Lady Julia Wilmot had been in hope that when the Ashantee 'affair' was over, Jerry would settle down, 'marry money,' free his ancestral seat from encumbrance, and take a proper pride in it; but for a time after the capture of Coomassie it had seemed that she was to be afflicted by a double calamity—that the estate was lost, and Jerry might never return.
It was not in her aristocratic nature to be very much moved about anything. Excitement or enthusiasm of any kind was 'bad form,' she deemed. Thus, if she was not plunged in profound grief when she heard of the poor fellow's supposed death, neither was she greatly excited with joy when she heard that he was safe and coming home again. To this noble daughter of twenty earls, an only son more or less in the world really seemed of no great consequence, unless it were, if he 'married money,' to serve her own ends.
When tidings of Jerry's death came, she had attired herself most becomingly in fashionable mourning of the requisite depth of wear, as understood by the drapers in Regent Street. Round her white throat were narrow tuckers of yellowish-white lace, and a rustling train, spread over a crinolette, floated behind her. Now that he was safe, her mourning was relinquished, almost with a sigh, we fear, it was so becoming; and Floss's mother-of-pearl basket, which had been duly lined with black silk, was now refitted with blue satin.
She received Jerry in her usual stately fashion; gave him her cool, slim hand to press, which he did heartily, while his eyes moistened; and accorded her smooth and unlined cheek for his salute, and then his welcome ended. So ere long Jerry began to think, as Mrs. Gaskell's novel has it, that John Thornton's mamma might be wrong when she says, 'Mothers' love is given by God, John. It holds fast for ever and for ever. A girl's love is like a puff of smoke, it changes with every wind.' But then there was nothing aristocratic about stalwart John Thornton's mother.
Mr. Chevenix had always loved Jerry for his father's sake, and for the sake of the 'Wilmots of Wilmothurst,' who had been of Wilmothurst, 'and that ilk,' as the Scots would say, for time out of mind; but there his regard ended; he had small care for Lady Julia, and, when tidings came of Jerry's death, after a moderate time had elapsed he resolved to take the mortgages in hand and assert his rights—in short, to make the property, what it now almost virtually was, his own, and to request Lady Julia to leave the place, to crush her false and insensate pride in a heart that seemed without any other human sentiment.
'He has formally announced the foreclosure of the mortgages, this man Chevenix, Emily,' said Lady Julia, with some consternation—at least for her—as she opened her letters one morning. 'The crash has come at last!'
'What does that mean, aunt?' asked the young lady.
'My lawyer tells me it means the act of foreclosing—cutting off the equity of redemption, and that the money would not be taken in payment, even were poor Jerry alive and had it to pay.'
And Mr. Chevenix had chuckled as he gave these instructions, for he had endured enough of Lady Julia's aristocratic caprice, and knew how she had often treated his Bella, a girl certainly second to none, 'as if she were the dirt of the earth,' as he said, bitterly.
But Bella had deplored these sharp measures, for she felt that a strange but tender and undefinable tie bound her to Jerry Wilmot, dead or alive.