CHAPTER XXIII
"I SHALL NEVER BE MARRIED."
Sir Harry Hotspur returned to Humblethwaite before Cousin George's letter was written, though when he did return all the terms had been arranged, and a portion of the money paid. Perhaps it would have been better that he should have waited and taken the letter with him in his pocket; but in truth he was so wretched that he could not wait. The thing was fixed and done, and he could but hurry home to hide his face among his own people. He felt that the glory of his house was gone from him. He would sit by the hour together thinking of the boy who had died. He had almost, on occasions, allowed himself to forget his boy, while hoping that his name and wide domains might be kept together by the girl that was left to him. He was beginning to understand now that she was already but little better than a wreck. Indeed, was not everything shipwreck around him? Was he not going to pieces on the rocks? Did not the lesson of every hour seem to tell him that, throughout his long life, he had thought too much of his house and his name?
It would have been better that he should have waited till the letter was in his pocket before he returned home, because, when he reached Humblethwaite, the last argument was wanting to him to prove to Emily that her hope was vain. Even after his arrival, when the full story was told to her, she held out in her resolve. She accepted the truth of that scene at Walker's rooms. She acknowledged that her lover had cheated the wretched man at cards. After that all other iniquities were of course as nothing. There was a completeness in that of which she did not fail to accept, and to use the benefit. When she had once taken it as true that her lover had robbed his inferior by foul play at cards, there could be no good in alluding to this or that lie, in counting up this or that disreputable debt, in alluding to habits of brandy-drinking, or even in soiling her pure mind with any word as to Mrs. Morton. It was granted that he was as vile as sin could make him. Had not her Saviour come exactly for such as this one, because of His great love for those who were vile; and should not her human love for one enable her to do that which His great heavenly love did always for all men? Every reader will know how easily answerable was the argument. Most readers will also know how hard it is to win by attacking the reason when the heart is the fortress that is in question. She had accepted his guilt, and why tell her of it any further? Did she not pine over his guilt, and weep for it day and night, and pray that he might yet be made white as snow? But guilty as he was, a poor piece of broken vilest clay, without the properties even which are useful to the potter, he was as dear to her as when she had leaned against him believing him to be a pillar of gold set about with onyx stones, jaspers, and rubies. There was but one sin on his part which could divide them. If, indeed, he should cease to love her, then there would be an end to it! It would have been better that Sir Harry should have remained in London till he could have returned with George's autograph letter in his pocket.
"You must have the letter in his own handwriting," Mr. Boltby had said, cunningly, "only you must return it to me."
Sir Harry had understood, and had promised, that the letter should be returned when it had been used for the cruel purpose for which it was to be sent to Humblethwaite. For all Sir Harry's own purposes Mr. Boltby's statements would have quite sufficed.
She was told that her lover would renounce her, but she would not believe what she was told. Of course he would accept the payment of his debts. Of course he would take an income when offered to him. What else was he to do? How was he to live decently without an income? All these evils had happened to him because he had been expected to live as a gentleman without proper means. In fact, he was the person who had been most injured. Her father, in his complete, in his almost abject tenderness towards her, could not say rough words in answer to all these arguments. He could only repeat his assertion over and over again that the man was utterly unworthy of her, and must be discarded. It was all as nothing. The man must discard himself.
"He is false as hell," said Sir Harry.
"And am I to be as false as hell also? Will you love me better when I have consented to be untrue? And even that would be a lie. I do love him. I must love him. I may be more wicked than he is, because I do so. But I do."
Poor Lady Elizabeth in these days was worse than useless. Her daughter was so strong that her weakness was as the weakness of water. She was driven hither and thither in a way that she herself felt to be disgraceful. When her husband told her that the cousin, as matter of course, could never be seen again, she assented. When Emily implored her to act as mediator with her father on behalf of the wicked cousin, she again assented. And then, when she was alone with Sir Harry, she did not dare to do as she had promised.
"I do think it will kill her," she said to Sir Harry.
"We must all die, but we need not die disgraced," he said.
It was a most solemn answer, and told the thoughts which had been dwelling in his mind. His son had gone from him; and now it might be that his daughter must go too, because she could not survive the disappointment of her young love. He had learned to think that it might be so as he looked at her great grave eyes, and her pale cheeks, and her sorrow-laden mouth. It might be so; but better that for them all than that she should be contaminated by the touch of a thing so vile as this cousin. She was pure as snow, clear as a star, lovely as the opening rosebud. As she was, let her go to her grave, – if it need be so. For himself, he could die too, – or even live if it were required of him! Other fathers, since Jephtha and Agamemnon, have recognised it as true that heaven has demanded from them their daughters.
