Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (757 page)

Her yearning was so strong, that at length it seemed to her that she could not live without announcing herself to him as his mother.  Come what might, she would do it: late as it was, she would have him away from that woman whom she began to hate with the fierceness of a deserted heart, for having taken her place as the mother of her only child.  She felt confidently enough that her son would only too gladly exchange a cottage-mother for one who was a peeress of the realm.  Being now, in her widowhood, free to come and go as she chose, without question from anybody, Lady Stonehenge started next day for the little town where Milly yet lived, still in her robes of sable for the lost lover of her youth.

‘He is
my
son,’ said the Marchioness, as soon as she was alone in the cottage with Milly.  ‘You must give him back to me, now that I am in a position in which I can defy the world’s opinion.  I suppose he comes to see you continually?’

‘Every month since he returned from the war, my lady.  And sometimes he stays two or three days, and takes me about seeing sights everywhere!’  She spoke with quiet triumph.

‘Well, you will have to give him up,’ said the Marchioness calmly.  ‘It shall not be the worse for you — you may see him when you choose.  I am going to avow my first marriage, and have him with me.’

‘You forget that there are two to be reckoned with, my lady.  Not only me, but himself.’

‘That can be arranged.  You don’t suppose that he wouldn’t — ’  But not wishing to insult Milly by comparing their positions, she said, ‘He is my own flesh and blood, not yours.’

‘Flesh and blood’s nothing!’ said Milly, flashing with as much scorn as a cottager could show to a peeress, which, in this case, was not so little as may be supposed.  ‘But I will agree to put it to him, and let him settle it for himself.’

‘That’s all I require,’ said Lady Stonehenge.  ‘You must ask him to come, and I will meet him here.’

The soldier was written to, and the meeting took place.  He was not so much astonished at the disclosure of his parentage as Lady Stonehenge had been led to expect, having known for years that there was a little mystery about his birth.  His manner towards the Marchioness, though respectful, was less warm than she could have hoped.  The alternatives as to his choice of a mother were put before him.  His answer amazed and stupefied her.

‘No, my lady,’ he said.  ‘Thank you much, but I prefer to let things be as they have been.  My father’s name is mine in any case.  You see, my lady, you cared little for me when I was weak and helpless; why should I come to you now I am strong?  She, dear devoted soul [pointing to Milly], tended me from my birth, watched over me, nursed me when I was ill, and deprived herself of many a little comfort to push me on.  I cannot love another mother as I love her.  She
is
my mother, and I will always be her son!’  As he spoke he put his manly arm round Milly’s neck, and kissed her with the tenderest affection.

The agony of the poor Marchioness was pitiable.  ‘You kill me!’ she said, between her shaking sobs.  ‘Cannot you — love — me — too?’

‘No, my lady.  If I must say it, you were ashamed of my poor father, who was a sincere and honest man; therefore, I am ashamed of you.’

Nothing would move him; and the suffering woman at last gasped, ‘Cannot — oh, cannot you give one kiss to me — as you did to her?  It is not much — it is all I ask — all!’

‘Certainly,’ he replied.

He kissed her coldly, and the painful scene came to an end.  That day was the beginning of death to the unfortunate Marchioness of Stonehenge.  It was in the perverseness of her human heart that his denial of her should add fuel to the fire of her craving for his love.  How long afterwards she lived I do not know with any exactness, but it was no great length of time.  That anguish that is sharper than a serpent’s tooth wore her out soon.  Utterly reckless of the world, its ways, and its opinions, she allowed her story to become known; and when the welcome end supervened (which, I grieve to say, she refused to lighten by the consolations of religion), a broken heart was the truest phrase in which to sum up its cause.

* * * * *

The rural dean having concluded, some observations upon his tale were made in due course.  The sentimental member said that Lady Caroline’s history afforded a sad instance of how an honest human affection will become shamefaced and mean under the frost of class-division and social prejudices.  She probably deserved some pity; though her offspring, before he grew up to man’s estate, had deserved more.  There was no pathos like the pathos of childhood, when a child found itself in a world where it was not wanted, and could not understand the reason why.  A tale by the speaker, further illustrating the same subject, though with different results from the last, naturally followed.

