CHAPTER IX.
TOO PRUDENT BY HALF.
Florence Burton thought herself the happiest girl in the world.There was nothing wanting to the perfection of her bliss. She couldperceive, though she never allowed her mind to dwell upon the fact,that her lover was superior in many respects to the men whom hersisters had married. He was better educated, better looking, in factmore fully a gentleman at all points than either Scarness or any ofthe others. She liked her sisters' husbands very well, and in formerdays, before Harry Clavering had come to Stratton, she had nevertaught herself to think that she, if she married, would want anythingdifferent from that which Providence had given to them. She had neverthrown up her head, or even thrown up her nose, and told herself thatshe would demand something better than that. But not the less was shealive to the knowledge that something better had come in her way, andthat that something better was now her own. She was very proud of herlover, and, no doubt, in some gently feminine way showed that she wasso as she made her way about among her friends at Stratton. Any ideathat she herself was better educated, better looking, or more cleverthan her elder sisters, and that, therefore, she was deserving of ahigher order of husband, had never entered her mind. The Burtons inLondon,--Theodore Burton and his wife,--who knew her well, and who,of all the family, were best able to appreciate her worth, had longbeen of opinion that she deserved some specially favoured lot inlife. The question with them would be, whether Harry Clavering wasgood enough for her.
Everybody at Stratton knew that she was engaged, and when they wishedher joy she made no coy denials. Her sisters had all been engaged inthe same way, and their marriages had gone off in regular sequence totheir engagements. There had never been any secret with them abouttheir affairs. On this matter the practice is very various amongdifferent people. There are families who think it almost indelicateto talk about marriage as a thing actually in prospect for any oftheir own community. An ordinary acquaintance would be considered tobe impertinent in even hinting at such a thing, although the thingwere an established fact. The engaged young ladies only whisperthe news through the very depths of their pink note-paper, and aresupposed to blush as they communicate the tidings by their pens, evenin the retirement of their own rooms. But there are other families inwhich there is no vestige of such mystery, in which an engaged coupleare spoken of together as openly as though they were already bound insome sort of public partnership. In these families the young ladiestalk openly of their lovers, and generally prefer that subject ofconversation to any other. Such a family,--so little mysterious,--soopen in their arrangements, was that of the Burtons at Stratton.The reserve in the reserved families is usually atoned for by themagnificence of the bridal arrangements, when the marriage is at lastsolemnized; whereas, among the other set,--the people who have noreserve,--the marriage, when it comes, is customarily an affairof much less outward ceremony. They are married without blast oftrumpet, with very little profit to the confectioner, and do theirhoneymoon, if they do it at all, with prosaic simplicity.
Florence had made up her mind that she would be in no hurry aboutit. Harry was in a hurry; but that was a matter of course. He was aquick-blooded, impatient, restless being. She was slower, and moregiven to consideration. It would be better that they should wait,even if it were for five or six years. She had no fear of povertyfor herself. She had lived always in a house in which money wasmuch regarded, and among people who were of inexpensive habits.But such had not been his lot, and it was her duty to think of themode of life which might suit him. He would not be happy as a poorman,--without comforts around him, which would simply be comforts tohim though they would be luxuries to her. When her mother told her,shaking her head rather sorrowfully as she heard Florence talk, thatshe did not like long engagements, Florence would shake hers too, inplayful derision, and tell her mother not to be so suspicious. "It isnot you that are going to marry him, mamma."
"No, my dear; I know that. But long engagements never are good. AndI can't think why young people should want so many things, now, thatthey used to do without very well when I was married. When I wentinto housekeeping, we only had one girl of fifteen to do everything;and we hadn't a nursemaid regular till Theodore was born; and therewere three before him."
Florence could not say how many maid-servants Harry might wish tohave under similar circumstances, but she was very confident that hewould want much more attendance than her father and mother had done,or even than some of her brothers and sisters. Her father, when hefirst married, would not have objected, on returning home, to findhis wife in the kitchen, looking after the progress of the dinner;nor even would her brother Theodore have been made unhappy by such acircumstance. But Harry, she knew, would not like it; and thereforeHarry must wait. "It will do him good, mamma," said Florence. "Youcan't think that I mean to find fault with him; but I know that he isyoung in his ways. He is one of those men who should not marry tillthey are twenty-eight, or thereabouts."
"You mean that he is unsteady?"
