“Why did I come down?” he continued in reply to our sad queries. “Why did I come down, do you ask? Because she was wretched, and sent for me. Because if I was at the end of the world, and she was to say, ‘Jack, come!’ I’d come.”
“And if she bade you go?” asked his friends.
“I would go; and I have gone. If she told me to jump into the sea, do you think I would not do it? But I go; and when she is alone with him, do you know what he does? He strikes her. Strikes that poor little thing! He has owned to it. She fled from him and sheltered with the old woman who’s dead. He may be doing it now. Why did I ever shake hands with him? that’s humiliation sufficient, isn’t it? But she wished it; and I’d black his boots, curse him, if she told me. And because he wanted to keep my money in his confounded bank; and because he knew he might rely upon my honour and hers, poor dear child, he chooses to shake hands with me—me, whom he hates worse than a thousand devils—and quite right too. Why isn’t there a place where we can go and meet, like man to man, and have it over! If I had a ball through my brains I shouldn’t mind, I tell you. I’ve a mind to do it for myself, Pendennis. You don’t understand me, Viscount.”
“Il est vrai,” said Florac, with a shrug, “I comprehend neither the suicide nor the chaise-de-poste. What will you? I am not yet enough English, my friend. We make marriages of convenance in our country, que diable, and what follows follows; but no scandal afterwards! Do not adopt our institutions à demi, my friend. Vous ne me comprenez pas non plus, men pauvre Jack!”
“There is one way still, I think,” said the third of the speakers in this scene. “Let Lord Highgate come to Rosebury in his own name, leaving that of Mr. Harris behind him. If Sir Barnes Newcome wants you, he can seek you there. If you will go, as go you should, and God speed you, you can go, and in your own name, too.”
“Parbleu, c’est ça,” cries Florac, “he speaks like a book—the romancier!” I confess, for my part, I thought that a good woman might plead with him, and touch that manly not disloyal heart now trembling on the awful balance between evil and good.
“Allons! let us make to come the drague!” cries Florac. “Jack, thou returnest with us, my friend! Madame Pendennis, an angel, my friend, a quakre the most charming, shall roucoule to thee the sweetest sermons. My wife shall tend thee like a mother—a grandmother. Go make thy packet!”
Lord Highgate was very much pleased and relieved seemingly. He shook our hands, he said he should never forget our kindness, never! In truth, the didactic part of our conversation was carried on at much greater length than as here noted down: and he would come that evening, but not with us, thank you; he had a particular engagement, some letters he must write. Those done, he would not fail us, and would be at Rosebury by dinner-time.
CHAPTER LVIII.
“One more Unfortunate”
The Fates did not ordain that the plan should succeed which Lord Highgate’s friends had devised for Lady Clara’s rescue or respite. He was bent upon one more interview with the unfortunate lady; and in that meeting the future destiny of their luckless lives was decided. On the morning of his return home, Barnes Newcome had information that Lord Highgate, under a feigned name, had been staying in the neighbourhood of his house, and had repeatedly been seen in the company of Lady Clara. She may have gone out to meet him but for one hour more. She had taken no leave of her children on the day when she left her home, and, far from making preparations for her own departure, had been engaged in getting the house ready for the reception of members of the family, whose arrival her husband announced as speedily to follow his own. Ethel and Lady Anne and some of the children were coming. Lord Farintosh’s mother and sisters were to follow. It was to be a reunion previous to the marriage which was closer to unite the two families. Lady Clara said Yes to her husband’s orders; rose mechanically to obey his wishes and arrange for the reception of the guests; and spoke tremblingly to the housekeeper as her husband gibed at her. The little ones had been consigned to bed early and before Sir Barnes’s arrival. He did not think fit to see them in their sleep; nor did their mother. She did not know, as the poor little creatures left her room in charge of their nurses, that she looked on them for the last time. Perhaps, had she gone to their bedsides that evening, had the wretched panic-stricken soul been allowed leisure to pause, and to think, and to pray, the fate of the morrow might have been otherwise, and the trembling balance of the scale have inclined to right’s side. But the pause was not allowed her. Her husband came and saluted her with his accustomed greetings of scorn, and sarcasm, and brutal insult. On a future day he never dared to call a servant of his household to testify to his treatment of her; though many were ready to attend to prove his cruelty and her terror. On that very last night, Lady Clara’s maid, a country girl from her father’s house at Chanticlere, told Sir Barnes in the midst of a conjugal dispute that her lady might bear his conduct but she could not, and that she would no longer live under the roof of such a brute. The girl’s interference was not likely to benefit her mistress much: the wretched Lady Clara passed the last night under the roof of her husband and children, unattended save by this poor domestic who was about to leave her, in tears and hysterical outcries, and then in moaning stupor. Lady Clara put to sleep with laudanum, her maid carried down the story of her wrongs to the servants’ quarters; and half a dozen of them took in their resignation to Sir Barnes as he sat over his breakfast the next morning—in his ancestral hall—surrounded by the portraits of his august forefathers—in his happy home.