Lady Clarissa

Front matter

LADY CLARISSA BY EMMA JANE WORBOISE, Author of " Father Fabian," " Oeerdale." " Nably BoA." I' Grey and Gold," "Oliver Westwood," "Husbands and Wivet" La., &e. " These thorns are sharp, yet I can tread on them This cup is loathsome, yet He makes it sweet: lly face is stedfast towards Jerusalemlily heart remembers it. " Beauty for ashes, oil of Joy for grief, Garment of praise for spirit of heaviness : Although to-day I fade as doth a leaf, 1 languish and grow less. " Although to-day I walk in tedious ways, To-day His staff is turned into a rod, Yet will I wait for Him the appointed days, And stay upou my God." Christina Rossetti. £j<mtom JAMES CLARKE AND CO., 13, FLEET STREET HODD-CK AND STOUGHTON, 27, PAT_EUN05TEli BOW. 1870. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. ThePrologue 1 II. Motherless 12 III. The Earl's Alternative 23 IV.

Mrs. Shrosbery 33 V. " On Her Best Behaviour " 43 VI. A Wedding-Day in January 54 VII. All Alone in the Wood C4 Vni. In Durance Vile 75 IX. A Domestic Tournament 86 X. Father and Daughter 97 XI. "The Oddest Child in the World" 108 XII. Throwing Down the Gauntlet 120 XIII. "It is My Duty" 130 XIV. The Son and Heir 142 XV. Not Jealous 153 XVI. Late Repentance 162 XVIL Unexpected, but Delightful 173 XVIII. The Countess at Home 184 XIX. A Morning of Surprises 195 XX. Another Step-Daughter 205 XXI. A Friend at Last 216 XXIL Momento Mori CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XXIII. A Blood Eelation 237 XXIV. On the Southbourne Shore 249 XXV. On the Mere-Side 260 XXVI. The Huntsman's Leap 271 XXVII. Medicine and Law 281 XXVHL Passing Away '. 292 XXIX. A Legal Interview 302 XXX. Susan and Clarissa 313 XXXI. The Toung Earl 324 XXXII.

Coming to an Understanding 332 XXXIIL The Summer-House 343 XXXIV. Light at Evening-Time 354 XXXV. "Nothing Left to Love" 360 XXXVL What was Written in the Book of Fate 379 XXXVII. The Renewal of Hope 389 XXXVIII. A Last Appeal 401 XXXIX. On the Eve of Departure 412 XL. On the Journey 423 XLI. " The Mermaid " 435 XLII. Hue and Cry 44C XLIII. Miss Clara Leigh 456 XLIV. Gleams of Sunshine 467 XLV. Clarissa Tells Her Story 478 XLVL Adelaide's Previsions 488 XLVII. " Sing Small, Loo, Sing Small ! " 498 XLVIIL Homeward Bound 509 XLIX. A Miserable Woman 520 L. Mrs. Jack Sparks 531 LI. Shades of Evening

Prologue

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" He compassed her with sweet observances And worship, never leaving her, and grew Forgetful of his promise to the king, Forgetful of the falcon and the hunt, Forgetful of the tilt and tournament, Forgetful of his glory and his name, Forgetful of his earldom and its cares." If thou wilt prove me, dear. Woman's love no fable, I will love thee half a year, As a man is able." .'in. bells were ringing merrily in the ancient ivied tower of Orwell Church one bright summer evening — we will not say how many years ago. Tou might have known, had yon been there to listen, that it was no common peal ringing ont so grandly and sweetly over the well-wooded meads, and green flowery vales, and pleasant lanes of Orwell Magna and its neighbourhood. They were wedding bells that awoke the echoes and filled all the soft. blue air with silvery, resonant music on that exquisite Jnne evening ; and if the old tower had been silent, or empty of those jubilant voices, no one, however dull his r ;rceptions, could have failed to divine that something had happened, or was about to happen, of no ordinary moment to the crowds assembled in the churchyard, on tho village-green, in the village street, and especially near the grand embattled gateway, which was the state entrance to Orwell Park, and which was now wreathed with garlands of evergreens and flowers, and ornamented with flags, and streamers, and banners in all manner of gay devices.