"No,--not unsteady. I don't think him a bit unsteady; but he will behappier single for a year or two. He hasn't settled down to like histea and toast when he is tired of his work, as a married man shoulddo. Do you know that I am not sure that a little flirtation would notbe very good for him?"
"Oh, my dear!"
"It should be very moderate, you know."
"But then, suppose it wasn't moderate. I don't like to see engagedyoung men going on in that way. I suppose I'm very old-fashioned; butI think when a young man is engaged, he ought to remember it and toshow it. It ought to make him a little serious, and he shouldn't begoing about like a butterfly, that may do just as it pleases in thesunshine."
During the three months which Harry remained in town before theEaster holidays he wrote more than once to Florence, pressing her toname an early day for their marriage. These letters were written, Ithink, after certain evenings spent under favourable circumstances inOnslow Crescent, when he was full of the merits of domestic comfort,and perhaps also owed some of their inspiration to the fact that LadyOngar had left London without seeing him. He had called repeatedly inBolton Street, having been specially pressed to do so by Lady Ongar,but he had only once found her at home, and then a third personhad been present. This third person had been a lady who was notintroduced to him, but he had learned from her speech that she wasa foreigner. On that occasion Lady Ongar had made herself graciousand pleasant, but nothing had passed which interested him, and, mostunreasonably, he had felt himself to be provoked. When next he wentto Bolton Street he found that Lady Ongar had left London. She hadgone down to Ongar Park, and, as far as the woman at the house knew,intended to remain there till after Easter. Harry had some undefinedidea that she should not have taken such a step without tellinghim. Had she not declared to him that he was her only friend?When a friend is going out of town, leaving an only friend behind,that friend ought to tell her only friend what she is going to do,otherwise such a declaration of only-friendship means nothing. Suchwas Harry Clavering's reasoning, and having so reasoned, he declaredto himself that it did mean nothing, and was very pressing toFlorence Burton to name an early day. He had been with Cecilia,he told her,--he had learned to call Mrs. Burton Cecilia in hisletters,--and she quite agreed with him that their income would beenough. He was to have two hundred a year from his father, havingbrought himself to abandon that high-toned resolve which he had madesome time since that he would never draw any part of his income fromthe parental coffers. His father had again offered it, and he hadaccepted it. Old Mr. Burton was to add a hundred, and Harry was ofopinion that they could do very well. Cecilia thought the same, hesaid, and therefore Florence surely would not refuse. But Florencereceived, direct from Onslow Crescent, Cecilia's own version of herthoughts, and did refuse. It may be surmised that she would haverefused even without assistance from Cecilia, for she was a younglady not of a fickle or changing disposition. So she wrote to Harrywith much care, and as her letter had some influence on the story tobe told, the reader sh
all read it,--if the reader so pleases.
Stratton. March, 186--.
DEAR HARRY,--
I received your letter this morning, and answer it at once, because I know you will be impatient for an answer. You are impatient about things,--are you not? But it was a kind, sweet, dear, generous letter, and I need not tell you now that I love the writer of it with all my heart. I am so glad you like Cecilia. I think she is the perfection of a woman. And Theodore is every bit as good as Cecilia, though I know you don't think so, because you don't say so. I am always happy when I am in Onslow Crescent. I should have been there this spring, only that a certain person who chooses to think that his claims on me are stronger than those of any other person wishes me to go elsewhere. Mamma wishes me to go to London also for a week, but I don't want to be away from the old house too much before the final parting comes at last.
And now about the final parting; for I may as well rush at it at once. I need hardly tell you that no care for father or mother shall make me put off my marriage. Of course I owe everything to you now; and as they have approved it, I have no right to think of them in opposition to you. And you must not suppose that they ask me to stay. On the contrary, mamma is always telling me that early marriages are best. She has sent all the birds out of the nest but one; and is impatient to see that one fly away, that she may be sure that there is no lame one in the brood. You must not therefore think that it is mamma; nor is it papa, as regards himself,--though papa agrees with me in thinking that we ought to wait a little.
Dear Harry, you must not be angry, but I am sure that we ought to wait. We are, both of us, young, and why should we be in a hurry? I know what you will say, and of course I love you the more because you love me so well; but I fancy that I can be quite happy if I can see you two or three times in the year, and hear from you constantly. It is so good of you to write such nice letters, and the longer they are the better I like them. Whatever you put in them, I like them to be full. I know I can't write nice letters myself, and it makes me unhappy. Unless I have got something special to say, I am dumb.
