The Author's Daughter/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
LADY EVELINE'S SECOND MARRIAGE.
Lady Eveline's parents and her aunt Lady Gower flattered themselves that, now she was fairly married, the love of a wife would naturally waken to a man who had no vices and few faults that they could see—who was disposed to be indulgent to her and proud of her. But people want a great deal of love or a great deal of prudence to begin matrimony upon, and poor Eveline had neither. The more closely she was brought to her husband, the more she was thrown upon his society alone, the less she found she liked him. If they had taken up house-keeping, and received and returned their wedding visits from the first day of their marriage, they might have done better; but that long honeymoon in Scotland was to both of them rather tiresome, and to Lady Eveline almost unendurable. His conversation wearied his wife, his vanity made her despise him; all the points in his character which Gerald Staunton had shown up for her own and her aunt's amusement at Gower's Court came out strongly during that disappointing tour. He had little appreciation of natural beauty, and except in the solitary case of music there was no sympathy of taste between them; and even in music his taste was in his wife's opinion rather low and meretricious. His temper, which was not quick, but slow and unforgiving, was roused to see that his wife neither gave him the love nor the deference which he deserved, and it was a relief to John Derrick too when they began to mix with the world.
It was in company alone that he felt any pleasure in Lady Eveline's society; she was a charming hostess; her timidity wore off; she was declared to be the most beautiful woman of the season, and he was proud of her. He liked to watch the homage she received, provided she was not herself very much pleased with it, and when they were in crowds there were no visible jars or incongruities of taste between them. So John Derrick filled his house with company, and he and Lady Eveline accepted every invitation they received. They often met with Gerald Staunton, and as he was considered very clever, and altogether a rising man, John Derrick was disposed to cultivate the acquaintance of his old college companion. Eveline had never dared to tell her husband of what had passed between herself and Staunton, and made faint and few objections to his wish to have him at her parties. She had no reason to give but the true one, and she felt so much pleasure in Staunton's conversation and society that she was almost glad she dared not give it. Gerald Staunton fancied it would be absurd and foolish to decline the invitations he received.
She was a married woman, not apparently unhappy, and of course she had made up her mind to her fate. It was a pity, however, that she saw so much of him, for the contrast between Staunton's talents and Derrick's mediocrity; between Staunon's dignified self-respect and Derrick's sensitive vanity; and between Saunton's earnestness and Derrick's flippancy—struck every day with stronger force on the heart of the unloving wife.
Lady Gower was the only person who seemed to be alive to the dangerous position her niece was in. She was disappointed that Lady Eveline, who had been such a gentle and tractable girl, now made such an unaccommodating wife. Indeed Lady Eveline might have been happier, and ought to have been happier; for though she had made a sad mistake, and indeed done a wrong thing, she might have made the best of it, and tried to draw out what was good and tolerable in her husband. But though she had had the courage to sacrifice herself to please her parents through a mistaken sense of duty, she had not the patience to bear what she had brought on herself.
I was dangerous to hint to John Derrick any suspicions with regard to Gerald Staunton, but Lady Gower ventured to remonstrate with her niece on the subject of his visits.
"I did not want him to come, aunt," said Eveline sharply, "but Mr. Derrick insisted on it. It was his doing, not mine."
"You never told him of his imprudent and absurd conduct at Gower's Court?"
"No, indeed," said Lady Eveline, "he is quite disposed enough to be jealous without any cause. He cannot live without society and he finds Mr. Staunton agreeable. You know I only have him here on my public days—not like he Beresfords and Mr. Hollingworth, who are here on all occasions. I did remonstrate with Mr. Derrick at first, but of course whatever I appear to wish he is sure to go against. Besides, whatever Mr. Staunton may have felt, or I may have felt, our position is very different now. If you and mamma and papa amongst you have made me very miserable, all for my own good, I think you may let me alone now."
"Well, I can drop a hint to Staunton," said Lady Gower.
