“We will drop the subject,” said Jane. “To pursue it would be productive of no end. When I tell you that my own feelings (call them prejudices if you will) forbid me to see Mr. Carlton, I tell you truth. And some deference is due to the feelings of my father. I will not reproach you, Laura, for the step you took: the time has gone by for that; but you must not ask me to countenance Mr. Carlton.”
“You speak of deference to papa’s feelings, Jane! I don’t think he showed much to yours. What a simpleton he has made of himself!”
Jane Chesney’s face burnt with a sudden glow, and her drooping eyelids wore not raised. The old spirit, always ready to uphold her father, whether he was right or whether he was wrong, had gone out of her crushed heart for ever.
“What sort of a woman is she?” resumed Laura.
“O, Laura, what matters it?” Jane answered in a tone that betrayed how full of pain was the subject. “He has married her, and that is enough. I cannot talk of it.”
“Why did you not bring away Lucy?”
“I was not permitted to bring her.”
“And do you mean to say that you shall live here, all by yourself?”
“Whom have I to live with? I may as well occupy this house as any other. My means will afford nothing better. That I do not repine at; it is good enough for me; and to be able to live at peace in it is a great improvement upon the embarrassment we used to undergo.”
“But it is so lonely an existence for you! It seems like isolation.”
Jane was silent. The sense of her lonely lot was all too present to her as her sister spoke: but she knew that she must bear.
“How much are you to be allowed, Jane?”
“Five hundred a year.”
“Five hundred a year for the Lady Jane Chesney!” returned Laura with flashing eyes. “It is not half enough, Jane.”
“It is enough for comfort. And grandeur I have done with. May I express a hope, Laura, that you find your income adequate to your expectations,” she added in a spirit of kindness.
Laura’s colour deepened. Laura was learning to estimate herself by her new standard, as the Earl of Oakburn’s daughter; she was longing for the display and luxury that rank generally gives. But Mr. Carlton’s father had not come forward with money; and they had to content themselves with what Mr. Carlton made by his profession: he had been compelled to tell his wife she must practise economy; and every hour of the day Laura caught herself wishing for a thousand and one articles that only wealth can purchase. Her vanity had certainly not lessened with the accession to her title.
“I think it shameful of papa not to allow me an income, now that he enjoys the Chesney estates, or else present my husband with an adequate sum of ready money,” exclaimed Laura, in a resentful tone. “Mr. Carlton, I am sure, feels the injustice, though he does not speak of it.”
“Injustice?” interrupted Jane with marked emphasis.
“Yes, it is unjust; shamefully unjust. What was my offence?—that I chose the husband he would have denied me. And now look at what he has done!—married a woman obnoxious to us all. If it was derogatory for Miss Laura Chesney to choose a surgeon when she had not a cross or a coin to bless herself with, I wonder what it is for the Earl of Oakburn, the peer, to lower himself to his daughter’s governess?”
Jane made no reply. There was some logic in Laura’s reasoning; although she appeared to ignore the fact that she owed obedience to her father, and had forfeited it.
“You were devoted to him, Jane, and how has he repaid you? Just done that which has driven you from his homo. He has driven you with as little compunction, I dare say, as he would drive a dog—Jane, be quiet; I will say what I have to say. He has got his new lady, and much value you and I are to him henceforth!”
“You are wrong, Laura,” Jane answered with emotion. “I came away with my own free will when he would have kept me. He—but I—I—cannot bear to speak of it. I do not defend his marriage; but he is not the first man who has been led away by a designing woman.”
“He is a hard man,” persisted Laura, working herself into a state of semi-fury; “he is heartless as the grave. Why else has ho not forgiven Clarice?”
“Clarice! He has forgiven her.”
“Has he!” returned Laura, upon whom the words acted as a sudden check. “She is not at home. I am sure she’s not!”
Jane dropped her voice, “We cannot find Clarice, Laura.”
“Not find Clarice! What do you mean?”
“Simply what I say: we cannot find her. I sought out the situation she was at in Gloucester Terrace,—in fact, she was at two situations there, one after the other, but she did not remain long at either. She quitted the