At last the funeral was over and the house was rid of guests. Various cousins and friends had shown their willingness to remain and bear her company, but Bettina, with the rector’s aid, had managed to get rid of these. She wanted to be alone and to think out some course of future action, for she was still in a state of absolute unadjustment to her new situation.
It had turned out that Lord Hurdly had left her an income of one thousand pounds. Her first realization of the smallness of this provision for her came from the rector’s comment, which was spoken in a tone as if reluctantly censorious.
“I should not have believed Lord Hurdly capable of such a thing,” he said. “I am sure that all who have cared for his honorable reputation must regret this as much on his account as on yours.”
“Is it so little?” said Bettina, too proud to show disappointment. “A thousand pounds a year seems a sufficient sum for the support of one woman.”
“For some women, perhaps,” was the answer, “but not for the woman who has once held the position of mistress of Kingdon Hall. I repeat that I would not have believed it of Lord Hurdly.”
Bettina did not hear his last emphatic words, or, at all events, took no conscious cognizance of them. She was absorbed in the contemplation of her new condition. How strange it seemed!
It was something more than strange. She had been too long in possession of the power and importance of being the reigning Lady Hurdly, so to speak, not to feel a real revolt at the idea of seeing herself laid on the shelf. It would not necessarily be so bad if she had had ample means, for she had made a place for herself in the world. But she was certain, from the air of commiseration with which not only the rector but others had regarded her, that she would be extremely curtailed in such opportunities as depended upon money; and she had sufficient insight into social affairs to know how the possession of money broadened opportunity, and the absence of it limited power.
There was no denying to herself the pain that it gave her to relinquish such a position. She had accommodated herself to greatness so naturally that it seemed incredible that she was to sink back into a life of obscurity. Frankly, she did not like it.
And yet, on the other hand, she felt an unfeigned gladness that Horace was to come to his own. She rejoiced that no child of hers would ever stand in his way. She had reason to hope that he would use his great position to great ends, for the residuum of all her turbid and agitating thoughts about him was an admiration for the man in his attitude toward the world, no matter how much she still resented his attitude toward herself. That this last was so, there needed no stronger proof than her eager resolution to get away from Kingdon Hall—out of the country, if possible—before the arrival of the man whose place her husband had once taken, and who, in another sense, was now to take his.