen with displeasure the course of extravagance and waste of all his household. He had observed the habits of reckless expense with which his establishment was maintained; but, possessing a very ample fortune, and feeling that probably some change would be made with the coming summer, he had forborne to advert to it, and endured with what patience he could a mode of life whose very display was distasteful to him. Now, however, a more serious cause for anxiety presented itself, in the class of intimates admitted by Lady Hester to her society. Of the foreigners he knew comparatively little; but that little was not to their advantage. Some were wealthy voluptuaries, glad to propagate their own habits of extravagance among those they suspected of fortunes smaller than their own. Others were penniless adventurers, speculating upon everything that might turn to their profit. All were men of pleasure, and of that indolent, lounging, purposeless character so peculiarly unpleasing to those who have led active lives, and been always immersed in the cares and interests of business.
Such men, he rightly judged, were dangerous associates to his son, the very worst acquaintances for Kate, in whom already he was deeply interested; but still no actual stain of dishonor, no palpable flaw, could be detected in their fame, till the arrival of Lord Norwood added his name to the list.
To receive a man of whose misconduct in England he had acquired every proof, was a step beyond his endurance. Here or never must he take his stand; and manfully he did so, at first, by calm argument and remonstrance, and at last by firm resolution and determination. Without adverting to what had passed between the Viscount and himself, the letter he addressed to Lady Hester conveyed his unalterable resolve not to know Lord Norwood. Lady Hester's reply was not less peremptory, and scarcely as courteous. The correspondence continued with increasing warmth on both sides, till Sir Stafford palpably hinted at the possible consequences of a spirit of discordance and disagreement so ill-adapted to conjugal welfare. Her Ladyship caught up the suggestion with avidity, and professed that, whatever scruples his delicacy might feel, to hers there was none in writing the word, “Separation.”
If the thought had already familiarized itself to his mind, the word had not; and strange it is that the written syllables should have a power and meaning that the idea itself could never realize.
To men who have had little publicity in their lives, and that little always of an honorable nature, there is no thought so poignantly miserable as the dread of a scandalous notoriety. To associate their names with anything that ministers to gossip; to make them tea-table talk; still worse, to expose them to sneering and impertinent criticisms, by revealing the secrets of their domesticity, is a torture to which no mere physical suffering has anything to compare. Sir Stafford Onslow was a true representative of this class of feeling. The sight of his name in the list of directors of some great enterprise, as the patron of a charity, the governor of an hospital, or the donor to an institution, was about as much of newspaper notoriety as he could bear without a sense of shrinking delicacy; but to become the mark for public discussion in the relations of his private life, to have himself and his family brought up to the bar of that terrible ordeal, where bad tongues are the eloquent, and evil speakers are the witty, was a speculation too terrible to think over; and this was exactly what Lady Hester was suggesting!
Is it not very strange that woman, with whose nature we inseparably and truly associate all those virtues that take their origin in refinement and modesty, should sometimes be able to brave a degree of publicity to which a man, the very hardiest and least shamefaced, would succumb, crestfallen and abashed; that her timid delicacy, her shrinking bashfulness, can be so hardened by the world that she can face a notoriety where every look is an indictment, and every whisper a condemnation?