At the entrance of the village was a triumphal arch ; all the inhabitants were out in their very best attire ; the children of the district had all been scrubbed and brushed up by their zealously tidy mothers till their faces shone and every hair was in its proper place, while they gloried in new hats, bright handkerchiefs and tippets, and per fectly spotless pinafores. For the Earl of Orwell, who was, to all intents and purposes, king of that beautiful region, of which he was lord and master, was bringing home his bride — his newly wedded and, as report averred, his exquisitely beautiful three months' wife — to the stately home of a long line of noble ancestors. A favoured few of the tenantry were permitted to join the household retainers in welcoming the happy pair in the courtyard of the castle ; and there it is, under the frowning walls and battlements of the ancient keep, that our story — or its prologue rather — commences.

Mrs. Sweetapple, the housekeeper, had gathered about her some of her chosen friends, the farmers' wives and daughters, whom she had just regaled with rich cakes and tea, and to whom she was graciously extending such information respecting "the family " as seemed expedient in her es timation. A very prudent and sagacious person was Mrs. Sweetapple, of Orwell Castle ; she had been in the Orwell service, was her boast, girl and woman, almost forty years, and she had never betrayed the trust, she humbly hoped, so fully bestowed upon her by her superiors ; the honour of the Orwells was her honour, their fortunes were her fortunes ; and if it had been possible for disgrace to befall persons of station so exalted, she also would have shared their humiliation. On the present auspicious occasion Mrs. Sweetapple was gor geously arrayed in brocaded dark grey lutestring and rich Mechlin lace, and she wore her large gold watch fixed conspicuously on the outside of her waistband, at tached to a curiously-wronght Venetian chain, the present of "my late lord, on his return from foreign parts."

At her side sat a comely dame, the wife of one of the largest tenant farmers on the Earl's estate. To this lady Mrs. Sweetapple chiefly addressed herself. "Tes, Mrs. Field, it is, as you remark, a most happy and desirable event ; and I was beginning to be half afraid that my lord had taken an aversion to holy matrimony, and that he would be the last Earl of Orwell in the direct line. Why, it is eight years come next October since my lady, the Viscountess, and her little baby-boy were in terred in the family vault yonder. She never was Countess, you know, ma'am, because she died before the present Earl succeeded to the title — he was only Lord Fordham in those days." " Did my lord take his lady's death much to heart, then ? " " Well, I can hardly say. He was terribly cut up at first ; but he went away to Italy, and I saw no more of him till he came back post-haste in order to receive the dying commands of my late lord, his father.

Lady Fordham was of a very high family, and she was sole heiress to I don't know how many thousands a year." " And that all went to her husband, of coarse ? " " Not a bit of it ! Family property don't go in that way, Mrs. Field ; it keeps in the family always, except under very particular circumstances. If the little heir had lived, he would have had the money naturally, for it was all settled on her and her heirs for ever ; but dying childless, every penny of it reverted to the next heir — a cousin, I believe, whom she had never seen, and for whom she had no great fancy." " What a pity the baby didn't live ! And was Lady Fordham handsome ?" " Well, no ; I cannot say she was. She was not over young either. It was not exactly what one might call ' a marriage of affection.' There was blood and there was money ; and the rich old General, her father, and the late Earl, made up the match between them.

Not but what my lord was very fond of her, as of course it was his duty to be, and he was the kindest of husbands ; but it stands to sense that a man thinks more tenderly of the woman of his own choice than of one chosen for him 1—2 This time his lordship pleases himself, and a very beautiful lady the new Countess is, I am well assured." " And who is she, if I may presume to inquire, Mrs. Sweetapple ? " Mrs. Sweetapple fidgeted a little in her comfortable seat, and glanced around to see if there were any listeners ; bnt all were occupied with their own private chatter, and seemed intent ou that. "Well," she answered in a low tone, " I don't mind telling you, as a person of discretion, Mrs. Field, that I know nothing whatever of the bride whom my lord is bringing home to day. Report says she is a great beauty, and quite young, and her name was Grey — Clarissa Grey — and the Earl and she were married at St. George's, Hanover Square, by the Bishop of St. Beetha's, his second cousin, you know, Mrs. Field.