The letter came, and was read and re-read by Sir Harry before he showed it to his child. He took it also to his wife, and explained it to her in all its points. "It has more craft," said he, "than I gave him credit for."
"I don't suppose he ever cared for her," said Lady Elizabeth.
"Nor for any human being that ever lived, – save himself. I wonder whether he got Boltby to write it for him."
"Surely Mr. Boltby wouldn't have done that."
"I don't know. I think he would do anything to rid us from what he believed to have been our danger. I don't think it was in George Hotspur to write such a letter out of his own head."
"But does it signify?"
"Not in the least. It is his own handwriting and his signature. Whoever formed the words, it is the same thing. It was needed only to prove to her that he had not even the merit of being true to her."
For a while Sir Harry thought that he would entrust to his wife the duty of showing the letter to Emily. He would so willingly have escaped the task himself! But as he considered the matter he feared that Lady Elizabeth might lack the firmness to explain the matter fully to the poor girl. The daughter would be so much stronger than the mother, and thus the thing that must be done would not be effected! At last, on the evening of the day on which the letter had reached him, he sent for her, and read it to her. She heard it without a word. Then he put it into her hands, and she read the sentences herself, slowly, one after another, endeavouring as she did so to find arguments by which she might stave off the conclusion to which she knew that her father would attempt to bring her.
"It must be all over now," said he at last.
She did not answer him, but gazed into his face with such a look of woe that his heart was melted. She had found no argument. There had not been in the whole letter one word of love for her.
"My darling, will it not be better that we should meet the blow?"
"I have met it, all along. Some day, perhaps, he might be different."
"In what way, dearest? He does not even profess to hope so himself."
"That gentleman in London, Papa, would have paid nothing for him unless he wrote like this. He had to do it. Papa, you had better just leave me to myself. I will not trouble you by mentioning his name."
"But Emily – "
"Well, Papa?"
"Mamma and I cannot bear that you should suffer alone."
"I must suffer, and silence is the easiest. I will go now and think about it. Dear Papa, I know that you have always done everything for the best."
He did not see her again that evening. Her mother was with her in her own room, and of course they were talking about Cousin George for hours together. It could not be avoided, in spite of what Emily had herself said of the expediency of silence. But she did not once allude to the possibility of a future marriage. As the man was so dear to her, and as he bore their name, and as he must inherit her father's title, could not some almost superhuman exertion be made for his salvation? Surely so much as that might be done, if they all made it the work of their lives.
"It must be the work of my life, Mamma," she said.
Lady Elizabeth forbore from telling her that there was no side on which she could approach him. The poor girl herself, however, must have felt that it was so. As she thought of it all she reminded herself that, though they were separated miles asunder, still she could pray for him. We need not doubt this at least, – that to him who utters them prayers of intercession are of avail.
On the following morning she was at breakfast, and both her father and mother remarked that something had been changed in her dress. The father only knew that it was so, but the mother could have told of every ribbon that had been dropped, and every ornament that had been laid aside. Emily Hotspur had lived a while, if not among the gayest of the gay, at least among the brightest of the bright in outside garniture, and having been asked to consult no questions of expense, had taught herself to dress as do the gay and bright and rich. Even when George had come on his last wretched visit to Humblethwaite, when she had known that he had been brought there as a blackamoor perhaps just capable of being washed white, she had not thought it necessary to lessen the gauds of her attire. Though she was saddened in her joy by the knowledge of the man's faults, she was still the rich daughter of a very wealthy man, and engaged to marry the future inheritor of all that wealth and riches. There was then no reason why she should lower her flag one inch before the world. But now all was changed with her! During the night she had thought of her apparel, and of what use it might be during her future life. She would never more go bright again, unless some miracle might prevail, and he still might be to her that which she had painted him. Neither father nor mother, as she kissed them both, said a word as to her appearance. They must take her away from Humblethwaite, change the scene, try to interest her in new pursuits; that was what they had determined to attempt. For the present, they would let her put on what clothes she pleased, and make no remark.
