Mrs. Henry Wood

“ Clara Lake was not one of your loud women, who like their wrongs to be proclaimed to the world, and punished accordingly. In her sensitive reticence, she dreaded their betrayal more than any earthly thing. So she rose from her knees, and lifted her head from the chair, where it had lain in utter abandonment of spirit, and smoothed her hair, and went out of her room again to disarm suspicion, and was her calm self once more. ”

“ Mrs. Chester threw off her widow's bonnet and black silk mantle. Her well-formed face was pale in general, but the hot August sun made it red now.
She was a little, restless woman, inclined to be stout, with shrewd grey eyes and brown hair, and a nose sharp at the end. The deep crape on her merino gown looked worn and shabby; her muslin collar and cuffs were tumbled. She told everybody she was twenty-eight; Mr. Lake knew her to be four-and-thirty.
"Such a mess it makes of one, travelling in this heat and dust!" ”

“ Lake walk out at the garden gate and up the road, all to avoid her. Why? She had committed no wrong--as she counted wrong, as the world counts it: never a woman less likely to commit that than Lady Ellis. She had but amused herself, and he the same; and she really could not understand why Mrs. Lake should make a fuss over it.
Mrs. Chester, meanwhile, seated with Clara, was in her most amiable mood. That the episode of Christmas-day had taken her aback far more than it had taken Lady Ellis, was indisputable; but she was one of those easy-going women who never retain unpleasant impressions long. ”

“ Mrs. Macpherson sat fanning herself at the window. She was a stout woman, comely, red-faced, and jolly; and the fire was large, throwing out a great heat. Her face and that of her pale thin husband's presented a very contrast. She wore a bright green silk gown, garnished with scarlet, and scarlet bows in her rich lace cap.
"I forgot my case, Betsy," said he, on entering.
"'Twouldn't be you, prefessor, if you didn't forget some'at," returned she, equably. "For a man who has had his head filled with learning, you be the greatest oaf I know." ”

“ It was daylight still, and Lady Ellis stood for a minute at the window, open to the evening's loveliness. The sun had set, but some of its golden brightness lingered yet in the sky. Lady Ellis leaned from the window and plucked a rose from a tree within reach. Mademoiselle stood near; Mary Anne sat down on the music stool, her back to the room and her eyes busied with an uninteresting page of music, striking a bar of it now and again.
"Are you fond of flowers, miladi?" asked the simple little Frenchwoman. "I think there's nothing so good hardly in the world." ”

“ Lady Ellis was alone with her netting. She wore a black silk gown and little cap of net, all the more coquettish for its simplicity, its plain lappets hanging behind. Her work proceeded slowly, and finally she let it fall on her knee as one utterly weary.
"What a life it is here!" she murmured in self-commune. "Say what they will, India is the paradise of women. Where means are in accordance; servants, dress, carriages, horses, incessant gaiety, it may be tolerable here; but where they are lacking--good heavens! how do people manage to exist?" ”

“ But the others, after a day spent at Guild, would jokingly allude in Clara's hearing to the soft hours spent together by him and Lady Ellis, and tell her she ought to keep her husband in better order. They meant nothing. Had Clara been there she might have thought far less of it than she was doing; incertitude always increases suspicion, just as jealousy makes the food it feeds on. So Mrs. Lake sat at home with her cough, and her increasing weakness, and her miserable torture; conscious of little save one great fact, that her husband was perpetually at Guild. ”

“ Richard turned his dark face on my lady, as if demanding whether Sinnett was not telling a lie; and Mr. Thornycroft began to cut the beef as fast as he could cut it.
"I did not anticipate that we should have friends with us," murmured the new mistress. She felt truly uncomfortable, really sorry for the contretemps; all eyes were turned upon her, following the dark condemning ones of Richard.
"We must make the best of our beef; there are worse misfortunes at sea," said Isaac, his good-natured voice breaking the silence. ”

“ Standing on the waste land near the plateau, in her pretty and becoming bonnet of delicate primrose and white, her Indian shawl folded gracefully round her, her dress looped, was Lady Ellis.
"Do you know, Mr. Thornycroft," she said, as he took her hand, "I have never been on the plateau. Will you take me?"
Mr. Thornycroft hesitated visibly. "It is not a place for a lady to go to," he said, after a pause.
"But why not? Mary Anne told me one day you objected to her going on it."
"I do. The real objection is the danger. ”

“ Thornycroft and his daughter, the gentleman's evident admiration of her, the tales she heard (perhaps exaggerated) of the style of living and the wealth at the Red Court, had set her mind a-longing. She thought often how desirable would be a visit there: what might it not lead to? The determination to effect it grew into a settled hope. It might almost have been called a prevision, as you will find from what came of it. Of all the ills that can possibly befal this life, Lady Ellis, perhaps from the circumstances of her early experience, regarded poverty as the most fatal. ”

“ Winterton, all of whom were fond of coming and of walking with Lady Ellis when they got the chance; and she would go and see. Pretty sophist! Poor Clara knew in her inmost heart that it was Robert Lake, and no other: instinct told her so. Had she given herself a moment's time for reflection, she would probably not have gone. To an honourable nature--and Clara Lake's was essentially such--the very idea of looking after even a recreant husband is abhorrent. But jealousy is the strongest passion that can assail the human heart, whether of man or woman. ”

“ Her father had liked play better than work; he and her mother, both, had a propensity to live beyond their income, to get into society that was above them, for they were not altogether gentlepeople. Extravagance, struggles, debts, pinching; all sorts of contrivances and care, outside show, meanness at home--such had been the experience of Angeline Finch, until some lucky chance took her to India as companion to a lady, and a still luckier introduced her to Sir George Ellis, an old man in his dotage. ”