DAME THE FOURTH — LADY MOTTISFONT

By the Sentimental Member

Of all the romantic towns in Wessex, Wintoncester is probably the most convenient for meditative people to live in; since there you have a cathedral with a nave so long that it affords space in which to walk and summon your remoter moods without continually turning on your heel, or seeming to do more than take an afternoon stroll under cover from the rain or sun.  In an uninterrupted course of nearly three hundred steps eastward, and again nearly three hundred steps westward amid those magnificent tombs, you can, for instance, compare in the most leisurely way the dry dustiness which ultimately pervades the persons of kings and bishops with the damper dustiness that is usually the final shape of commoners, curates, and others who take their last rest out of doors.  Then, if you are in love, you can, by sauntering in the chapels and behind the episcopal chantries with the bright-eyed one, so steep and mellow your ecstasy in the solemnities around, that it will assume a rarer and finer tincture, even more grateful to the understanding, if not to the senses, than that form of the emotion which arises from such companionship in spots where all is life, and growth, and fecundity.

It was in this solemn place, whither they had withdrawn from the sight of relatives on one cold day in March, that Sir Ashley Mottisfont asked in marriage, as his second wife, Philippa, the gentle daughter of plain Squire Okehall.  Her life had been an obscure one thus far; while Sir Ashley, though not a rich man, had a certain distinction about him; so that everybody thought what a convenient, elevating, and, in a word, blessed match it would be for such a supernumerary as she.  Nobody thought so more than the amiable girl herself.  She had been smitten with such affection for him that, when she walked the cathedral aisles at his side on the before-mentioned day, she did not know that her feet touched hard pavement; it seemed to her rather that she was floating in space.  Philippa was an ecstatic, heart-thumping maiden, and could not understand how she had deserved to have sent to her such an illustrious lover, such a travelled personage, such a handsome man.

When he put the question, it was in no clumsy language, such as the ordinary bucolic county landlords were wont to use on like quivering occasions, but as elegantly as if he had been taught it in Enfield’s
Speaker
.  Yet he hesitated a little — for he had something to add.

‘My pretty Philippa,’ he said (she was not very pretty by the way), ‘I have, you must know, a little girl dependent upon me: a little waif I found one day in a patch of wild oats [such was this worthy baronet’s humour] when I was riding home: a little nameless creature, whom I wish to take care of till she is old enough to take care of herself; and to educate in a plain way.  She is only fifteen months old, and is at present in the hands of a kind villager’s wife in my parish.  Will you object to give some attention to the little thing in her helplessness?’

It need hardly be said that our innocent young lady, loving him so deeply and joyfully as she did, replied that she would do all she could for the nameless child; and, shortly afterwards, the pair were married in the same cathedral that had echoed the whispers of his declaration, the officiating minister being the Bishop himself; a venerable and experienced man, so well accomplished in uniting people who had a mind for that sort of experiment, that the couple, with some sense of surprise, found themselves one while they were still vaguely gazing at each other as two independent beings.

After this operation they went home to Deansleigh Park, and made a beginning of living happily ever after.  Lady Mottisfont, true to her promise, was always running down to the village during the following weeks to see the baby whom her husband had so mysteriously lighted on during his ride home — concerning which interesting discovery she had her own opinion; but being so extremely amiable and affectionate that she could have loved stocks and stones if there had been no living creatures to love, she uttered none of her thoughts.  The little thing, who had been christened Dorothy, took to Lady Mottisfont as if the baronet’s young wife had been her mother; and at length Philippa grew so fond of the child that she ventured to ask her husband if she might have Dorothy in her own home, and bring her up carefully, just as if she were her own.  To this he answered that, though remarks might be made thereon, he had no objection; a fact which was obvious, Sir Ashley seeming rather pleased than otherwise with the proposal.