Early in the day she went out by herself. It was now December, but the weather was fine and dry, and she was for two hours alone, rambling through the park. She had made her attempt in life, and had failed. She owned her failure to herself absolutely. The image had no gold in it; – none as yet. But it was not as other images, which, as they are made, so must they remain to the end. The Divine Spirit, which might from the first have breathed into this clay some particle of its own worth, was still efficacious to bestow the gift. Prayer should not be wanting; but the thing as it now was she saw in all its impurity. He had never loved her. Had he loved her he would not have written words such as those she had read. He had pretended to love her in order that he might have money, that his debts might be paid, that he might not be ruined. "He hoped," he said in his letter, "he hoped that his cousin might be made happy by a splendid alliance!" She remembered well the abominable, heartless words. And this was the man who had pledged her to truth and firmness, and whose own truth and firmness she had never doubted for a moment, even when acknowledging to herself the necessity of her pledge to him. He had never loved her; and, though she did not say so, did not think so, she felt that of all his sins that sin was the one which could not be forgiven.
What should she now do with herself, – how bear herself at this present moment of her life? She did not tell herself now that she would die, though as she looked forward into life all was so dreary to her, that she would fain have known that death would give an escape. But there were duties for her still to do. During that winter ramble, she owned to herself for the first time that her father had been right in his judgment respecting their cousin, and that she, by her pertinacity, had driven her father on till on her account he had been forced into conduct which was distasteful to him. She must own to her father that he had been right; that the man, though she dearly loved him still, was of such nature that it would be quite unfit that she should marry him. There might still be the miracle; her prayers were still her own to give; of them she would say nothing to her father. She would simply confess to him that he had been right, and then beg of him to pardon her the trouble she had caused him.
"Papa," she said to him the following morning, "may I come to you?" She came in, and on this occasion sat down at his right hand. "Of course, you have been right, Papa," she said.
"We have both been right, dearest, I hope."
"No, Papa; I have been wrong! I thought I knew him, and I did not. I thought when you told me that he was so bad, that you were believing false people; and, Papa, I know now that I should not have loved him as I did; – so quickly, like that."
"Nobody has blamed you for a moment. Nobody has thought of blaming you."
"I blame myself enough; I can tell you that. I feel as though I had in a way destroyed myself."
"Do not say that, my darling."
"You will let me speak now; will you not, Papa? I wish to tell you everything, that you may understand all that I feel. I shall never get over it."
"You will, dearest; you will, indeed."
"Never! Perhaps I shall live on; but I feel that it has killed me for this world. I don't know how a girl is to get over it when she has said that she has loved any one. If they are married, then she does not want to get over it; but if they are not, – if he deserts her, or is unworthy, or both, – what can she do then, but just go on thinking of it till – she dies?"
Sir Harry used with her all the old accustomed arguments to drive such thoughts out of her head. He told her how good was God to His creatures, and, specially, how good in curing by the soft hand of time such wounds as those from which she was suffering. She should "retrick her beams," and once more "flame in the forehead of the morning sky," if only she would help the work of time by her own endeavours. "Fight against the feeling, Emily, and try to conquer it, and it will be conquered."
"But, Papa, I do not wish to conquer it. I should not tell you of all this, only for one thing."
"What thing, dearest?"
"I am not like other girls, who can just leave themselves alone and be of no trouble. You told me that if I outlived you – "
"The property will be yours; certainly. Of course, it was my hope, – and is, – that all that shall be settled by your marriage before my death. The trouble and labour is more than a woman should be called on to support alone."
"Just so. And it is because you are thinking of all this, that I feel it right to tell you. Papa, I shall never be married."
"We will leave that for the present, Emily."
"Very well; only if it would make a change in your will, you should make it. You will have to be here, Papa, after I am gone, – probably."
"No, no, no."
"But, if it were not so, I should not know what to do. That is all, Papa; only this, – that I beg your pardon for all the trouble I have caused you." Then she knelt before him, and he kissed her head, and blessed her, and wept over her.
There was nothing more heard from Cousin George at Humblethwaite, and nothing more heard of him for a long time. Mr. Boltby did pay his debts, having some terribly hard struggles with Mr. Hart and Captain Stubber before the liquidations were satisfactorily effected. It was very hard to make Mr. Hart and Captain Stubber understand that the Baronet was paying these debts simply because he had said that he would pay them once before, under other circumstances, and that no other cause for their actual payment now existed. But the debts were paid, down to the last farthing of which Mr. Boltby could have credible tidings. "Pay everything," Sir Harry had said; "I have promised it." Whereby he was alluding to the promise which he had made to his daughter. Everything was paid, and Cousin George was able to walk in and out of his club, a free man, – and at times almost happy, – with an annuity of five hundred pounds a year! Nothing more was said to him as to the necessity of expatriation.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE END
Among playgoing folk, in the following April there was a great deal of talk about the marriage of that very favourite actress, Mrs. Morton. She appeared in the playbills as Mrs. George Hotspur, late Mrs. Morton. Very many spoke of her familiarly, who knew her only on the stage, – as is the custom of men in speaking of actresses, – and perhaps some few of these who spoke of her did know her personally. "Poor Lucy!" said one middle-aged gentleman over fifty, who spent four nights of every week at one theatre or another. "When she was little more than a child they married her to that reprobate Morton. Since that she has managed to keep her head above water by hard work; and now she has gone and married another worse than the first!"