"No, no," said Eveline, turning as pale as death. "Don't let him think so meanly of me as that he needs be afraid of me, or that you have no confidence in me. Oh aunt, you ought to consider me a little."
But Lady Gower was determined, and managed to give Staunton to understand that he had better discontinue his visits to —— street. About the same time he received the offer of a lucrative appointment at Sierra Leone, which Lady Gower had exerted all her influence to procure. He was getting on but slowly in his profession and was a little embarrassed in his circumstances, so that the offer was opportune. He had also felt that it was not safe to see so much of Lady Eveline Derrick, whom he knew now to be unhappy, so he closed with the offer hastily, and busied himself with preparations for his departure. His only sister regretted the step he took, but as he had behaved very liberally to her in making over all the slender patrimony he had inherited to add to her fortune, she was able to marry a young curate to whom she was engaged, and he felt satisfied that he had left her under the best of protection.
It was necessary to take leave of his London friends, and to receive their congratulations and regrets. Among others he must take leave of Lady Eveline, and then keep out of her way for ever.
A few weeks before he called to say farewell, Lady Eveline became the mother of her eldest child—a boy. Her mother and aunt hoped this new element would sweeten her life, and that she would grow contented and happy; but she was one of those women who would love her children through her husband, and for his sake. She had no love for children as children; she had no turn for amusing them, and she had never had any experience with them. This boy was exceedingly like his father, and that, where the father is not loved, is no recommendation to the mothers hear. She had hosts of servants to take all the trouble of the child, and returned to her rounds of gaiety with undiminished zeal. She could not endure her life without the change and excitement of society.
To bid Gerald Staunton good-by for years certainly, and probably for ever, was a thing exceedingly bitter and bewildering to her. She knew that her aunt had moved heaven and earth to procure this appointment, and that it was on her account that he was banished from his own proper sphere, and had his fair prospects of professional success blighted. She showed more emotion than was proper or prudent, and unfortunately she betrayed to her husband a partiality that was to him in the highest degree offensive.
He had now discovered, as he thought, the cause of her indifference, and he felt that he had been deceived and duped. The vague jealousy he had felt of everyone whom Lady Eveline seemed to like, had now a definite object, and she could no longer parry or deny his reproaches. John Derrick now left his wife more than he had done, lived very fast, and neglected her. This did not distress her so much as it ought to have done; she was much happier in his absence; and the knowledge of that only increased his dislike to her going anywhere, or seeing anyone at home, though he would not take the trouble to accompany her or to help her to entertain her guests.
Three children were born to this mis-matched pair; and one of the three, the youngest, died. This was a legitimate cause of grief to both, and ought to have drawn them to each other; but neither John Derrick nor his wife loved their children so intensely as to grieve for them long, and they both seemed to think that their natural regret was a thing to be dissipated and diverted by amusement and society, rather than to be soothed and sanctified by mutual sympathy. What might have resulted in the course of many years—whether they might have learned to bear their chains more lightly in middle age when companionable children grew up beside them—no one can tell; but during the few years in which they lived together, their unhappiness and their want of congeniality increased rather than diminished; and when John Derrick took an inflammatory fever and died after a short illness, after the shock was over, it was a sensation of relief rather than anything else that was felt by his widow.
The Earl of Darlington had died two years before his son-in-law, and Herbert reigned in his stead; and the two fortunes he had acquired by marriage and inheritance from more plebeian families made him a more wealthy and more useful Earl than had been among the Darlingtons for generations. All encumbrances were cleared off and contiguous estates purchased. Improvement were made and timber planted, and the Dowager-Countess was rather sorry that the breach had been so decided that she could never hope to see Darlington Castle again. She did not regret John Derrick's death, for he had never appreciated Lady Eveline, and after his marriage had been very discourteous to herself; she could now live with Eveline and the dear children. The handsome jointure settled on the younger widow would help the slender provision of the DowagerCountess. Eveline had been a dear good girl to sacrifice her own inclinations as she had done, and if she had suffered a little, her troubles were now at an end, and a life of freedom and independence begun at twenty-three was a compensation for her filial obedience.
