“That in itself would be sad, but Miss Strangway’s destiny was sadder than that—commonplace enough, no doubt—only the old story of an unhappy marriage and a runaway wife.”
He could not help looking at Lord Cheriton at this point, thinking how this common story of an unfaithful wife must needs remind his kinsman of that other story of another wife which had influenced his early manhood. He must surely have a sensitive shrinking from the discussion of any similar story.
“She ran away from her husband! Yes, I remember having heard as much. What did Miss Newton know about her—beyond that one fact?”
“Very little—only that she died at Boulogne nearly twenty years ago. This fact Miss Newton heard from the lips of the man for whom Mrs. Darcy left her husband. I had been at Boulogne a week or so before I saw Miss Newton, and I had hunted there for any record of Mrs. Darcy’s death, without result. But this is not very strange, as it is quite likely that she lived at Boulogne under an assumed name, and was buried in that name, and so lies there, in a foreign land, dissevered for ever from any association with her name and kindred.”
“There are not many of her kindred left, I take it,” said Lord Cheriton. “There seems to have been a blight upon that race for the last half-century. But, now, tell me about some one in whom I am more interested—the girl you believe to be Mercy Porter. I should be very glad to make her life happier, and so I told her ladyship. You, Theodore, might be the intermediary. I would allow her a hundred a year, which would enable her to live in some pretty country place—in Devonshire or Cornwall, for instance, in some quiet sea-coast village where no one would know anything about her or her story.”
“A hundred a year! My dear Cheriton, that is a most generous offer.”
“No, no, there is no question of generosity. Her father was my friend, and I was under some obligation to him. And then the girl was my wife’s protégée; and, finally, I can very well afford it. I am almost a childless man, Theodore. My grandson will be rich enough when I am gone, rich enough to be sure of a peerage, I hope, so that there may be a Baron Cheriton when I am in the dust.”
“You are very good. I believe this girl has a great deal of pride—the pride of a woman who has drunk the cup of shame, and she may set herself against being your pensioner; but if the matter can be arranged as you wish she may yet see happier days. I think the first thing to be done is to reconcile mother and daughter. Mrs. Porter ought to go up to London——”
“To see Miss Newton’s protégée? On no account. I tell you Mrs. Porter is a woman of strange temper—God knows how bitterly she might upbraid her daughter. And if the girl is proud, as you say she is, the mother’s reproaches would goad her to refuse any help from me or my wife. No, Theodore, the longer we keep mother and daughter apart, the better for Mercy’s chances of happiness.”
“But if this young woman should refuse to confess her identity with Mercy Porter it will be impossible to benefit her.”