“ Lake was in making himself agreeable to a pretty woman.
They were staying at the "Rose Inn," at Guild, this learned gentleman and his wife. Professor Macpherson (as he was frequently called) had come down on some mission connected with geology. He was a very wire of a man, tall and thin as a lamp-post, exceedingly near-sighted, even in his silver-rimmed spectacles that he constantly wore; a meek, gentle, simple-minded man, whose coats and hats were threadbare, a very child in the ways of the world; as these excessively abstruse spirits are apt to be. ”

“ Chester, and--and repeat it, should you think it might be acceptable after I am dead. Should anybody in the world have injured me, intentionally or unintentionally, I give them my free and full forgiveness, as I hope to be myself forgiven. I trust we shall meet in Heaven; you, and I, and Lady Ellis, and all the world, and live together in happy bliss for ever. ”

“ Heavily lay the shadow of the past upon Robert Hunter. The drooping form of his loving and neglected wife, bright with hope once, mouldering in her grave now, was in his mind always; the years that he had wasted in frivolity, the money he had recklessly spent. Oh, the simpleton he was--as he thought now, looking back in his repentance. When he had become master of a good profession, why did he abandon it because a little money was left him? To become a gentleman amongst gentlemen, forsooth; to put away the soiling of his hands; to live a life of vanity and indolence. ”

“ And I don't much think Lady Ellis liked my going."
"My dear Clara, you must not take up vague fancies," spoke Mrs. Chester, after a pause. "One would think you were growing jealous, as the boys and girls do. Nothing can be in worse taste for a lady, even when there may be apparent grounds for it. In this case the very thought would be absurd; Lady Ellis is ten years older than your husband."
And so, what with one thing and another, Clara was subdued to passive quietness, and Mr. Lake and Lady Ellis had it all their own way. ”

“ Thornycroft, leaning there on the railings, was revolving a question: should he ask Lady Ellis to come to the Red Court as dame de compagnie?--or as his wife?
"Of the two, a wife would be less dangerous than a companion," thought Justice Thornycroft, giving the light railings a shake with his strong hand "I'm not dying for either; but then--there's Mary Anne." ”

“ They settled down in Katterley Lodge; he to idleness, and it brings danger sometimes; she to happiness, which she believed in as real, as a bliss that would last for ever. If there were a man more perfect than other men on earth, she believed her husband to be that man. A charming confidence, a safeguard for a wife's heart; but sometimes the trust gets rudely awakened. One great grief had come to Clara Lake--she lost her baby ”

“ In that dull country house, where there was no noise or excitement but what arose from its children, Lady Ellis wanted something to make the time pass.
Mr. Lake was perfectly ready to meet her halfway. One of those men who, wife or no wife, consider a flirtation with a pretty woman--and with one not pretty, for the matter of that--a legitimate occupation in their idle life, he responded to her advances gallantly. ”

“ Anna, with her quick ear of discernment--at work apart from the rest, with very little benefit of the candles' light--turned round and looked at Clara, as if something in the tone were unnatural; disguised. But she said nothing. Clara seemed absorbed in the fire.
Light, quick steps were heard on the stairs, and Robert Lake dashed in, a gay smile on his face. "Pretty housekeepers you are! The drawing-room fire's gone out."
"The fire gone out!" repeated Mrs. Chester, in consternation. "What will Lady Ellis say? Clara, dear, what could you have been thinking of? You should have rung for coals." ”

“ She moved closer to him and spoke deprecatingly, "Do not be angry with me, Robert; I believe I am doing right to remain away. I must remain."
"Well, of all the simpletons that ever walked, you are about the worst," was his complimentary rejoinder as he caught up his gloves. "Good-bye, Clary," he added, stooping to kiss her.
"Oh, Robert, I hope you will come back safely!" she said, clinging to him as if she feared he was going away for ever; and the tone of her voice, full of mournful wailing, struck upon the ear of her husband. ”

“ She saw the flirtation (again I must apologize for the name) grow into sentiment, if not to passion; she saw it lapse into concealment--which is a very bad sign. And now that October had come in and was passing, Clara Lake's whole inward life was one scene of pain, of conflict, of wild jealousy preying upon her very heartstrings. She had loved her husband with all the fervour of a deeply imaginative nature ”

“ Lady Ellis naturally looked out, and saw a man pacing along the border of the plateau. The superstition said to be connected with the place came into her mind, but did not stay there.
"You were here in the time of Mrs. Thornycroft, mademoiselle?"
"Ah, yes; she did not die for a long while after I came."
"She had years of ill health, I have heard. What was the matter with her?"
"It was but weakness, as we all thought," answered the Frenchwoman. "There was nothing to be told; no disease to be found.. She got thinner every week, and month, and year; like one who fades away. ”

“ Chester laughed. The simple professor, being "above" confessing anything of that sort, was a ludicrous idea. She attempted to describe him as he was.
"My dear Lady Ellis, you can have no notion of his simplicity--his utter unworldliness. In all that relates to learning and that sort of thing he is of the very keenest intellect; sharp; but in social life he is just a child. ”

“ Lady Ellis shrugged her shoulders. "She has no style. And she seems as much wrapt up in her husband as though they had been married yesterday."
"Why should she not be?" bluntly asked Miss Jupp. "I only hope when I am married--if ever that's to be--that I and my husband shall be as happy and united as they are." ”