I left him without another word; but I lay long awake, haunted by that haggard face and dreary eyes. I wish I did not see them so often still in my dreams.
There were changes in other houses besides Kerton Manor, and a vacancy in the most luxurious set of chambers in the Albany.
Duns, and rheumatic gout, and satiety had proved too much at last for the patience of Sir Henry Fallowfield; so one night he preached his farewell sermon in the smoking-room of the ——, in which he was especially severe and witty on the absurdity and bad taste of a man condescending to suicide under any circumstances. The next morning they found him with—"that across his throat that you had scarcely cared to see." The hand whose tremor used to make him so savage when he was lifting a glass to his lips, had been strong and steady enough when it shattered the Golden Bowl and cut the Silver Cord asunder.
Whether he was looking death in the face while he uttered those last cynicisms, and calculated on heightening the stage effect of the morrow, or whether a paroxysm of pain drove him mad, as it had done better men, who can tell? I think and hope the latter was the case, but—I doubt. Though Sir Henry Fallowfield had never read Aristotle, he had studied, all his life, the principles of the περιπέτεια [peripeteia].
Godfrey Parndon no longer ruled over the Pytchley. He had backed his own opinions and other men's bills once or twice too often, and had retired temporarily into private life till he could get "his second wind." The new M.F.H. was his complete contrast—pale-faced, low-voiced, mild-eyed, and melancholy as a lotus-eater—one of the class of "weak-minded but gentlemanly young men" that Tom Cradock used to ask his friends to recommend to him as pupils. The farmers missed sadly Godfrey's bluff face and stalwart figure at the cover-side, while the "bruisers" from Leamington, and the "railers" from town, hearing no longer his great voice, good-naturedly imperative, adjuring them to "hold hard, and not to spoil their own sport," rode over the hounds rejoicing.
Flora Bellasys was married.
It was just the match I thought she would make. Sir Marmaduke Dorrillon's possessions were vast enough to satisfy any ambition, and his years put love out of the question.
His friends had been as prophetic in their warnings as January's were, but even, they never guessed what he would have to endure at the hands of that cruel May. He tried very hard not to be jealous, but he could not help being sensitive; and so, day by day, she inflicted on him the peine forte et dure, "laying on him as much as he could bear, and more." It was sad to see how the kind old man withered and pined away; yet he never complained, and quarreled mortally with his best friend for daring to compassionate him.
He was so courteous, and gentle, and chivalrous; so conscious of his own disadvantage in age; so generous in trusting her, and in hoping against hope; so considerate in anticipating all her wishes and whims, that it might have moved even Flora to pity. But her great disappointment had strangely altered and imbittered her character. She was quite merciless now, and never seemed really amused unless she was doing harm to some one.
It was not that her manner had become harsh or repellent, or even more sarcastic; she wag to the full as fascinating as ever; but she was cool and calculating in her caprices. She took pains to make the momentary pleasure as exquisite as possible, that the after suffering might be more terrible; just like that ingenious Borderer who fed his enemy with all pungent and highly-seasoned dishes, and then left him to die of thirst.