And so all appeared to go very smoothly for a few months afar Eveline's widowhood. She grew fonder of her children and took some pains with them; and her husband's relations, who thought John had been but poorly treated by his aristocratic wife, could now find no fault with her exemplary conduct. She lived in a quiet and retired way; she occupied herself as she ought to do, and did not pine after gaiety and excitement, the love for which had driven poor John from his home. The old gentleman had felt the premature death of his only son a heavy blow, but he fixed his hopes all the more intensely on his two grand-children, Anthony and Edith.
Miss Hope had left the Derrick family some years before. Indeed she was in town making arrangements for going into another situation, with the highest recommendations from her former employers, at the time when Gerald Staunton was going to Sierra Leone. Mr. John Derrick, who always liked her society, had asked her to make his house her home for a week or two, all the more pressingly because he knew that Lady Eveline did not wish it She was so agreeable and so sympathising, that he confided in her his discovery of Lady Eveline's previous attachment, and she said nothing to mitigate his wrath. It was a relief to have a person to talk to who took such a right view of a woman's duty to her husband. He could not help thinking that he might have done better if he had been less ambitiously matched, but now in the hazy distance of the past, he forgot that the offer had been his own voluntary act, and only recollected how anxious the Darlington family had been to secure him. Miss Hope was too willing to believe that he had been entrapped, and to give Lady Eveline credit for duplicity; and perhaps Lady Eveline had as much right to be offended at the manner in which they spoke of her, and at the tender reminiscences they called up of old days at Stanmore, as John had at her emotion in parting with Gerald Staunton. But Miss Hope was prudent; she shortened her visit and went to Hastings, where her mother had recently taken up her abode, although it was not nearly so convenient for the business she had to do, and then entered on her new situation with a determination to be very careful of her heart.
It was not so good a situation in any respect as the one she had left, but she gave perfect satisfaction. Here she met with Mr. Hammond, who was going out to Australia, with what was a small capital in England, but which in the infant days of Adelaide was a very handsome sum to begin upon. He had not very much idea of colonial life, and had a notion that there were few women and no ladies there. He admired Miss Hope's beauty, her style, and her accomplishments; and he thought her a very clever, clear-headed sensible woman, who would make a good wife for a colonist; so he proposed and was accepted. He had at first fancied that he had demeaned himself a little by offering his hand to a governess, and expected she should feel very grateful and a little surprised; but no sooner was he engaged than she made him feel her superiority, though not uncomfortably, and after his marriage he rested in the conviction that Mrs. Hammond was the cleverest woman in the world, and was capable of taking any place in society that she chose. She talked of aristocratic circles in which she had mixed with confidence and fluency, and in the remote regions of South Australia her really well-acquired accomplishments, her excellent style of dress, her accurate language, her clever well-written notes, and her perfect self-possession fixed her at once as la crème de la crème, at the very top rank of colonial aristocracy.
The term squatter, which has so low and mean a sound to English ears, is quite euphonious and aristocratic in Australia; and when Mr. Hammond invested his capital in sheep and settled on the crown lands of South Australia, he took a position equal to that of the best professional men or leading merchants in the colony, and one more likely to lead to fortune, in those days at least. There are exceptions, as in the case of self-made men like Hugh Lindsay, but the bulk of our sheepfarmers consist of people who brought capital into the colony, and they hold up their heads accordingly.
In all Mr. Hammond's transactions, great and small, he always asked his wife's advice, and always took it; and as her judgment was excellent she really helped him on. Everything prospered with them; his runs were in the choicest localities, his sheep improved rapidly in wool-bearing qualities, his overseers were always trustworthy, his expenses were moderate. When he was forced to buy land it always happened that he had the means of paying for it, and that it was the best thing possible for him to purchase and enclose at that particular time; though every time the hundreds were declared he felt aggrieved and said the Government did not do justice to the squatters. Mr. Hammond certainly was a little extravagant about horses, but his wife allowed it, because she thought he could afford it, and gentlemen must have some hobby or other. It was the only matter in which his judgment was superior to hers, and as he had got a name for keeping excellent stock he did not lose much even on that.