But now I have something special to say. In spite of all that you tell me about Cecilia, I do not think it would do for us to venture upon marrying yet. I know that you are willing to sacrifice everything, but I ought not on that account to accept a sacrifice. I could not bear to see you poor and uncomfortable; and we should be very poor in London now-a-days with such an income as we should have. If we were going to live here at Stratton perhaps we might manage, but I feel sure that it would be imprudent in London. You ought not to be angry with me for saying this, for I am quite as anxious to be with you as you can possibly be to be with me; only I can bear to look forward, and have a pleasure in feeling that all my happiness is to come. I know I am right in this. Do write me one little line to say that you are not angry with your little girl.
I shall be quite ready for you by the 29th. I got such a dear little note from Fanny the other day. She says that you never write to them, and she supposes that I have the advantage of all your energy in that way. I have told her that I do get a good deal. My brother writes to me very seldom, I know; and I get twenty letters from Cecilia for one scrap that Theodore ever sends me. Perhaps some of these days I shall be the chief correspondent with the rectory. Fanny told me all about the dresses, and I have my own quite ready. I've been bridesmaid to four of my own sisters, so I ought to know what I'm about. I'll never be bridesmaid to anybody again, after Fanny; but whom on earth shall I have for myself? I think we must wait till Cissy and Sophy are ready. Cissy wrote me word that you were a darling man. I don't know how much of that came directly from Cissy, or how much from Cecilia.
God bless you, dear, dearest Harry. Let me have one letter before you come to fetch me, and acknowledge that I am right, even if you say that I am disagreeable. Of course I like to think that you want to have me; but, you see, one has to pay the penalty of being civilized.--Ever and always your own affectionate
FLORENCE BURTON.
Harry Clavering was very angry when he got this letter. The primarycause of his anger was the fact that Florence should pretend to knowwhat was better for him than he knew himself. If he was willing toencounter life in London on less than four hundred a year, surelyshe might be contented to try the same experiment. He did not for amoment suspect that she feared for herself, but he was indignant withher because of her fear for him. What right had she to accuse himof wanting to be comfortable? Had he not for her sake consented tobe very uncomfortable at that old house at Stratton? Was he notwilling to give up his fellowship, and the society of Lady Ongar,and everything else, for her sake? Had he not shown himself to besuch a lover as there is not one in a hundred? And yet she wrote andtold him that it wouldn't do for him to be poor and uncomfortable!After all that he had done in the world, after all that he had gonethrough, it would be odd if, at this time of day, he did not knowwhat was good for himself! It was in that way that he regardedFlorence's pertinacity.
He was rather unhappy at this period. It seemed to him that he wassomewhat slighted on both sides,--or, if I may say so, less thoughtof on both sides than he deserved. Had Lady Ongar remained in town,as she ought to have done, he would have solaced himself, and at thesame time have revenged himself upon Florence, by devoting some ofhis spare hours to that lady. It was Lady Ongar's sudden departurethat had made him feel that he ought to rush at once into marriage.Now he had no consolation, except that of complaining to Mrs. Burton,and going frequently to the theatre. To Mrs. Burton he did complain agreat deal, pulling her worsteds and threads about the while, sittingin idleness while she was working, just as Theodore Burton hadpredicted that he would do.
"I won't have you so idle, Harry," Mrs. Burton said to him one day."You know you ought to be at your office now." It must be admittedon behalf of Harry Clavering, that they who liked him, especiallywomen, were able to become intimate with him very easily. He hadcomfortable, homely ways about him, and did not habitually givehimself airs. He had become quite domesticated at the Burtons' houseduring the ten weeks that he had been in London, and knew his wayto Onslow Crescent almost too well. It may, perhaps, be surmisedcorrectly that he would not have gone there so frequently if Mrs.Theodore Burton had been an ugly woman.
"It's all her fault," said he, continuing to snip a piece of worstedwith a pair of scissors as he spoke. "She's too prudent by half."
"Poor Florence!"
"You can't but know that I should work three times as much if she hadgiven me a different answer. It stands to reason any man would workunder such circumstances as that. Not that I am idle, I believe. I doas much as any other man about the place."
"I won't have my worsted destroyed all the same. Theodore says thatFlorence is right."
"Of course he does; of course he'll say I'm wrong. I won't ask heragain,--that's all."
"Oh, Harry! don't say that. You know you'll ask her. You wouldto-morrow, if she were here."