But who Miss Grey really was, I assure you I know no more than a post ! And I've searched the Red Book through and through, and there are many aristocratic Greys, I find — lots of them, in fact ; and some ' de Greys,' the most aristocratic of all ; but not one Clarissa among them. It is rather an outlandish sort of name, don't you think, Mrs. Field ? " " I think it is a beautiful name ! Why, there was once a Clarissa Harlowe, was there not, a person of distinc tion ? " " Clarissa Harlowe was only in a novel, Mrs. Field. No such woman ever really lived, or ever could have lived, I should say. I've read 'Clarissa Harlowe,' aud 'Sir Charles Grandison,' and 'Tom Jones' all through, which is more than many of my betters can say ; but I always did affect polite literature. Give me a clever book and I ask nothing else, unless it be a cup of good green tea, with plenty of cream, or a glass of the old Cyprus wine that Mr. Rumsey makes so much of !

" " Well, I don't read novels ; I've too much to do and too much to think about. My mother never liked to see us girls wasting our time over a book. ' Reading's an occupation that's no yield, girls,' I've heard her say often and often. ' Read your Bible, and your " Pilgrim's Pro gress," and yonr "Whole Duty of Man," on Sundays,' says she, 'and I don't mind you taking up the " Elegant Extracts" now and theD, if you have a headache, and can't sew ; but books never did anybody any good yet, and why people should take the trouble to write them, I can't make out ! ' But that's neither here nor there ; Clarissa is a fine name, and one that suits the Countess of Orwell. Only — I did hear — of course, it was only foolish talk ! people will talk, you know, Mrs. Sweetapple ; but my own cousin, Maria, who is married to a topping green grocer and fruiterer, at the West-end, and keeps her pony phaeton, and her two maids, declares that the new Countess was nothing better nor worse than private gover ness in a baronet's family !

" " Foolish talk, indeed ! and I hope yon won't go aud repeat such an absurd story, Mrs. Field. A governess, forsooth ! As if tho Earl had not the pick of all the ladies of quality that are unmarried ! A likely thing that he should take up with a young person in that capacity ; why, a governess is but an upper servant, when all is said and done. The Oakleighs of Orwell have never yet married beneath themselves. The late Miss Grey was a lady, you may depend upon it, Mrs. Field." " Don't you think she might be a lady, and yet a governess, Mrs. Sweetapple ? It seems to me a governess ought to be a lady, else how should she know how to bring up ladies ? " " Well, she might be, and should be altogether genteel, I grant you ; and I've seen a governess before now, looking as well-born as the little Lady Jane, or Lady Augusta, that she was paid for teaching.

And I should never think of slighting a governess because she had to get her own living ; but governesses should marry tutors and curates, and that sort, certainly not peers of the realm ! Oh, dear no, Mrs. Field ; you may make up your mind it's all sheer nonsense, this tale that your cousin heard — what's vulgarly called 'a cock and bull story,' whatever that may be! My lord has married a lady of rank, you may depend upon it ! " " Very likely ! It does not concern me, of course. Only Cousin Maria is a very reliable person, and never gossips, nor talks at random. I never knew her to be wrong." And in this case " Cousin Maria" justified the dictum of her kinswoman. Clarissa, Countess of Orwell, nee Grey, was actually a governess in the family of Sir Charles Ridley, when Francis, Earl of Orwell, first beheld her.