After this they lived quietly and uneventfully for two or three years at Sir Ashley Mottisfont’s residence in that part of England, with as near an approach to bliss as the climate of this country allows.  The child had been a godsend to Philippa, for there seemed no great probability of her having one of her own: and she wisely regarded the possession of Dorothy as a special kindness of Providence, and did not worry her mind at all as to Dorothy’s possible origin.  Being a tender and impulsive creature, she loved her husband without criticism, exhaustively and religiously, and the child not much otherwise.  She watched the little foundling as if she had been her own by nature, and Dorothy became a great solace to her when her husband was absent on pleasure or business; and when he came home he looked pleased to see how the two had won each other’s hearts.  Sir Ashley would kiss his wife, and his wife would kiss little Dorothy, and little Dorothy would kiss Sir Ashley, and after this triangular burst of affection Lady Mottisfont would say, ‘Dear me — I forget she is not mine!’

‘What does it matter?’ her husband would reply.  ‘Providence is fore-knowing.  He has sent us this one because he is not intending to send us one by any other channel.’

Their life was of the simplest.  Since his travels the baronet had taken to sporting and farming; while Philippa was a pattern of domesticity.  Their pleasures were all local.  They retired early to rest, and rose with the cart-horses and whistling waggoners.  They knew the names of every bird and tree not exceptionally uncommon, and could foretell the weather almost as well as anxious farmers and old people with corns.

One day Sir Ashley Mottisfont received a letter, which he read, and musingly laid down on the table without remark.

‘What is it, dearest?’ asked his wife, glancing at the sheet.

‘Oh, it is from an old lawyer at Bath whom I used to know.  He reminds me of something I said to him four or five years ago — some little time before we were married — about Dorothy.’

‘What about her?’

‘It was a casual remark I made to him, when I thought you might not take kindly to her, that if he knew a lady who was anxious to adopt a child, and could insure a good home to Dorothy, he was to let me know.’

‘But that was when you had nobody to take care of her,’ she said quickly.  ‘How absurd of him to write now!  Does he know you are married?  He must, surely.’

‘Oh yes!’

He handed her the letter.  The solicitor stated that a widow-lady of position, who did not at present wish her name to be disclosed, had lately become a client of his while taking the waters, and had mentioned to him that she would like a little girl to bring up as her own, if she could be certain of finding one of good and pleasing disposition; and, the better to insure this, she would not wish the child to be too young for judging her qualities.  He had remembered Sir Ashley’s observation to him a long while ago, and therefore brought the matter before him.  It would be an excellent home for the little girl — of that he was positive — if she had not already found such a home.

‘But it is absurd of the man to write so long after!’ said Lady Mottisfont, with a lumpiness about the back of her throat as she thought how much Dorothy had become to her.  ‘I suppose it was when you first — found her — that you told him this?’

‘Exactly — it was then.’

He fell into thought, and neither Sir Ashley nor Lady Mottisfont took the trouble to answer the lawyer’s letter; and so the matter ended for the time.

One day at dinner, on their return from a short absence in town, whither they had gone to see what the world was doing, hear what it was saying, and to make themselves generally fashionable after rusticating for so long — on this occasion, I say, they learnt from some friend who had joined them at dinner that Fernell Hall — the manorial house of the estate next their own, which had been offered on lease by reason of the impecuniosity of its owner — had been taken for a term by a widow lady, an Italian Contessa, whose name I will not mention for certain reasons which may by and by appear.  Lady Mottisfont expressed her surprise and interest at the probability of having such a neighbour.  ‘Though, if I had been born in Italy, I think I should have liked to remain there,’ she said.

‘She is not Italian, though her husband was,’ said Sir Ashley.

‘Oh, you have heard about her before now?’

‘Yes; they were talking of her at Grey’s the other evening.  She is English.’  And then, as her husband said no more about the lady, the friend who was dining with them told Lady Mottisfont that the Countess’s father had speculated largely in East-India Stock, in which immense fortunes were being made at that time; through this his daughter had found herself enormously wealthy at his death, which had occurred only a few weeks after the death of her husband.  It was supposed that the marriage of an enterprising English speculator’s daughter to a poor foreign nobleman had been matter of arrangement merely.  As soon as the Countess’s widowhood was a little further advanced she would, no doubt, be the mark of all the schemers who came near her, for she was still quite young.  But at present she seemed to desire quiet, and avoided society and town.