"You don't know me, Cecilia, or you would not say so. When I havemade up my mind to a thing, I am generally firm about it. She saidsomething about two years, and I will not say a word to alter thatdecision. If it be altered, it shall be altered by her."
In the meantime he punished Florence by sending her no special answerto her letter. He wrote to her as usual; but he made no reference tohis last proposal, nor to her refusal. She had asked him to tell herthat he was not angry, but he would tell her nothing of the kind. Hetold her when and where and how he would meet her, and convey herfrom Stratton to Clavering; gave her some account of a play he hadseen; described a little dinner-party in Onslow Crescent; and toldher a funny story about Mr. Walliker and the office at the Adelphi.But he said no word, even in rebuke, as to her decision about theirmarriage. He intended that this should be felt to be severe, and tookpleasure in the pain that he would be giving. Florence, when sh
ereceived her letter, knew that he was sore, and understood thoroughlythe working of his mind. "I will comfort him when we are together,"she said to herself. "I will make him reasonable when I see him."It was not the way in which he expected that his anger would bereceived.
One day on his return home he found a card on his table whichsurprised him very much. It contained a name but no address, but overthe name there was a pencil memorandum, stating that the owner of thecard would call again on his return to London after Easter. The nameon the card was that of Count Pateroff. He remembered the name wellas soon as he saw it, though he had never thought of it since thesolitary occasion on which it had been mentioned to him. CountPateroff was the man who had been Lord Ongar's friend, and respectingwhom Lord Ongar had brought a false charge against his wife. Whyshould Count Pateroff call on him? Why was he in England? Whence hadhe learned the address in Bloomsbury Square? To that last question hehad no difficulty in finding an answer. Of course he must have heardit from Lady Ongar. Count Pateroff had now left London! Had he goneto Ongar Park? Harry Clavering's mind was instantly filled withsuspicion, and he became jealous in spite of Florence Burton. Couldit be that Lady Ongar, not yet four months a widow, was receiving ather house in the country this man with whose name her own had been sofatally joined? If so, what could he think of such behaviour? He wasvery angry. He knew that he was angry, but he did not at all knowthat he was jealous. Was he not, by her own declaration to him, heronly friend; and as such could he entertain such a suspicion withoutanger? "Her friend!" he said to himself. "Not if she has any dealingswhatever with that man after what she has told me of him!" Heremembered at last that perhaps the count might not be at Ongar Park;but he must, at any rate, have had some dealing with Lady Ongar orhe would not have known the address in Bloomsbury Square. "CountPateroff!" he said, repeating the name, "I shouldn't wonder if Ihave to quarrel with that man." During the whole of that night hewas thinking of Lady Ongar. As regarded himself, he knew that hehad nothing to offer to Lady Ongar but a brotherly friendship; but,nevertheless, it was an injury to him that she should be acquaintedintimately with any unmarried man but himself.
On the next day he was to go to Stratton, and in the morning a letterwas brought to him by the postman; a letter, or rather a very shortnote. Guildford was the postmark, and he knew at once that it wasfrom Lady Ongar.
DEAR MR. CLAVERING [the note said],--
I was so sorry to leave London without seeing you; I shall be back by the end of April, and am keeping on the same rooms. Come to me, if you can, on the evening of the 30th, after dinner. He at last bade Hermy to write and ask me to go to Clavering for the Easter week. Such a note! I'll show it you when we meet. Of course I declined.
But I write on purpose to tell you that I have begged Count Pateroff to see you. I have not seen him, but I have had to write to him about things that happened in Florence. He has come to England chiefly with reference to the affairs of Lord Ongar. I want you to hear his story. As far as I have known him he is a truth-telling man, though I do not know that I am able to say much more in his favour.
Ever yours, J. O.
When he had read this he was quite an altered man. See CountPateroff! Of course he would see him. What task could be morefitting for a friend than this, of seeing such a man under suchcircumstances. Before he left London he wrote a note for CountPateroff, to be given to the count by the people at the lodgingsshould he call during Harry's absence from London. In this heexplained that he would be at Clavering for a fortnight, butexpressed himself ready to come up to London at a day's notice shouldCount Pateroff be necessitated again to leave London before the daynamed.
As he went about his business that day, and as he journeyed down toStratton, he entertained much kinder ideas about Lady Ongar than hehad previously done since seeing Count Pateroff's card.
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