It was the old, old story ; she was beautiful and gentle ; he was noble and impressible. He had never fallen in love before, and he was over thirty ; Clarissa's lovely face, and the sweet refinement of her character, took his heart by storm. He saw, he admired, he worshipped ! Ere he was aware, he was fathoms deep in love, and all his dreams of happiness were centred in the hope of win ning her for his wife. He behaved in the most irre proachable manner ; he spoke to Sir Charles Ridley at once ; he even made a feint of consulting Lady Ridley. The common fate of governesses — especially those who are blessed or cursed with undoubted personal attractions — was not Clarissa Grey's. The Ridleys hadno groWn-vjp daughters of their own, their eldest girl, Clarissa's pupil, being under ten years of age.

Sir Charles was extremely good-natured, and his lady, who was as romantic as any schoolgirl, was only too delighted to have a real love affair going on under her roof, and both were quite willing to throw over the lovers the ægis of their sanction and pro tection. For, as Sir Charles said, " Orwell is certainly old enough to choose for himself, and as he has married once to please his family, it is no more than just that he should marry now to please himself. I dare say we shall be blamed, but I fancy our shoulders are broad enough to bear whatever society may please to lay upon them. It is an imprudent match, no doubt — a mesalliance, in fact. What then ? There have always been imprudent and un equal matches ever since Adam and Eve came out of Paradise, and Miss Grey is not a woman that any man need be ashamed of.

She is tolerably well connected, too, I believe ? " " Oh, yes," replied the lady ; " her father was a clergy man, and her mother was a naval officer's daughter. But what is best of all is that she has at present no relations in the world, save her brother, who went out to Mexico or Japan — I am not sure which — many years ago, and has never been heard of since. So Orwell need not fear being pestered by vulgar and needy relatives ; marrying rather lower in the scale than one's self so often involves the most unpleasant collateral consequences. If Miss Grey had a lot of hungry brothers, and sisters, and cousins, in her train, I could not conscientiously advise Orwell to marry her. As it is, he will have a beautiful and amiable wife, whom he will make Countess of Orwell. I shall be quite proud to present her, I assure you.

Her beauty is of so uncommon an order, of so patrician a type — in spite of the want of sang pur in her veins — that she is sure to make a sensation in the fashionable world. And Grey is such a convenient name ; there are all sorts of Greys, you know. When people ask to what family she belongs, I shall answer quite confidently, ' Oh ! to the Leicestershire Greys ! ' And it will be quite true, for her father once held a curacy somewhere in that county." Thus encouraged by these good people, Lord Orwell proceeded in his wooing, and in due season won his beauteous bride. The wedding took place in town, from Sir Charles' mansion in Portman Square, and was duly celebrated with all requisite ceremonial at St. George's, Hanover Square. And very few people really knew that Lord Orwell had married his friend's governess.

Of course, in the present day it would have been speedily known to all whom it might concern, as well as to a great many whom it could not possibly concern ; but all this happened, as I mentioned before, a good many years ago, when news travelled slowly, or stayed at home altogether ; when the public press was slow and feeble in its entire constitution, and when railways and telegraphs were only dimly portended by the signs of the times. It would be far more difficult now to conduct a strictly private affair in Japan, than it was in those days to transact your busi ness in London without suffering tidings of it to escape to your friends in the Midland or Eastern Counties. Con sequently, the good people at Orwell Magna remained in profound ignorance of their new Countess's antecedents till Mrs. Field threw in a light on the subject, which, though welcomed by some who heard it, was received with distaste, if not with absolute incredulity, by Mrs. Sweet apple, and by Mr. Ramsey, the house-steward, who both held it as a law of the Medes and Persians, which might never be reversed, that the Earls of Orwell were limited, matrimonially, to the daughters, grand-danghters, and near kinswomen of the peers of the realm.

Meanwhile — to come back to the castle courtyard, and to the events of that particular evening — the bells had ceased ringing. The ringers were taking some slight re freshment, in order to be quite ready for the grand peal which was to welcome the travellers as soon as their carriage should reach the summit of the hill from which Orwell Magna was visible. Mrs. Sweetapple, with many apologies, stole away to give one last look at my lady's apartments, and Mr. Ramsey once more glanced critically round the dining-room, and exchanged a few anxious words with Mr. Portsoke, the butler, and the head gar dener redded another spray of stephanotis to the choice bouquet which he was humbly to present to the Countess as she alighted at the portico. Another quarter of an hour and the bells burst out again, and very soon it was whispered that the carriage was in sight.