Mrs. Hammond was therefore going steadily up. If she married her husband without any absorbing attachment, she had a large stock of prudence, and she made the very best of all the elements of her life. She was passionately fond of her children, and so was Mr. Hammond; indeed they were fonder of their children than they were of each other. It was the strongest tie between them—much stronger than the tie of mutual interest. Miss Hope had not told her lover of her first attachment; it could do no good and was quite unnecessary. There were so many mortifying circumstances connected with it that she preferred to keep silence on the whole affair, and begin her new life in a new country with every advantage. She might have been happier, and of course she would have been of more importance as Mrs. Derrick than as Mrs. Hammond, but on the whole she was very comfortable and had much in her power. She had been able to assist her mother materially through Mr. Hammond's liberality, and in due time she would take her children to England and give them all the advantages that money could obtain.
Although the Derricks and Lady Eveline had lost sight of Miss Hope, only hearing that she had married and gone to one of the colonies, she had been kept, for a few years at least, well informed as to the affairs of the family by her mother, who had formed an acquaintance with a poor relation of the Derricks, who was a neighbour of hers at Hastings. Mrs. Hammond still felt a keen interest in the most important and wealthiest people whom she had known, and from whom she had hoped and suffered so much. She therefore heard that John Derrick died at the age of thirty, leaving a widow and two children. She was sure that if Gerald Staunton returned from Sierra Leone alive, in spite of the most stringent marriage settlements by which her fortune would be reduced to a mere nothing if she married again, Lady Eveline would give her hand to he old love; but Mrs. Hammond was nearly as much surprised as other people to hear that this union took place eight or nine months after John Derrick's death. She had looked for some idea of decorum and propriety from a lady of rank; some regard to her position, to her reputation, and some consideration for her poor children whom she left to the care of their father's relatives; some pity for her mother, whose prospects were so materially altered by the second marriage; but Lady Eveline had shown none; she had married Gerald Staunton with this indecent haste, and had also injured most materially the prospects of the man she loved by the folly and impropriety of which she had been guilty.
But Lady Eveline, with her ill-regulated conscience, had one remorse hanging heavy upon her. She felt deep compunction for having married one man when she so entirely loved another. This is the greatest sin a woman can commit, but it is the man whom she marries without love who is most wronged, and not the man she gives up. The latter may find some compensation in a new attachment; his grief may be bitter at the time, but it is susceptible of various consolations; whereas the former is chained for life, and cannot go elsewhere for domestic happiness. But Eveline did not see that she had been guilty with regard to her husband; she thought he might have known how little affection she felt, and might have withdrawn; she had never told him that he had her heart; and as all he wanted was a noble alliance, he had no right to be disappointed and angry because he got nothing more. I was his own vanity and jealousy and selfishness that had wrought his own unhappiness. She did not think he could have appreciated her love if she had given it to him; but Gerald Staunton—who deserved everything and had received nothing—whom she thought of so constantly, who had been banished from England, and sent to die in that pestiferous climate, all on her account; his prospects blighted, his usefulness destroyed, his talent wasted, all because she had not had the courage and the honesty to break through her detested engagement and betroth herself to him for any length of time, or live with him in the humblest circumstances;—Gerald Staunton she had grievously wronged. It appeared to her now, looking back on her past, as if it had been the easiest thing in the world to do—so much easier than the miserable life she had endured so long. The one thing she had not had—love—assumed an importance in her eyes greater than it deserved; all her reading and all her thinking fostered the idea that it was the only thing worth living for, and that without it all pleasures were like apples of Sodom that turned to dust and ashes between the teeth.
