“If he found himself to be unhappy, he could go,” said Florence.
“Oh, yes; he could go if he were unhappy,” said Fanny. “That is, he could go if he pleased.”
Lady Clavering had come to the wedding; but no one else had been present from the great house. Sir Hugh, indeed, was not at home; but, as the rector truly observed, he might have been at home if he had so pleased. “But he is a man,” said the father to the son, “who always does a rude thing if it be in his power. For myself, I care nothing for him, as he knows. But he thinks that Mary would have liked to have seen him as the head of the family, and therefore he does not come. He has greater skill in making himself odious than any man I ever knew. As for her, they say he’s leading her a terrible life. And he’s becoming so stingy about money, too!”
“I hear that Archie is very heavy on him.”
“I don’t believe that he would allow any man to be heavy on him, as you call it. Archie has means of his own, and I suppose has not run through them yet. If Hugh has advanced him money, you may be sure that he has security. As for Archie, he will come to an end very soon, if what I hear is true. They tell me he is always at Newmarket, and that he always loses.”
But though Sir Hugh was thus uncourteous to the rector and to the rector’s daughter, he was so far prepared to be civil to his cousin Harry, that he allowed his wife to ask all the rectory family to dine up at the house, in honour of Harry’s sweetheart. Florence Burton was specially invited with Lady Clavering’s sweetest smile. Florence, of course, referred the matter to her hostess, but it was decided that they should all accept the invitation. It was given, personally, after the breakfast, and it is not always easy to decline invitations so given. It may, I think, be doubted whether any man or woman has a right to give an invitation in this way, and whether all invitations so given should not be null and void, from the fact of the unfair advantage that has been taken. The man who fires at a sitting bird is known to be no sportsman. Now, the dinner-giver who catches his guest in an unguarded moment, and bags him when he has had no chance to rise upon his wing, does fire at a sitting bird. In this instance, however, Lady Clavering’s little speeches were made only to Mrs. Clavering and to Florence. She said nothing personally to the rector, and he therefore might have escaped. But his wife talked him over.
“I think you should go for Harry’s sake,” said Mrs. Clavering.
“I don’t see what good it will do Harry.”
“It will show that you approve of the match.”
“I don’t approve or disapprove of it. He’s his own master.”
“But you do approve, you know, as you countenance it; and there cannot possibly be a sweeter girl than Florence Burton. We all like her, and I’m sure you seem to take to her thoroughly.”
“Take to her; yes, I take to her very well. She’s ladylike, and though she’s no beauty, she looks pretty, and is spirited. And I daresay she’s clever.”
“And so good.”
“If she’s good, that’s better than all. Only I don’t see what they’re to live on.”
“But as she is here, you will go with us to the great house?”
Mrs. Clavering never asked her husband anything in vain, and the rector agreed to go. He apologized for this afterwards to his son by explaining that he did it as a duty. “It will serve for six months,” he said. “If I did not go there about once in six months, there would be supposed to be a family quarrel, and that would be bad for the parish.”
Harry was to remain only a week at Clavering, and the dinner was to take place the evening before he went away. On that morning he walked all round the park with Florence—as he had before often walked with Julia—and took that occasion of giving her a full history of the Clavering family. “We none of us like my cousin Hugh,” he had said. “But she is at least harmless, and she means to be good-natured. She is very unlike her sister, Lady Ongar.”
“So I should suppose, from what you have told me.”
“Altogether an inferior being.”
“And she has only one child.”
“Only one—a boy now two years old. They say he’s anything but strong.”
“And Sir Hugh has one brother.”
“Yes; Archie Clavering. I think Archie is a worse fellow even than Hugh. He makes more attempts to be agreeable, but there is something in his eye which I always distrust. And then he is a man who does no good in the world to anybody.”
“He’s not married?”
“No; he’s not married, and I don’t suppose he ever will marry. It’s on the cards, Florence, that the future baronet may be—” Then she frowned on him, walked on quickly, and changed the conversation.
XI
Sir Hugh and His Brother Archie
There was a numerous gathering of Claverings in the drawing-room of the Great House when the family from the rectory arrived comprising three generations; for the nurse was in the room holding the heir in her arms. Mrs. Clavering and Fanny of course inspected the child at once, as they were bound to do, while Lady Clavering welcomed Florence Burton. Archie spoke a word or two to his uncle, and Sir Hugh vouchsafed to give one finger to his cousin Harry by way of shaking hands with him. Then there came a feeble squeak from the infant, and there was a cloud at once upon Sir Hugh’s brow. “Hermione,”
