“I hope Hermy is well?” she said.
“Pretty well, thank you. She is rather lonely since she lost her poor little boy, and would be very glad if you would go to her.”
“I cannot do that; but if she would come to me I should be delighted.”
“You see it would not suit her to be in London so soon after Hughy’s death.”
“I am not bound to London. I would go anywhere else—except to Clavering.”
“You never go to Ongar Park, I am told.”
“I have been there.”
“But they say you do not intend to go again.”
“Not at present, certainly. Indeed, I do not suppose I shall ever go there. I do not like the place.”
“That’s just what they have told me. It is about that—partly—that I want to speak to you. If you don’t like the place, why shouldn’t you sell your interest in it back to the family? They’d give you more than the value for it.”
“I do not know that I should care to sell it.”
“Why not, if you don’t mean to use the house? I might as well explain at once what it is that has been said to me. John Courton, you know, is acting as guardian for the young earl, and they don’t want to keep up so large a place as the Castle. Ongar Park would just suit Mrs. Courton,”—Mrs. Courton was the widowed mother of the young earl—“and they would be very happy to buy your interest.”
“Would not such a proposition come best through a lawyer?” said Lady Ongar.
“The fact is this—they think they have been a little hard on you.”
“I have never accused them.”
“But they feel it themselves, and they think that you might take it perhaps amiss if they were to send you a simple message through an attorney. Courton told me that he would not have allowed any such proposition to be made, if you had seemed disposed to use the place. They wish to be civil, and all that kind of thing.”
“Their civility or incivility is indifferent to me,” said Julia.
“But why shouldn’t you take the money?”
“The money is equally indifferent to me.”
“You mean then to say that you won’t listen to it? Of course they can’t make you part with the place if you wish to keep it.”
“Not more than they can make you sell Clavering Park. I do not, however, wish to be uncivil, and I will let you know through my lawyer what I think about it. All such matters are best managed by lawyers.”
After that Sir Hugh said nothing further about Ongar Park. He was well aware, from the tone in which Lady Ongar answered him, that she was averse to talk to him on that subject; but he was not conscious that his presence was otherwise disagreeable to her, or that she would resent any interference from him on any subject because he had been cruel to her. So after a little while he began again about Hermione. As the world had determined upon acquitting Lady Ongar, it would be convenient to him that the two sisters should be again intimate, especially as Julia was a rich woman. His wife did not like Clavering Park, and he certainly did not like Clavering Park himself. If he could once get the house shut up, he might manage to keep it shut for some years to come. His wife was now no more than a burden to him, and it would suit him well to put off the burden on to his sister-in-law’s shoulders. It was not that he intended to have his wife altogether dependent on another person, but he thought that if they two were established together, in the first instance merely as a summer arrangement, such establishment might be made to assume some permanence. This would be very pleasant to him. Of course he would pay a portion of the expense—as small a portion as might be possible—but such a portion as might enable him to live with credit before the world.
“I wish I could think that you and Hermy might be together while I am absent,” he said.
“I shall be very happy to have her if she will come to me,” Julia replied.
“What—here, in London? I am not quite sure that she wishes to come up to London at present.”
“I have never understood that she had any objection to being in town,” said Lady Ongar.
“Not formerly, certainly; but now, since her boy’s death—”
“Why should his death make more difference to her than to you?” To this question Sir Hugh made no reply. “If you are thinking of society, she could be nowhere safer from any such necessity than with me. I never go out anywhere. I have never dined out, or even spent an evening in company since Lord Ongar’s death. And no one would come here to disturb her.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“I don’t quite know what you did mean. From different causes she and I are left pretty nearly equally without friends.”
“Hermione is not left without friends,” said Sir Hugh with a tone of offence.
“Were she not, she would not want to come to me. Your society is in London, to which she does not come, or in other country-houses than your own, to which she is not taken. She lives altogether at Clavering, and there is no one there, except your uncle.”
“Whatever neighbourhood there is she has—just like other women.”
“Just like some other women, no doubt. I shall remain in town for another month, and after that I shall go somewhere; I don’t much care where. If Hermy will come to me as my guest I shall be most happy to have her. And the longer she will stay with me the better. Your coming home need make no difference, I suppose.”
There was a keenness of reproach in her tone as she spoke, which even he could not but feel and acknowledge. He was very thick-skinned to such reproaches, and would have left this