The thunder of a small piece of ordnance told that the bridal pair had entered the village, and had passed under the triumphal arch, and it was not long before the cry of " Here they come ! " resounded on every side. Slowly the carriage advanced, drawn by its four milk white steeds, and as it passed the lodge gates the excitement of the bystanders reached its climax, for seated by their Earl was the loveliest lady they had ever seen out of a picture-frame or a Book of Beauty ! Loud and hearty were the acclamations, and many the blessings showered on the heads of the noble couple as they passed onward to the castle, and truly they presented, as Mr. Portsoke averred, " a most satisfactory and distinguished appearance ! " Never did noble lord lead to his ancestral halls a fairer, sweeter bride than Clarissa, Countess of Orwell.

And there was a patrician grace in her remarkable beauty which Mrs. Sweetapple and her friends were not slow to perceive and appreciate. She was slender and rather tall, dark-haired and dark-eyed, pure complexioned, and perfect as to features and contour. Bat the chief charm lay in the sweet radiant smile, which lightened all her face as it stole over a rosebud month and delicately-moulded chin and shone out in the deep, soft, tender eyes that her bridegroom had likened to gazelle's eyes, when first he beheld her in her maiden loveliness at Ripley Court. The Earl himself, without being an Apollo or an Adonis, was a fine specimen of a high-born English gentleman. He was fair and ruddy, broad-shouldered, well-propor tioned, with curly chestnut locks and laughing blue eyes, and an expression that everybody declared to be frank and good-natured; and which a few — only a few, though — described as indicative also of moral weakness and insta bility of character.

And truly, even as a boy, Arthur, Viscount Fordham, had been famous for his love of change, for his capricions likes and dislikes, and for his sudden ardent friendships, and their equally abrupt termination. " Fever-heat one week, and down to zero the next ! " was the verdict recorded npon his general conduct by one of the wisest of public schoolmasters, as regarded his noble pupil's attachments, pursuits, and sentiments ; and the only hesitation which Sir Charles Ridley felt in giving his sanction to Orwell's courtship of an orphan girl under his protection was on this head. He knew the proverbial fickleness of his friend's disposition, and he feared lest his ardent passion for the lovely Clarissa should be quenched as quickly as it had sprang into existence, and he actually said to the Earl, " Think well what you are going to do, I entreat you, before you speak to Miss Grey.

Though a sweeter, better girl does not live, remember she is not, socially speaking, your equal I And if — if you tire of her, Orwell, it will be ill for her and ill for you. My wife tells me, and my own knowledge of the girl confirms it, that she is of a wonderfully deep and tender nature, and will, if she returns your affection, give you her whole true woman's heart, completely and for ever. Now that sort of woman suffers terribly, and not unfrequently dies, under cold indifference and neglect." To which admonition Lord Orwell replied that he had never, till he met Clarissa Grey, known what it was to love any woman ; that he loved her with his whole soul, with every fibre of his nature, ancl that his life without her would not be worth enduring. Indifference ! neglect ! there was not much fear of that I In short, he raved like a mad lover, and very much in the fashion of the poet who so continually reiterated, "No man e'er loved like me."

In conclusion, he exclaimed, with emphasis, " If Clarissa rejects me, there is no more happiness for me in this world. I shall go abroad and not return for years, if ever." Bat Clarissa did not reject him, although she received his overtures with almost painful hesitation. She loved him at once, poor girl, from the first hour of his proposals, and, indeed, before, for he had made his intentions very plainly manifest ere he spoke ; he became her hero, her ideal, her king and lord ! But she knew perfectly well that her birth and position were not such as to entitle her to match with noble Earls. She knew, no one better, that her marriage with her patrician lover would be styled as a ■mesalliance, and that in the proud world of rank and fashion in which Lord Orwell moved, as " one to the manner born," her claims as Clarissa Grey would always be ignored, perhaps contemptuously spurned.

