The Claverings

The gardens of Clavering Park were removed some three hundred yards from the large, square, sombre-looking stone mansion which was the country-house of Sir Hugh Clavering, the eleventh baronet of that name; and in these gardens, which had but little of beauty to recommend them, I will introduce my readers to two of the personages with whom I wish to make them acquainted in the following story. It was now the end of August, and the parterres, beds, and bits of lawn were dry, disfigured, and almost ugly, from the effects of a long drought. In gardens to which care and labour are given abundantly, flowerbeds will be pretty, and grass will be green, let the weather be what it may; but care and labour were but scantily bestowed on the Clavering Gardens, and everything was yellow, adust, harsh, and dry. Over the burnt turf towards a gate that led to the house, a lady was walking, and by her side there walked a gentleman.

“You are going in, then, Miss Brabazon,” said the gentleman, and it was very manifest from his tone that he intended to convey some deep reproach in his words.

“Of course I am going in,” said the lady. “You asked me to walk with you, and I refused. You have now waylaid me, and therefore I shall escape⁠—unless I am prevented by violence.”

He had never called her Fanny in his life⁠—not up to the moment when she declined the honour of becoming Mrs. Saul. The offer itself was made in this wise. She had been at the house of old Widow Tubb, halfway between Cumberly Green and the little village of Clavering, striving to make that rheumatic old woman believe that she had not been cheated by a general conspiracy of the parish in the matter of a distribution of coal, when, just as she was about to leave the cottage, Mr. Saul came up. It was then past four, and the evening was becoming dark, and there was, moreover, a slight drizzle of rain. It was not a tempting evening for a walk of a mile and a half through a very dirty lane; but Fanny Clavering did not care much for such things, and was just stepping out into the mud and moisture, with her dress well looped up, when Mr. Saul accosted her.

“I’m afraid you’ll be very wet, Miss Clavering.”

“That will be better than going without my cup of tea, Mr. Saul, which I should have to do if I stayed any longer with Mrs. Tubb. And I have got an umbrella.”

“But it is so dark and dirty,” said he.

“I’m used to that, as you ought to know.”

“Yes; I do know it,” said he, walking on with her. “I do know that nothing ever turns you away from the good work.”

“Does it not seem odd, Harry, that you and I should be sitting, talking together in this way?” She was leaning now towards him, across the table, and one hand was raised to her forehead while her eyes were fixed intently upon his. The attitude was one which he felt to express extreme intimacy. She would not have sat in that way, pressing back her hair from her brow, with all appearance of widowhood banished from her face, in the presence of any but a dear and close friend. He did not think of this, but he felt that it was so, almost by instinct. “I have such a tale to tell you,” she said; “such a tale!”

Why should she tell it to him? Of course he asked himself this question. Then he remembered that she had no brother⁠—remembered also that her brother-in-law had deserted her, and he declared to himself that, if necessary, he would be her brother. “I fear that you have not been happy,” said he, “since I saw you last.”

“Happy!” she replied. “I have lived such a life as I did not think any man or woman could be made to live on this side the grave. I will be honest with you, Harry. Nothing but the conviction that it could not be for long has saved me from destroying myself. I knew that he must die!”

“Oh, Lady Ongar!”

“Yes, indeed; that is the name he gave me; and because I consented to take it from him, he treated me;⁠—O heavens! how am I to find words to tell you what he did, and the way in which he treated me.

On the next morning he dressed himself in his best, and presented himself at the door in Mount Street, exactly as the clock struck twelve. He had an idea that these people were very punctilious as to time. Who could say but that the French ambassador might have an appointment with Madame Gordeloup at half-past one⁠—or perhaps some emissary from the Pope! He had resolved that he would not take his left glove off his hand, and he had thrust the notes in under the palm of his glove, thinking he could get at them easier from there, should they be wanted in a moment, than he could do from his waistcoat pocket. He knocked at the door, knowing that he trembled as he did so, and felt considerable relief when he found himself to be alone in the room to which he was shown. He knew that men conversant with intrigues always go to work with their eyes open, and, therefore, at once, he began to look about him. Could he not put the money into some convenient hiding-place⁠—now at once? There, in one corner, was the spot in which she would seat herself upon the sofa. He saw plainly enough, as with the eye of a Talleyrand, the marks thereon of her constant sitting. So he seized the moment to place a chair suitable for himself, and cleared a few inches on the table near to it, for the smoothing of the banknotes⁠—feeling, while so employed, that he was doing great things.

It must be remembered that Sophie knew nothing of her present visitor, and was altogether unaware that he was in any way connected with Captain Clavering.

“You are Captain Boddle,” she said, looking hard at Doodles, as he bowed to her on entering the room.

“Captain Boodle, ma’am; at your service.”

“Oh, Captain Bood‑dle; it is English name, I suppose?”

“Certainly, ma’am, certainly. Altogether English, I believe. Our Boodles come out of Warwickshire; small property near Leamington⁠—doosed small, I’m sorry to say.”

She looked at him very hard, and was altogether unable to discover what was the nature or probable mode of life of the young man before her. She had lived much in England, and had known Englishmen of many classes, but she could not remember that she had ever become conversant with such a one as he who was now before her. Was he a gentleman, or might he be a housebreaker? “A doosed small property near Leamington,” she said, repeating the words after him. “Oh!”

“But my visit to you, ma’am, has nothing to do with that.”

“Nothing to do with the small property.”

“Nothing in life.”

“Then, Captain Bood‑dle, what may it have to do with?”

Hereupon Doodles took a chair, not having been invited to go through that ceremony. According to the theory created in her mind at the instant, this man was not at all like an English captain. Captain is an unfortunate title, somewhat equivalent to the foreign count⁠—unfortunate in this respect, that it is easily adopted by many whose claims to it are very slight.