“Who will do so? Hugh? Oh, Hermione, how can you speak in such a way?”
“He scolded me before because my poor darling was not strong. My darling! How could I help it? And he scolded me because there was none other but he. He will turn me out altogether now. Oh, Mrs. Clavering, you do not know how hard he is.”
Anything was better than this, and therefore Mrs. Clavering asked the poor woman to take her into the room where the little body lay in its little cot. If she could induce the mother to weep for the child, even that would be better than this hard persistent fear as to what her husband would say and do. So they both went and stood together over the little fellow whose short sufferings had thus been brought to an end. “My poor dear, what can I say to comfort you?” Mrs. Clavering, as she asked this, knew well that no comfort could be spoken in words; but—if she could only make the sufferer weep!
“Comfort!” said the mother. “There is no comfort now, I believe, in anything. It is long since I knew any comfort;—not since Julia went.”
“Have you written to Julia?”
“No; I have written to no one. I cannot write. I feel as though if it were to bring him back again I could not write of it. My boy! my boy! my boy!” But still there was not a tear in her eye.
“I will write to Julia,” said Mrs. Clavering; “and I will read to you my letter.”
“No, do not read it me. What is the use? He has made her quarrel with me. Julia cares nothing now for me, or for my angel. Why should she care? When she came home we would not see her. Of course she will not care. Who is there that will care for me?”
“Do not I care for you, Hermione?”
“Yes, because you are here; because of the nearness of the houses. If you lived far away you would not care for me. It is just the custom of the thing.” There was something so true in this that Mrs. Clavering could make no answer to it. Then they turned to go back into the sitting-room, and as they did so Lady Clavering lingered behind for a moment; but when she was again with Mrs. Clavering her cheek was still dry.
“He will be at the station at nine,” said Lady Clavering. “They must send the brougham for him, or the dogcart. He will be very angry if he is made to come home in the fly from the public-house.” Then the elder lady left the room and gave orders that Sir Hugh should be met by his carriage. What must the wife think of her husband, when she feared that he would be angered by little matters at such a time as this! “Do you think it will make him very unhappy?” Lady Clavering asked.
“Of course it will make him unhappy. How should it be otherwise?”
“He had said so often that the child would die. He will have got used to the fear.”
“His grief will be as fresh now as though he had never thought so, and never said so.”
“He is so hard; and then he has such will, such power. He will thrust it off from him and determine that it shall not oppress him. I know him so well.”
“We should all make some exertion like that in our sorrow, trusting to God’s kindness to relieve us. You too, Hermione, should determine also; but not yet, my dear. At first it is better to let sorrow have its way.”
“But he will determine at once. You remember when Meeny went.” Meeny had been a little girl who had been born before the boy, and who had died when little more than twelve months old. “He did not expect that; but then he only shook his head, and went out of the room. He has never spoken to me one word of her since that. I think he has forgotten Meeny altogether—even that she was ever here.”
“He cannot forget the boy who was his heir.”
“Ah, that is where it is. He will say words to me which would make you weep if you could hear them. Yes, my darling was his heir. Archie will marry now, and will have children, and his boy will be the heir. There will be more division and more quarrels, for Hugh will hate his brother now.”
“I do not understand why.”
“Because he is so hard. It is a pity he should ever have married, for he wants nothing that a wife can do for him. He wanted a boy to come after him in the estate, and now that glory has been taken from him. Mrs. Clavering, I often wish that I could die.”
It would be bootless here to repeat the words of wise and loving counsel with which the elder of the two ladies endeavoured to comfort the younger, and to make her understand what were the duties which still remained to her, and which, if they were rightly performed, would, in their performance, soften the misery of her lot. Lady Clavering listened with that dull, useless attention which on such occasions sorrow always gives to the prudent counsels of friendship; but she was thinking ever and always of her husband, and watching the moment of his expected return. In her heart she wished that he might not come on that evening. At last, at half-past nine, she exerted herself to send away her visitor.
“He will be here soon, if he comes tonight,” Lady Clavering said, “and it will be better that he should find me alone.”
“Will it be better?”
“Yes, yes. Cannot you see how he would frown and shake his head if you were here? I would sooner be alone when he comes. Good night.