And what if the day should ever arrive when he would regret the step — the all-important and irrevocable step — which he now so ardently desired to take ? What if, by yielding now to his entreaties, she should mar his future, cloud his fortunes, darken his career ? For she truly loved him, and all true love is unselfish and ever self-sacrificing. And she said to Lady Ridley, " I can trust you, my kind mistress and friend ; and if you tell me that it is my duty to refuse Lord Orwell, if you think I may in any measure mar his life or injure his prospects by my humble origin and plebeian descent, I will, whatever it may cost me, reso lutely decline the honour which he solicits me to accept." But Lady Ridley — she had not half the good sound sense and judgment of her beautiful young governess — chid her for her morbid doubts, and assured her that she might, by her determined rejection, drive her noble suitor to despair.

Once married — once betrothed, indeed ! — Clarissa forgot her scruples, and gave herself up to the intense felicity of loving and being loved. Orwell was devoted to his lovely bride ; he lived but for her ; he studied and even fore stalled her tastes and wishes ; he never left her side save when compelled to do so. His pride in her was wonderful, and he accounted himself as the happiest and most favoured of mankind. For six months after his marriage he played the ardent lover, and seemed entirely absorbed in the sweet companionship of his young wife, who, on her part, lived in a delicious dream of ceaseless happiness. Her life had suddenly turned into a fairy tale, and she could hardly bring herself to believe that there had ever been a time when she suffered from loneliness and common care.

For six months, without one break or cloud, she led this charmed existence ; and then Orwell began gradually to take an interest in old pursuits, and to desire the society of former friends and comrades. That was well, she told herself ; there was much demanded of him beyond the narrow circle of his own hearth. Inexpe rienced as she was in the great world's ways, she knew perfectly that the Earl of Orwell must fulfil those duties which his high rank demanded of him. Society had its claims, which could not and ought not to be ignored. Like the gentle, true-hearted Enid, she could not bear that people should " Babble of him As of a prince whose manhood was all gone, And molten down in mere uxoriousness." And so, when the late autumn came, and he rode bravely in the hunt, and grew enthusiastic in the sport, and spent day after day with friends whose chief talk was of horses, dogs, birds, and foxes, she did not complain, even to her self.

" Our honeymoon is over at last," she said, when she began to feel lonely and depressed — for she was far from well, and there was beginning to be talk of the son and heir that was to be born in the ensuing spring. That Clarissa should present her lord with a daughter was deemed most improbable, and of course she herself ardently desired that her infant should prove a boy. Bnt it was a dreary winter, nevertheless, in spite of all her endeavours to be cheerful and contented ; and some thing seemed to say to her — "Those blissful days are gone for ever." And yet — and yet, it must be that he loved her quite as dearly as before ; only the demonstrations of his affection were changed, and contrasted with the old ardent devotion appeared — of course it was only but appearance — cold, colourless, and shallow.

She bore up bravely, and met him always with her own sweet, bright smile ; and if in secret she shed some bitter tears, they left no traces on her pale, lovely face ; and one showery April morning the bells were ringing again, but not for the promised heir. Clarissa, Countess of Orwell, had given birth — prematurely — to a daughter !

Chapter II. Motherless

' Her lot is on you — silent tears to weep, And patient smiles to wear through suffering's hour. And sumless riches, from affection's deep, To pour on broken reeds — a wasted shower ! And to make idols, and to find them clay, And to bewail that worship — therefore pray ! " The Countess's baby was a poor, puny little creature, and it was as much as the pompous London doctor, and the fine London nurse, and all their coadjutors and satellites com bined, could compass to keep life in the fragile, new exist ence that seemed perpetually on the eve of departure ; while Clarissa herself lingered long on those mysterious confines of life and death — the border-lands of both. It was under April's tearful skies, and while the gay daffodils were blooming, that the little Lady Clarissa was born ; but the summer roses were over, and the dahlia and holly hock were in fall flower, when her mother once more feebly trod the velvet greensward of Orwell Park.