"She is older now, and will be able to manage George," said another.
"Manage him! If anybody can manage to keep him out of debt, or from drink either, I'll eat him."
"But he must be Sir George when old Sir Harry dies," said he who was defending the prudence of the marriage.
"Yes, and won't have a penny. Will it help her to be able to put Lady Hotspur on the bills? Not in the least. And the women can't forgive her and visit her. She has not been good enough for that. A grand old family has been disgraced, and a good actress destroyed. That's my idea of this marriage."
"I thought Georgy was going to marry his cousin – that awfully proud minx," said one young fellow.
"When it came to the scratch, she would not have him," said another. "But there had been promises, and so, to make it all square, Sir Harry paid his debts."
"I don't believe a bit about his debts being paid," said the middle-aged gentleman who was fond of going to the theatre.
Yes, George Hotspur was married: and, as far as any love went with him, had married the woman he liked best. Though the actress was worlds too good for him, there was not about her that air of cleanliness and almost severe purity which had so distressed him while he had been forced to move in the atmosphere of his cousin. After the copying of the letter and the settlement of the bills, Mrs. Morton had found no difficulty in arranging matters as she pleased. She had known the man perhaps better than any one else had known him; and yet she thought it best to marry him. We must not inquire into her motives, though we may pity her fate.
She did not intend, however, to yield herself as an easy prey to his selfishness. She had also her ideas of reforming him, and ideas which, as they were much less grand, might possibly be more serviceable than those which for a while had filled the mind and heart of Emily Hotspur. "George," she said, one day to him, "what do you mean to do?" This was before the marriage was fixed; – when nothing more was fixed than that idea of marriage which had long existed between them.
"Of course we shall be spliced now," said he.
"And if so, what then? I shall keep to the stage, of course."
"We couldn't do with the £500 a year, I suppose, any how?"
"Not very well, I'm afraid, seeing that as a habit you eat and drink more than that yourself. But, with all that I can do, there must be a change. I tell you for your own sake as well as for mine, unless you can drop drinking, we had better give it up even yet." After that, for a month or two under her auspices, he did "drop it," – or at least so far dropped it as to induce her to run the risk. In April they were married, and she must be added to the list of women who have sacrificed themselves on behalf of men whom they have known to be worthless. We need not pursue his career further; but we may be sure, that though she watched him very closely, and used a power over him of which he was afraid, still he went gradually from bad to worse, and was found at last to be utterly past redemption. He was one who in early life had never known what it was to take delight in postponing himself to another; and now there was no spark in him of love or gratitude by which fire could be kindled or warmth created. It had come to that with him, – that to eat and to drink was all that was left to him; and it was coming to that too, that the latter of these two pleasant recreations would soon be all that he had within his power of enjoyment. There are such men; and of all human beings they are the most to be pitied. They have intellects; they do think; the hours with them are terribly long; – and they have no hope!
The Hotspurs of Humblethwaite remained at home till Christmas was passed, and then at once started for Rome. Sir Harry and Lady Elizabeth both felt that it must be infinitely better for their girl to be away; and then there came the doctor's slow advice. There was nothing radically amiss with Miss Hotspur, the doctor said; but it would be better for her to be taken elsewhere. She, knowing how her father loved his home and the people around him, begged that she might be allowed to stay. Nothing ailed her, she said, save only that ache at the heart which no journey to Rome could cure. "What's the use of it, Papa?" she said. "You are unhappy because I'm altered. Would you wish me not to be altered after what has passed? Of course I am altered. Let us take it as it is, and not think about it." She had adopted certain practices in life, however, which Sir Harry was determined to check, at any rate for the time. She spent her days among the poor, and when not with them she was at church. And there was always some dreary book in her hands when they were together in the drawing-room after dinner. Of church-going and visiting the poor, and of good books, Sir Harry approved thoroughly; but even of good things such as these there may be too much. So Sir Harry and Lady Elizabeth got a courier who spoke all languages, and a footman who spoke German, and two maids, of whom one pretended to speak French, and had trunks packed without number, and started for Rome. All that wealth could do was done; but let the horseman be ever so rich, or the horseman's daughter, and the stud be ever so good, it is seldom they can ride fast enough to shake off their cares.
