She got up and left the room.
It was time, when all was lost, even honour. If he had not been himself, she might have passed over his taunts with simple shame and disgust; but given, as they were, when she held that he knew what he was saying—as a proof that he had not a particle of respect and regard for her after their months of wedlock, they were a certain indication of his ruin and her reward.
[IV.—THE LAST THROW.]
"Poor Mrs. Gervase Norgate, she must have been so put about to have to go away with her husband last night. How the scamp got into the drawing-room I cannot tell; but he could do nothing but lean against the wall: he could not have bitten his fingers to save his life. She did not show her mortification unless by going away immediately. A wonderful amount of countenance has that poor young woman; but I take it she will not go out with him again if she can help it—and she need not, she need not, Lady Metcalfe. I can tell you he shall not be asked within my doors again; but I shall be very glad if you will always remember to send her a card, poor thing: she can go out without him, it must come to that eventually. It is not a mere kindness; she is really a credit and an ornament to your parties, to the county set altogether. But the sooner she learns to go out without him, and keep him in the background, the better for all parties. She has the command of a good income still, with a very tolerable jointure behind it, and Ashpound is a pretty place; not a fine place, like my lord's, but a very pretty place for a sensible woman's management and enjoyment."
One of Gervase Norgate's oldest neighbours, a fussy but good-natured, middle-aged baronet, pronounced this judgment.
There was nothing left for Diana but to resign Gervase to his fate, and gather up the gains which were left her. The most impartial authorities decided so. The gains would have sufficed for many a woman. Mrs. Gervase Norgate had comparative riches, after the cash scramble in which she had been brought up. Gervase had not succeeded in wasting above one-third of his fortune, and would doubtless end his career before he made away with the whole. Mrs. Gervase was the mistress of Ashpound, and most people would have valued it as what newspapers describe as a most desirable residence, a most eligible investment. If she ever had a child—a son, though she shuddered at the idea,—he would be the young Squire, the heir of Ashpound. In the meantime, Gervase Norgate was not a churl: he did not dream of stinting his wife in her perquisites, though he was not fond of her, and they now no longer lived comfortably together. She might have out his mother's carriage every day, or she might have another built for her, and drive it with a pair of ponies if she chose; she had a well-bred, fine-mounted, thin-legged, glossy-coated saddle-horse kept for her sole use, and she might have a second bred and broken for her any year she liked. She could even employ her own discretion in the income to be spent in the housekeeping. Ready money was becoming short with him; but his sense of her rights, and his faith in her prudence, had not failed. She had only to draw on his banker or agent to have her draught honoured. Whatever sums she might devote to her personal pleasures, her prodigal husband would not call in question. She might indulge in fine clothes, recherché jewellery, embellishments and ornaments for her rooms; she might take up art or literature, or heaths, or melons, or poultry, or flannel petticoating and soup-making for the poor (Sunday-schools and district visiting were hardly in fashion), and pursue one, or other, or all, for occupation and amusement, without impairing her resources; and she claimed a very respectable circle of friends as Mrs. Gervase Norgate, though she had been friendless, and getting always more friendless, as Miss Baring. The world had put its veto on the risk of her marriage with Gervase Norgate, in so far as its excusable element—the reformation of Gervase Norgate—was concerned; but with commendable elasticity it had allowed itself to be considerably influenced by the advantages which the marriage had obtained and secured for Diana, as well as by her conduct in their possession, and had awarded her the diploma of its esteem. A handsome, ladylike, sensible, well-disposed, sufficiently-agreeable, though quiet young matron, almost too wise and forbearing for her years, was its verdict. It was wonderful how well she had turned out, considering how she had been exposed; for every one knew John Fitzwilliam Baring, and how little fitted he was for the care of a motherless daughter. The more tender-hearted and sentimental world began to look upon Mrs. Gervase Norgate's bad husband, whom she had married in the face of his offence, as one of her merits,—a chief merit, to make of her a popular victim and martyr, no matter that she was not naturally constituted for the rôle, was not frank enough for popularity, not meek enough for martyrdom.
Even Miss Tabitha, who had still a friendly feeling for the culprit, had nothing to say against Mrs. Gervase, except that she was too good for him. Poor Miles listened wistfully for his master's reeling step, and went out in the night air, risking his rheumatism, for which Mr. Gervase had always cared, making sure that the old boy had a screen to his pantry, and shutters to his garret. He watched lest his master should make his bed of the cold ground and catch a deadly chill; caring for the besotted man, when he found him, with reverence and tenderness, as for the chubby boy who had bidden so fair to be a good and happy man, worthy of all honour, when Miles had first known him as his young master. Miles resented feebly the perishing of the forlorn hope of a rescue, and muttered fatuously the cart had been put before the horse, and the reins taken out of the whip hand, and that'd never do. What could come of the unnatural process but a crashing spill?
Diana could not accept the solution. Nineteen women out of twenty, who had acted as she had done, would have taken the compensations, perhaps been content with the indemnifications of her lot; but Diana was the twentieth. Whether the cost of his mercenary marriage was far beyond what she had estimated it, she lost heart and hope and heed of the world's opinion, and was on the high road to loss of conscience, from the moment she was convinced that Gervase Norgate was lost.
Diana gave up going into the society which was so willing to welcome her, which thought so well of her. She relinquished all pride in personal dignity and propriety, as she had never done when she had locked her doors to shut out the jingling rattle of the bones, and, occasionally, the curses, not loud but deep, which broke in upon the repose of the long nights at Newton-le-Moor. She ceased to exert herself to regulate the expenditure of the house, to preserve its respectability, to wipe out the signs of its master's ruin. Old Miles might strive to keep up appearances, but his mistress no longer aided and abetted him. It had become a matter of indifference to Mrs. Gervase whether the dragged carpet, the wrenched-down curtain, the shattered chair, were removed or repaired, or not: she took no notice.