“Say that you will come to us this evening,” said Burton. “Even if you have an engagement, put it off.”
“I have none,” said Harry.
“Then say that you will come to us, and all will be well.”
Harry understood of course that his compliance with this invitation would be taken as implying that all was right. It would be so easy to accept the invitation, and any other answer was so difficult! But yet he would not bring himself to tell the lie.
“Burton,” he said, “I am in trouble.”
“What is the trouble?” The man’s voice was now changed, and so was the glance of his eye. There was no expression of anger—none as yet; but the sweetness of his countenance was gone—a sweetness that was unusual to him, but which still was at his command when he needed it.
“I cannot tell you all here. If you will let me come to you this evening I will tell you everything—to you and to Cecilia too. Will you let me come?”
“Certainly. Will you dine with us?”
“No;—after dinner; when the children are in bed.” Then he went, leaving on the mind of Theodore Burton an impression that though something was much amiss, his mother had been wrong in her fears respecting Lady Ongar.
XXVII
Freshwater Gate
Count Pateroff, Sophie’s brother, was a man who, when he had taken a thing in hand, generally liked to carry it through. It may perhaps be said that most men are of this turn of mind; but the count was, I think, especially eager in this respect. And as he was not one who had many irons in the fire, who made either many little efforts, or any great efforts after things altogether beyond his reach, he was justified in expecting success. As to Archie’s courtship, anyone who really knew the man and the woman, and who knew anything of the nature of women in general, would have predicted failure for him. Even with Doodle’s aid he could not have a chance in the race. But when Count Pateroff entered himself for the same prize, those who knew him would not speak of his failure as a thing certain.
The prize was too great not to be attempted by so very prudent a gentleman. He was less impulsive in his nature than his sister, and did not open his eyes and talk with watering mouth of the seven thousands of pounds a year; but in his quiet way he had weighed and calculated all the advantages to be gained, had even ascertained at what rate he could insure the lady’s life, and had made himself certain that nothing in the deed of Lord Ongar’s marriage-settlement entailed any pecuniary penalty on his widow’s second marriage. Then he had gone down, as we know, to Ongar Park, and as he had walked from the lodge to the house and back again, he had looked around him complacently, and told himself that the place would do very well. For the English character, in spite of the pigheadedness of many Englishmen, he had—as he would have said himself—much admiration, and he thought that the life of a country gentleman, with a nice place of his own—with such a very nice place of his own as was Ongar Park—and so very nice an income, would suit him well in his declining years.
And he had certain advantages, certain aids towards his object, which had come to him from circumstances;—as, indeed, he had also certain disadvantages. He knew the lady, which was in itself much. He knew much of the lady’s history, and had that cognisance of the saddest circumstances of her life, which in itself creates an intimacy. It is not necessary now to go back to those scenes which had disfigured the last months of Lord Ongar’s life, but the reader will understand that what had then occurred gave the count a possible footing as a suitor. And the reader will also understand the disadvantages which had at this time already shown themselves in the lady’s refusal to see the count.
It may be thought that Sophie’s standing with Lady Ongar would be a great advantage to her brother; but I doubt whether the brother trusted either the honesty or the discretion of his sister. He would have been willing to purchase such assistance as she might give—not in Archie’s pleasant way, with banknotes hidden under his glove—but by acknowledgments for services to be turned into solid remuneration when the marriage should have taken place, had he not feared that Sophie might communicate the fact of such acknowledgments to the other lady—making her own bargain in doing so. He had calculated all this, and had come to the conclusion that he had better make no direct proposal to Sophie; and when Sophie made a direct proposal to him, pointing out to him in glowing language all the fine things which such a marriage would give him, he had hardly vouchsafed to her a word of answer. “Very well,” said Sophie to herself;—“very well. Then we both know what we are about.”
Sophie herself would have kept Lady Ongar from marrying anyone had she been able. Not even a brother’s gratitude would be so serviceable to her as the generous kindness of a devoted friend. That she might be able both to sell her services to a lover, and also to keep Julie from marrying, was a lucky combination of circumstances which did not occur to her till Archie came to her with the money in his glove. That complicated game she was now playing, and was aware that Harry Clavering was the great stumbling-block in her way. A woman even less clever than Sophie would have perceived that Lady Ongar was violently attached to Harry;
