Very little. Mr. Vere felt no sympathy with his wife’s scientific pursuits.
On her husband’s death, did she find no consolation in her son? Let her speak for herself. “My son fills my heart. But the school, the university, and the hospital have all in turn taken his education out of my hands. My mind must be filled, as well as my heart.” She seized her exquisite instruments, and returned to the nervous system of the bee.
In course of time, Mr. John Gallilee—“drifting about,” as he said of himself—drifted across the path of science.
The widowed Mrs. Vere (as exhibited in public) was still a fine woman. Mr. Gallilee admired “that style”; and Mr. Gallilee had fifty thousand pounds. Only a little more, to my lord and my lady, than one year’s income. But, invested at four percent, it added an annual two thousand pounds to Mrs. Vere’s annual one thousand. Result, three thousand a year, encumbered with Mr. Gallilee. On reflection, Mrs. Vere accepted the encumbrance—and reaped her reward. Susan was no longer distinguished as the sister who had her dresses made in Paris; and Mrs. Gallilee was not now subjected to the indignity of getting a lift in Lady Northlake’s carriage.
What was the history of Robert, during this interval of time? In two words, Robert disgraced himself.
Taking possession of his country house, the new squire was invited to contribute towards the expense of a pack of hounds kept by subscription in the neighbourhood, and was advised to make acquaintance with his fellow-sportsmen by giving a hunt-breakfast. He answered very politely; but the fact was not to be concealed—the new man refused to encourage hunting: he thought that noble amusement stupid and cruel. For the same reason, he refused to preserve game. A last mistake was left to make, and he made it. After returning the rector’s visit, he failed to appear at church. No person with the smallest knowledge of the English character, as exhibited in an English county, will fail to foresee that Robert’s residence on his estate was destined to come, sooner or later, to an untimely end. When he had finished his sketches of the picturesque aspects of his landed property, he disappeared. The estate was not entailed. Old Robert—who had insisted on the minutest formalities and details in providing for his dearly-loved wife—was impenetrably careless about the future of his children. “My fortune has no value now in my eyes,” he said to judicious friends; “let them run through it all, if they please. It would do them a deal of good if they were obliged to earn their own living, like better people than themselves.” Left free to take his own way, Robert sold the estate merely to get rid of it. With no expensive tastes, except the taste for buying pictures, he became a richer man than ever.
When their brother next communicated with them, Lady Northlake and Mrs. Gallilee heard of him as a voluntary exile in Italy. He was building a studio and a gallery; he was contemplating a series of pictures; and he was a happy man for the first time in his life.
Another interval passed—and the sisters heard of Robert again.
Having already outraged the sense of propriety among his English neighbours, he now degraded himself in the estimation of his family, by marrying a “model.” The letter announcing this event declared, with perfect truth, that he had chosen a virtuous woman for his wife. She sat to artists, as any lady might sit to any artist, “for the head only.” Her parents gained a bare subsistence by farming their own little morsel of land; they were honest people—and what did brother Robert care for rank? His own grandfather had been a farmer.
Lady Northlake and Mrs. Gallilee felt it due to themselves to hold a consultation, on the subject of their sister-in-law. Was it desirable, in their own social interests, to cast Robert off from that moment?