“That is of no consequence whatever. I shall wait until after your mother’s funeral before writing your father and having our engagement announced, and within a month I shall come to Iowa to marry you.”
And Anne, seeing this sweet refuge open to her, took heart of grace and comfort.
Clavering himself, sitting in his darkened library, was in no way awed by death having invaded his house. He had been brought face to face with it too often to be afraid of it; he was a genuine, throughgoing disbeliever in everything except money and power, and he regarded the end of life as being an interesting but unimportant event.
His wife’s death was most opportune for him; it made it certain that Elizabeth Darrell would marry him. He had fully realized that stubborn prejudice on Elizabeth’s part against divorce, and although he had not seriously doubted his ability to overcome it, yet it had been stubborn. Now all was smoothed away. He would act with perfect propriety, under the circumstances; he surmised enough about the women of Elizabeth’s class to understand that a breach of decorum would shock her far more than a breach of morals. There would be no outward breach of decorum. He would wait until after the funeral before writing her; but it would be useless, hypocritical, and even dangerous to postpone writing longer.
With these thoughts in his mind he sat through the day, receiving and answering telegrams, scanning the newspapers, and digesting his own disgrace as exposed in print. Even that had come at a fortunate time for him—if there is a fortunate time to be branded a thief, a liar, and a perjurer, a suborner of perjury, a corrupter of courts, a purchaser of legislatures. Elizabeth would feel sorry for him; she wouldn’t understand the thing at all. He would insist on being married in the autumn, and Elizabeth would no doubt be glad to be married as far away from Washington as possible. Perhaps she might agree to meet him in London and be married there. He would go over in the summer, take the finest house to be had for money, and transport all the superb equipment of his Washington establishment to London. He also remembered with satisfaction that he had now nothing to fear on the score of divorce from that soft-spoken, wooden-headed, fire-eating old impracticable, General Brandon, with his fatal tendency to settle with the pistol questions concerning “the ladies of his family.”
In these reflections and considerations James Clavering passed the first day of his widowerhood. On the third day after Mrs. Clavering’s death the great house was shut up and silent. The Claverings left it, never to return to it. It stood vacant, a monument of man’s vicissitudes.
The day after Mrs. Clavering’s burial took place, in the little Iowa town where her family lived, a line appeared in the society column of a leading Washington newspaper, announcing the engagement of Anne Clavering and Richard Baskerville. Coming as it did on the heels of the tragic events in the Clavering family and Baskerville’s share in a part of these events, the announcement was startling though far from unexpected. Mrs. Luttrell took upon herself the office of personally acquainting her friends with the engagement and declaring her entire satisfaction with it. Being by nature an offensive partisan, much given to pernicious activity in causes which engaged her heart, Mrs. Luttrell soon developed into a champion of the whole Clavering family. She discovered many admirable qualities in Clavering himself, and changed her tune completely concerning Élise and Lydia, whom she now spoke of as “a couple of giddy chits, quite harmless, and only a little wild.” These two young women had speedily made up their minds to fly to Europe, and arranged to do so as soon as Anne was married, which was to be within the month.
The catastrophes of the Clavering family made a profound impression on Washington. Their meteoric career was a sort of epitome of all the possibilities of the sudden acquisition of wealth and power. Whatever might be said of them, they were at least not cowards—not even Reginald Clavering was a coward. They were boldly bad, or boldly good. Anne Clavering had won for herself a place in the esteem of society which was of great value. Not one disrespectful or unkind word was spoken of her when the day of reckoning for the Claverings came.
The Senate allowed James Clavering two weeks to recover from his grief at his wife’s death before annihilating him as a senator. Clavering improved the time not only by arranging for his second marriage, but by forestalling, when he had no fighting ground, the criminal indictments which might be expected to be found against him. He paid out secretly in satisfaction money, and reconveyed in bonds, nearly three millions of dollars. There were several millions more to be fought over, but that was a matter of time; and he would still have a great fortune remaining, if every suit went against him.
It would very much have simplified his property arrangements had Elizabeth Darrell consented to marry him within a few weeks of his widowerhood. But this Clavering knew was not to be thought of. A week after his wife’s death he wrote to Elizabeth. He quietly assumed that all arrangements had been made for their marriage, as soon as he should have got his divorce. In his letter he reminded Elizabeth there could now be no question or scruple in regard to her marrying him. He told her he would be in Washington at the end of the week, when the proceedings in the Senate would take place, and that he should expect to see her. He asked her to write and let him know where they should meet.