And here, in the solitude of the hill, under the silent stars, came upon John Stanburne the hour and crisis of his agony. Until now he had not realized the full extent of his misery, and of the desolation that lay before him. He had known it since five o'clock in the afternoon, but he felt it now for the first time. As some terrible bodily disease lays hold of us at first with gentle hands, and causes us little suffering, but afterwards rages in us, and tears us with intolerable anguish, so it had been with this man's affliction.
His brain was in a state of unnatural lucidity, casting an electric light upon every idea that suggested itself. In ordinary life a man of common powers, he possessed for this hour the insight and the intensity of genius. He reviewed his life with Lady Helena,—the twenty years—for it was twenty years!—that they had eaten at the same table, and lived under the same roof. And in all that long space of a thousand weeks of marriage, he could not remember a single instance in which she had been clearly in the wrong. On her side, it now seemed to him, there had always been intelligence and justice; on his side, a want of capacity to understand her, and of justice to recognize her merits. Having now, as I have said, for one hour of excitement, the clear perceptions of genius, it was plain to him where he had erred; and this perception so humbled him that he no longer dared to admit the faults which Lady Helena really had, her constant severity and her lasting rancune. Then came the bitterest hour of all, that of remorse for his own folly, for his want of conjugal trust in Lady Helena, for his fatal ambition and pride. How different their life might have been if he had understood her better from the first! how different if he had lived within his means! Had he lived within his means, that great foolish fête would never have been given at Wenderholme, the house would not have been burned down, the money lavished on its restoration would still have been in the Funds, and John Stanburne would have kept out of that fatal Sootythorn Bank. All his ruin was clearly traceable to that fatal entertainment, and to his expensive ways as a colonel of militia. He saw now quite clearly that there had never been any real necessity for the profuse manner in which he had thought it obligatory to do the honor of his rank. There were rich colonels and there were colonels not so rich—he might have done things well enough without going beyond his means. "If I alone suffered from it!" he cried aloud; "but Helena, and Edith, and my mother!"
CHAPTER V.
THE TWO JACOBS.
The twelve years that have passed since we had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Ogden have not deducted from her charms. The reader has doubtless observed that, notwithstanding the law of change which governs all sublunary persons and things, there are certain persons, as there are certain things, which, relatively at least to the rest of their species, have the enviable privilege of permanence. Mrs. Ogden was like those precious gems that are found in the sarcophagi of ancient kings, and which astonish us by their freshness and brilliance, when all around them bears the impress of death and of decay. One would be tempted to exclaim, "May my old age be like hers!" were it not that advancing years, whilst deducting so little from her physical or mental vigor, have not enriched her mind with a single new idea, or corrected one of her ancient prejudices. However, though intellectual people may think there is little use in living unless life is an intellectual advance, such people as Mrs. Ogden are not at all of that way of thinking, but seem to enjoy life very well in their own stationary way. There are intellectual policemen who are always telling us to "keep moving;" but what if I find a serener satisfaction in standing still? Then, if we stand still, we are to be insulted, and told that we are rusty, or that we are getting the "blue-mould." Et après? Suppose we are getting the blue-mould, what then? So far as may be ascertained by the study of such instances as Mrs. Ogden, the blue-mould is a great comfort and a great safeguard to the system—it is moral flannel. Would she have lasted as she has done without it? I say, it is a solace, amidst the rapid changes of the body politic, and the new-fangled ideas which take possession of the heads of ministers, to feel that there is one personage in these realms who will live on in vigor undiminished, yet never advance one inch. And when the British Constitution shall be finally swept away, and the throne itself no more, it will be something amidst the giddiness of universal experiment to know that in Mrs. Ogden this country will still possess an example that all is not given over to mutability.
"Now, young un," said Uncle Jacob, one day at dinner at Milend, "I reckon you've been writing no letters to that lass at Wendrum; and if you've written nout, there's no 'arm done. It isn't a match for such a young felly as you, as 'll have more brass nor Stanburne iver had in his best days. We 'st 'ave no weddin' wi' bankrupts' dorthers."
"Bankrupts, indeed!" said Mrs. Ogden. "I reckon nout o' bankrupts! Besides, Stanburne had no need to be a bankrupt if he hadn't been such a fool. And foolishness runs i' th' blood. Like father, like dorther. Th' father's been a wastril with his money, and it 's easy to see 'at the dorther 'ud be none so kerfle."
"Who shalln't have th' chance o' spendin' none o' my brass," said Uncle Jacob. "Do you yer that, young un? Stanburne dorther shall spend none o' my brass. If you wed her, yer father 'll 'ave to keep both on ye, an' all yer chilther beside. He's worth about five hundred a-year, is your father; and I'm worth—nobody knows what I 'm worth."