A lawyer have told me—not a French lawyer, but an English—that somebody should pay me everything. He says the law would give it me. He have offered me the money himself—just to let him make an action. But I have said—No. No; Sophie will not have an action with her Julie. She would scorn that; and so the lawyer went away. But if my Julie will think of this, and will remember her Sophie—how much she have expended, and now at last there is nothing left. She must go and beg among her friends. And why? Because she have loved her Julie too well. You, who are so rich, would miss it not at all. What would two—three hundred pounds be to my Julie?
Shall I come to you? Say so; say so, and I will go at once, if I did crawl on my knees. Oh, what a joy to see my Julie! And do not think I will trouble you about money. No; your Sophie will be too proud for that. Not a word will I say, but to love you. Nothing will I do, but to print one kiss on my Julie’s forehead, and then to retire forever; asking God’s blessing for her dear head.
Lady Ongar, when she received this letter, was a little perplexed by it, not feeling quite sure in what way she might best answer it. It was the special severity of her position that there was no one to whom, in such difficulties, she could apply for advice. Of one thing she was quite sure—that, willingly, she would never again see her devoted Sophie. And she knew that the woman deserved no money from her; that she had deserved none, but had received much. Every assertion in her letter was false. No one had wished her to come, and the expense of her coming had been paid for her over and over again. Lady Ongar knew that she had money—and knew also that she would have had immediate recourse to law, if any lawyer would have suggested to her with a probability of success that he could get more for her. No doubt she had been telling her story to some attorney, in the hope that money might thus be extracted, and had been dragging her Julie’s name through the mud, telling all she knew of that wretched Florentine story. As to all that Lady Ongar had no doubt; and yet she wished to send the woman money!
There are services for which one is ready to give almost any amount of money payment—if only one can be sure that that money payment will be taken as sufficient recompence for the service in question. Sophie Gordeloup had been useful. She had been very disagreeable—but she had been useful. She had done things which nobody else could have done, and she had done her work well. That she had been paid for her work over and over again, there was no doubt; but Lady Ongar was willing to give her yet further payment, if only there might be an end of it. But she feared to do this, dreading the nature and cunning of the little woman—lest she should take such payment as an acknowledgment of services for which secret compensation must be made—and should then proceed to further threats. Thinking much of all this, Julie at last wrote to her Sophie as follows:—
Lady Ongar presents her compliments to Madame Gordeloup, and must decline to see Madame Gordeloup again after what has passed. Lady Ongar is very sorry to hear that Madame Gordeloup is in want of funds. Whatever assistance Lady Ongar might have been willing to afford, she now feels that she is prohibited from giving any by the allusion which Madame Gordeloup has made to legal advice. If Madame Gordeloup has legal demands on Lady Ongar which are said by a lawyer to be valid, Lady Ongar would strongly recommend Madame Gordeloup to enforce them.
This she wrote, acting altogether on her own judgment, and sent off by return of post. She almost wept at her own cruelty after the letter was gone, and greatly doubted her own discretion. But of whom could she have asked advice? Could she have told all the story of Madame Gordeloup to the rector or to the rector’s wife? The letter no doubt was a discreet letter; but she greatly doubted her own discretion, and when she received her Sophie’s rejoinder, she hardly dared to break the envelope.
Poor Sophie! Her Julie’s letter nearly broke her heart. For sincerity little credit was due to her;—but some little was perhaps due. That she should be called Madame Gordeloup, and have compliments presented to her by the woman—by the countess with whom and with whose husband she had been on such closely familiar terms, did in truth wound some tender feelings within her bosom. Such love as she had been able to give, she had given to her Julie. That she had always been willing to rob her Julie, to make a milch-cow of her Julie, to sell her Julie, to threaten her Julie, to quarrel with her Julie if aught might be done in that way—to expose her Julie; nay, to destroy her Julie if money was to be so made;—all this did not hinder her love. She loved her Julie, and was brokenhearted that her Julie should have written to her in such a strain.
But her feelings were much more acute when she came to perceive that she had damaged her own affairs by the hint of a menace which she had thrown out. Business is business, and must take precedence of all sentiment and