When on a visit to her aunt, Lady Gower, she heard one day from an acquaintance that Gerald Staunton had returned from Sierra Leone dying, as might have been expected after so many years of that deadly climate. She could not control her emotion till her informant withdrew. She ordered her carriage without delay, and hastened to his lodgings to see him before he died and to implore his forgiveness. Very pale she looked in her widow's weeds; very agitated and tearful. Gerald, who was not actually dying but very dangerously ill, was very nearly frightened into his grave by the sudden apparition, which implored his forgiveness for all the mischief and injury she had caused him. So far as he could understand the wrong he had suffered, he forgave the suppliant; but his mind wandered often, and he could scarcely recognise her, and when he did, it was as Lady Eveline of Gower's Court, and not Lady Eveline Derrick. She would not leave him in this critical state; she was determined to remain as his nurse till he died or till he recovered. What were mother or children or even reputation to her now compared to him? She was his now, if he would accept of her, or his if he would wait for her if he survived; if he died, she would die with him. Everything was forgotten except that she loved him and that he loved her.
Under these circumstances, Gerald Staunton only waited till he was out of danger to marry Lady Eveline Derrick. The Dowager Countess was hotly angry, her husband's relations coldly and implacably indignant, and her children were told never to speak of the mother whom they never saw again. None of her friends or acquaintances could countenance Lady Eveline after the terrible indecorum of which she had been guilty, and Gerald Staunon's only sister was as angry at what had taken place as Lady Gower was. Her brother might have done so much better; the connection would ruin him, and so in a pecuniary point of view it did.
He obtained employment at some drudging literary work. Lady Eveline dropped her title, and dropped very soon out of the remembrance of society. As her father was no longer the Earl, the book of the peerage was cleared of her name, and she lived obscurely in a quiet street in London, and tried the reverse of the picture, where there was little but love to brighten her life.
Gerald might have regretted the relinquishment of his ambitious hopes and the nameless career that circumstances had hurried him into, but he was too generous ever to reproach his wife with it.
He felt the charm of the devoted love, the simple child-like confidence of that impulsive nature; he reposed in it and resolved to be satisfied with it. They very rarely spoke of the time that had passed between their parting and their meeting, and Eveline tried to forget she had had another husband, or that she had other children than those of Gerald Staunton. How differently did maternity, with its pains, its pleasures, and its duties, appear to Eveline now! What solicitude and watchfulness, and love, and pride, did her children call forth! Amy was the eldest of their four children, and was always strong and healthy, but the three boys born subsequently were very delicate.
Years of watchful care and all the best advice that could be procured could not save them; they all died at about the same age. After the death of her Boys, Eveline's face assumed that strange far-looking expression peculiar to bereaved mothers; her health too began to give way, and her husband grew alarmed about her. When her medical attendant prescribed voyage to Madeira and a winter's residence there, Gerald threw up his employment and accompanied her and his little girl.
His family had been a very expensive one, but he would neglect nothing that would give Eveline a chance of life, and a change of climate without him could do no good.
But the sacrifice was unavailing;—Lady Eveline did not get better, and she longed to return to England, to be buried beside her boys. That desire was gratified; she lived through the voyage, and a month or two afterwards. Her anxiety about her little girl and her husband was very great; she spoke a little to the girl of her past life, gave her some advice which the child could scarcely underscored, but the words of which she begged her to recollect; and enjoined her especially to take good care of her poor papa when she was gone. This advice Amy could comprehend, and she resolved to act on it; but she scarcely understood the far-looking intense way in which her mother gazed on her father. Did she suspect what was unknown to Gerald himself, that he was so soon to follow her to the Silent Land?
I was not many months after Eveline's death that Gerald Staunton, not feeling very well, but by no means alarmed about himself, went to consult the excellent physician who had attended his wife, and from him received that terrible sentence of death which is so appalling when dear ones are dependent on your exertions.
