“That is nonsense,” said her sister, fretfully.
“There will be a difference in income certainly,” said Mrs. Clavering, “but I do not see that that need create any uncomfortable feeling.”
“Only one doesn’t like to be dependent,” said Hermione.
“You shall not be asked to give up any of your independence,” said Julia, with a smile—a melancholy smile, that gave but little sign of pleasantness within. Then on a sudden her face became stern and hard. “The fact is,” she said, “I do not intend to keep Lord Ongar’s money.”
“Not to keep your income!” said Hermione.
“No;—I will give it back to them—or at least the greater part of it. Why should I keep it?”
“It is your own,” said Mrs. Clavering.
“Yes; legally it is my own. I know that. And when there was some question whether it should not be disputed I would have fought for it to the last shilling. Somebody—I suppose it was the lawyer—wanted to keep from me the place in Surrey. I told them then that I would not abandon my right to an inch of it. But they yielded—and now I have given them back the house.”
“You have given it back!” said her sister.
“Yes;—I have said they may have it. It is of no use to me. I hate the place.”
“You have been very generous,” said Mrs. Clavering.
“But that will not affect your income,” said Hermione.
“No;—that would not affect my income.” Then she paused, not knowing how to go on with the story of her purpose.
“If I may say so, Lady Ongar,” said Mrs. Clavering, “I would not, if I were you, take any steps in so important a matter without advice.”
“Who is there that can advise me? Of course the lawyer tells me that I ought to keep it all. It is his business to give such advice as that. But what does he know of what I feel? How can he understand me? How, indeed, can I expect that anyone shall understand me?”
“But it is possible that people should misunderstand you,” said Mrs. Clavering.
“Exactly. That is just what he says. But, Mrs. Clavering, I care nothing for that. I care nothing for what anybody says or thinks. What is it to me what they say?”
“I should have thought it was everything,” said her sister.
“No—it is nothing;—nothing at all.” Then she was again silent, and was unable to express herself. She could not bring herself to declare in words that self-condemnation of her own conduct which was now weighing so heavily upon her. It was not that she wished to keep back her own feelings, either from her sister or from Mrs. Clavering; but that the words in which to express them were wanting to her.
“And have they accepted the house?” Mrs. Clavering asked.
“They must accept it. What else can they do? They cannot make me call it mine if I do not choose. If I refuse to take the income which Mr. Courton’s lawyer pays in to my bankers’, they cannot compel me to have it.”
“But you are not going to give that up too?” said her sister.
“I am. I will not have his money—not more than enough to keep me from being a scandal to his family. I will not have it. It is a curse to me, and has been from the first. What right have I to all that money, because—because—because—” She could not finish her sentence, but turned away from them, and walked by herself to the window.
Lady Clavering looked at Mrs. Clavering as though she thought that her sister was mad. “Do you understand her?” said Lady Clavering in a whisper.
“I think I do,” said the other. “I think I know what is passing in her mind.” Then she followed Lady Ongar across the room, and taking her gently by the arm tried to comfort her—to comfort her, and to argue with her as to the rashness of that which she proposed to do. She endeavoured to explain to the poor woman how it was that she should at this moment be wretched, and anxious to do that which, if done, would put it out of her power afterwards to make herself useful in the world. It shocked the prudence of Mrs. Clavering—this idea of abandoning money, the possession of which was questioned by no one. “They do not want it, Lady Ongar,” she said.
“That has nothing to do with it,” answered the other.
“And nobody has any suspicion but what it is honourably and fairly your own.”
“But does anybody ever think how I got it?” said Lady Ongar, turning sharply round upon Mrs. Clavering. “You—you—you—do you dare to tell me what you think of the way in which it became mine? Could you bear it, if it had become yours after such a fashion? I cannot bear it, and I will not.” She was now speaking with so much violence that her sister was awed into silence, and Mrs. Clavering herself found a difficulty in answering her.
“Whatever may have been the past,” said she, “the question now is how to do the best for the future.”
“I had hoped,” continued Lady Ongar without noticing what was said to her, “I had hoped to make everything straight by giving his money to another. You know to whom I mean, and so does Hermy. I thought, when I returned, that bad as I had been I might still do some good in the world. But it is as they tell us in the sermons. One cannot make good come out of evil. I have done evil, and nothing but evil has come from the evil which I have done. Nothing but evil will come from it. As for being useful in the world—I know of what use I am! When women hear how wretched I have been they
