Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (857 page)

“ ‘Erected to his memory by his grieving widow,’ “ he said, reading the legend on the glass.  ‘I didn’t know that he had a wife; I’ve never seen her.’

‘O yes, you must have, Icenway; only you forget.’ replied his lady blandly.  ‘But she didn’t live with him, and was never seen visiting him, because there were differences between them; which, as is usually the case, makes her all the more sorry now.’

‘And go ruining herself by this expensive ruby-and-azure glass-design.’

‘She is not poor, they say.’

As Lord Icenway grew older he became crustier and crustier, and whenever he set eyes on his wife’s boy by her other husband he would burst out morosely, saying,

“Tis a very odd thing, my lady, that you could oblige your first husband, and couldn’t oblige me.’

‘Ah! if I had only thought of it sooner!’ she murmured.

‘What?’ said he.

‘Nothing, dearest,’ replied Lady Icenway.

The Colonel was the first to comment upon the Churchwarden’s tale, by saying that the fate of the poor fellow was rather a hard one.

The gentleman-tradesman could not see that his fate was at all too hard for him.  He was legally nothing to her, and he had served her shamefully.  If he had been really her husband it would have stood differently.

The Bookworm remarked that Lord Icenway seemed to have been a very unsuspicious man, with which view a fat member with a crimson face agreed.  It was true his wife was a very close-mouthed personage, which made a difference.  If she had spoken out recklessly her lord might have been suspicious enough, as in the case of that lady who lived at Stapleford Park in their great-grandfathers’ time.  Though there, to be sure, considerations arose which made her husband view matters with much philosophy.

A few of the members doubted the possibility of this in such cases.

The crimson man, who was a retired maltster of comfortable means, ventru, and short in stature, cleared his throat, blew off his superfluous breath, and proceeded to give the instance before alluded to of such possibility, first apologizing for his heroine’s lack of a title, it never having been his good fortune to know many of the nobility.  To his style of narrative the following is only an approximation.

Lady Mottisfont

Dame the Fourth

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 thee motion 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 humor — ”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 foreknowing. 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 wagoners. 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.”

“O 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 learned 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.

“O; 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.

Some weeks after this time Sir Ashley Mottisfont sat looking fixedly at his lady for many moments. He said:

“It might have been better for Dorothy if the Countess had taken her. She is so wealthy in comparison with ourselves, and could have ushered the girl into the great world more effectually than we ever shall be able to do.”

“The Contessa take Dorothy?” said Lady Mottisfont, with a start. “What — was she the lady who wished to adopt her?”

“Yes; she was staying at Bath when Lawyer Gayton wrote to me.”

“But how do you know all this, Ashley?”

He showed a little hesitation. “Oh, I’ve seen her, he says. “You know, she drives to the meet sometimes, though she does not ride; and she has informed me that she was the lady who inquired of Gayton.”

“You have talked to her as well as seen her, then?”

“O yes, several times; everybody has.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” says his lady. “I had quite forgotten to call upon her. I’ll go tomorrow, or soon. . . . But I can’t think, Ashley, how you can say that it might have been better for Dorothy to have gone to her; she is so much our own now that I cannot admit any such conjectures as those, even in jest.” Her eyes reproached him so eloquently that Sir Ashley Mottisfont did not answer.

Lady Mottisfont did not hunt any more than the Anglo-Italian Countess did; indeed, she had become so absorbed in household matters and in Dorothy’s well-being that she had no mind to waste a minute on mere enjoyments. As she had said, to talk coolly of what might have been the best destination in days past, for a child to whom they had become so attached seemed quite barbarous, and she could not understand how her husband should consider the point so abstractedly; for, as will probably have been guessed, Lady Mottisfont long before this time, if she had not done so at the very beginning, divined Sir Ashley’s true relation to Dorothy. But the Baronet’s wife was so discreetly meek and mild that she never told him of her surmise, and took what Heaven had sent her without cavil, her generosity in this respect having been bountifully rewarded by the new life she found in her love for the little girl.

Her husband recurred to the same uncomfortable subject when, a few days later, they were speaking of travelling abroad. He said that it was almost a pity, if they thought of going, that they had not fallen in with the Countess’s wish. That lady had told him that she had met Dorothy walking with her nurse, and that she had never seen a child she liked so well.