There was no hope, but there might be delay. A warmer climate, an easier life, and great care might prolong his life for several years. He now regretted the great seclusion in which they had lived, for in case of his death Amy would be friendless. The non-acknowledgment of his letters announcing Lady Eveline's death to Mr. Derrick and her children, which he had felt at the time to be a discourtesy, was now a serious misfortune. The Countess-Dowager was dead; the Derricks were all estranged; his sister, Mrs. Evans, had never visited him during his wife's lifetime, and had come to see him once after her death to shew him that she had no quarrel with him, but that she had decidedly objected to have any intercourse with her. She had a large family and no great income, and she did not seem to take to Amy at all, so that she was not to be depended upon. With his publisher he had had only business relations, and his little work on Madeira, which he had tried to persuade Eveline would pay all their expenses, had not taken and did not sell. Gerald hesitated a long time as to which of two courses to pursue:—whether to make submission for Amy's sake to the Derricks, or to try, as his last chance to prolong his life, to leave England for Australia, where he was to act very differently from heretofore: where he must be sociable, brilliant, and agreeable, where above all things he must endeavour to win friends for his child, who might be kind to her in case of his death. He was at the same time to try and complete her education, so that she might be able to earn her own livelihood. She was an intelligent, a docile, and a pretty child, and the idea of taking her with him to the antipodes was pleasanter than that of begging the Derricks to have compassion on her.
His residence at Sierra Leone had made life assurance impossible but at a rate so enormous that it was a very bad investment, and now of course his life was absolutely worth nothing in that way; but Dr. Hudson had assured him at his age and with his habits he might live very probably for six or eight years in Australia, and he had no doubt that in one of the thriving capitals of the colonies he could easily get a situation of light work sufficient for the necessities of his now small family. Amy had no objection to make; the place she lived in was quite indifferent to her, provided only her father was with her, and he got so much stronger on the voyage that his spirits were better than they had been since Eveline's death.
But he did not make friends among the passengers, who were not numerous and were not pleasant. There is no place where disagreeable people can make themselves so obnoxious as on a long voyage. When they arrived at Melbourne he found that it was rather overdone at the time with educated gentlemen, and that obtaining the sort of employment he wanted was no easy matter.
A ready writer is always sure to be able to make a living in England, though it may not be a luxurious one. But it is putting the round man into the square hole to bring a man with a special literary talent, like Gerald Staunton's, for careful criticism, and light essays, and philological research, into a bustling city like that of Melbourne. It is only on the staff of a newspaper that any one can gain a certain income, great or small, as the case may be, by literary work. Dr. Hudson had absolutely prohibited any night-work, and besides Gerald was totally ignorant of colonial politics and colonial life, and it would take him months to learn. He grew nervous as week after week his slender resources diminished, and there was no nearer prospect of success. The very youth, and life, and hurry of Melbourne dispirited and stunned the old Palladium critic, and when he was told that Adelaide was a quieter and slower place, it occurred to him that he might be more easily suited there. When he had arrived the literary world was still more hopeless for him than that of Melbourne, and he returned from vain enquiries more dispirited than ever.
Amy suggested that if he could not get employment as a writer he might as a teacher, because he knew so much, and was so pleasant to learn from. The idea was new to him and he acted upon it at once. His advertisement in the Adelaide newspapers attracted Mr. Hammond's eye, and the engagement had been made without delay. Mr. Hammond had been so prepossessed with Amy's manners and appearance that it had determined Staunton to accept a situation where he might make friends for his darling child. But it so happened that no friend was made in that quarter. Mrs. Hammond's heart had been hardened to her by a long course of events and feelings in her own life, and Amy's strong resemblance to her mother awoke the old dislike and jealousy; so that Amy Staunton, the grand-daughter of an Earl, the sister of the heir to a splendid fortune, was left in the bush of South Australia with no better or more powerful friends than worthy Hugh Lindsay and his wife and family, who were very much disposed to be kind to her, and to train her to be of some use to them.