In Rome they remained till April, and while they were there the name of Cousin George was never once mentioned in the hearing of Sir Harry. Between the mother and daughter no doubt there was speech concerning him. But to Emily's mind he was always present. He was to her as a thing abominable, and yet necessarily tied to her by bonds which she could never burst asunder. She felt like some poor princess in a tale, married to an ogre from whom there was no escape. She had given herself up to one utterly worthless, and she knew it. But yet she had given herself, and could not revoke the gift. There was, indeed, still left to her that possibility of a miracle, but of that she whispered nothing even to her mother. If there were to be a miracle, it must be of God; and at God's throne she made her whispers. In these days she was taken about from sight to sight with apparent willingness. She saw churches, pictures, statues, and ruins, and seemed to take an interest in them. She was introduced to the Pope, and allowed herself to be apparelled in her very best for that august occasion. But, nevertheless, the tenor of her way and the fashions of her life, as was her daily dress, were grey and sad and solemn. She lived as one who knew that the backbone of her life was broken. Early in April they left Rome and went north, to the Italian lakes, and settled themselves for a while at Lugano. And here the news reached them of the marriage of George Hotspur.
Lady Elizabeth read the marriage among the advertisements in the Times, and at once took it to Sir Harry, withdrawing the paper from the room in a manner which made Emily sure that there was something in it which she was not intended to see. But Sir Harry thought that the news should be told to her, and he himself told it.
"Already married!" she said. "And who is the lady?"
"You had better not ask, my dear."
"Why not ask? I may, at any rate, know her name."
"Mrs. Morton. She was a widow, – and an actress."
"Oh yes, I know," said Emily, blushing; for in those days in which it had been sought to wean her from George Hotspur, a word or two about this lady had been said to her by Lady Elizabeth under the instructions of Sir Harry. And there was no more said on that occasion. On that day, and on the following, her father observed no change in her; and the mother spoke nothing of her fears. But on the next morning Lady Elizabeth said that she was not as she had been. "She is thinking of him still – always," she whispered to her husband. He made no reply, but sat alone, out in the garden, with his newspaper before him, reading nothing, but cursing that cousin of his in his heart.
There could be no miracle now for her! Even the thought of that was gone. The man who had made her believe that he loved her, only in the last autumn, – though indeed it seemed to her that years had rolled over since, and made her old, worn-out, and weary; – who had asked for and obtained the one gift she had to give, the bestowal of her very self; who had made her in her baby folly believe that he was almost divine, whereas he was hardly human in his lowness, – this man, whom she still loved in a way which she could not herself understand, loving and despising him utterly at the same time, – was now the husband of another woman. Even he, she had felt, would have thought something of her. But she had been nothing to him but the means of escape from disreputable difficulties. She could not sustain her contempt for herself as she remembered this, and yet she showed but little of it in her outward manner.
"I'll go when you like, Papa," she said when the days of May had come, "but I'd sooner stay here a little longer if you wouldn't mind." There was no talk of going home. It was only a question whether they should go further north, to Lucerne, before the warm weather came.
"Of course we will remain; why not?" said Sir Harry. "Mamma and I like Lugano amazingly." Poor Sir Harry. As though he could have liked any place except Humblethwaite!
Our story is over now. They did remain till the scorching July sun had passed over their heads, and August was upon them; and then – they had buried her in the small Protestant cemetery at Lugano, and Sir Harry Hotspur was without a child and without an heir.
He returned home in the early autumn, a grey, worn-out, tottering old man, with large eyes full of sorrow, and a thin mouth that was seldom opened to utter a word. In these days, I think, he recurred to his early sorrow, and thought almost more of his son than of his daughter. But he had instant, pressing energy left to him for one deed. Were he to die now without a further will, Humblethwaite and Scarrowby would go to the wretch who had destroyed him. What was the title to him now, or even the name? His wife's nephew was an Earl with an enormous rent-roll, something so large that Humblethwaite and Scarrowby to him would be little more than additional labour. But to this young man Humblethwaite and Scarrowby were left, and the glories of the House of Hotspur were at an end.
And so the story of the House of Humblethwaite has been told.