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After a pause, I ventured to ask what became of Madame de Créquy, Clément’s mother.
“She never made any inquiry about him,” said my lady. “She must have known that he was dead; though how, we never could tell. Medlicott remembered afterwards that it was about, if not on – Medlicott to this day declares that it was on the very Monday, June the nineteenth, when her son was executed, that Madame de Créquy left off her rouge and took to her bed, as one bereaved and hopeless. It certainly was about that time; and Medlicott – who was deeply impressed by that dream of Madame de Créquy’s (the relation of which I told you had had such an effect on my lord), in which she had seen the figure of Virginie – as the only light object amid much surrounding darkness as of night, smiling and beckoning Clément on – on – till at length the bright phantom stopped, motionless, and Madame de Créquy’s eyes began to penetrate the murky darkness, and to see closing around her the gloomy dripping walls which she had once seen and never forgotten – the walls of the vault of the chapel of the De Créquys in Saint Germain l’Auxerrois; and there the two last of the Créquys laid them down among their forefathers, and Madame de Créquy had wakened to the sound of the great door, which led to the open air, being locked upon her – I say Medlicott, who was predisposed by this dream to look out for the supernatural, always declared that Madame de Créquy was made conscious in some mysterious way, of her son’s death, on the very day and hour when it occurred, and that after that she had no more anxiety, but was only conscious of a kind of stupefying despair.”
“And what became of her, my lady?” I again asked.
“What could become of her?” replied Lady Ludlow. “She never could be induced to rise again, though she lived more than a year after her son’s departure. She kept her bed; her room darkened, her face turned towards the wall, whenever any one besides Medlicott was in the room. She hardly ever spoke, and would have died of starvation but for Medlicott’s tender care, in putting a morsel to her lips every now and then, feeding her, in fact, just as an old bird feeds her young ones. In the height of summer my lord and I left London. We would fain have taken her with us into Scotland, but the doctor (we had the old doctor from Leicester Square) forbade her removal; and this time he gave such good reasons against it that I acquiesced. Medlicott and a maid were left with her. Every care was taken of her. She survived till our return. Indeed, I thought she was in much the same state as I had left her in, when I came back to London. But Medlicott spoke of her as much weaker; and one morning on awakening, they told me she was dead. I sent for Medlicott, who was in sad distress, she had become so fond of her charge. She said that, about two o’clock, she had been awakened by unusual restlessness on Madame de Créquy’s part; that she had gone to her bedside, and found the poor lady feebly but perpetually moving her wasted arm up and down – and saying to herself in a wailing voice: ‘I did not bless him when he left me – I did not bless him when he left me!’ Medlicott gave her a spoonful or two of jelly, and sat by her, stroking her hand, and soothing her till she seemed to fall asleep. But in the morning she was dead.”
“It is a sad story, your ladyship,” said I, after a while.
“Yes it is. People seldom arrive at my age without having watched the beginning, middle, and end of many lives and many fortunes. We do not talk about them, perhaps; for they are often so sacred to us, from having touched into the very quick of our own hearts, as it were, or into those of others who are dead and gone, and veiled over from human sight, that we cannot tell the tale as if it was a mere story. But young people should remember that we have had this solemn experience of life, on which to base our opinions and form our judgments, so that they are not mere untried theories. I am not alluding to Mr Horner just now, for he is nearly as old as I am – within ten years, I dare say – but I am thinking of Mr Gray, with his endless plans for some new thing – schools, education, Sabbaths, and what not. Now he has not seen what all this leads to.”
“It is a pity he has not heard your ladyship tell the story of poor Monsieur de Créquy.”
“Not at all a pity, my dear. A young man like him, who, both by position and age, must have had his experience confined to a very narrow circle, ought not to set up his opinion against mine; he ought not to require reasons from me, nor to need such explanation of my arguments (if I condescend to argue), as going into relation of the circumstances on which my arguments are based in my own mind, would be.”
“But, my lady, it might convince him,” I said, with perhaps injudicious perseverance.
“And why should he be convinced?” she asked, with gentle inquiry in her tone. “He has only to acquiesce. Though he is appointed by Mr Croxton, I am the lady of the manor, as he must know. But it is with Mr Horner that I must have to do about this unfortunate lad Gregson. I am afraid there will be no method of making him forget his unlucky knowledge. His poor brains will be intoxicated with the sense of his powers, without any counterbalancing principles to guide him. Poor fellow! I am quite afraid it will end in his being hanged!”
The next day Mr Horner came to apologise and explain. He was evidently – as I could tell from his voice, as he spoke to my lady in the next room – extremely annoyed at her ladyship’s discovery of the education he had been giving to this boy. My lady spoke with great authority, and with reasonable grounds of complaint. Mr Horner was well acquainted with her thoughts on the subject, and had acted in defiance of her wishes. He acknowledged as much, and should on no account have done it, in any other instance, without her leave.
“Which I could never have granted you,” said my lady.
But this boy had extraordinary capabilities; would, in fact, have taught himself much that was bad, if he had not been rescued, and another direction given to his powers. And in all Mr Horner had done, he had had her ladyship’s service in view. The business was getting almost beyond his power, so many letters and so much account keeping was required by the complicated state in which things were.
Lady Ludlow felt what was coming – a reference to the mortgage for the benefit of my lord’s Scottish estates, which, she was perfectly aware, Mr Horner considered as having been a most unwise proceeding – and she hastened to observe – “All this may be very true, Mr Horner, and I am sure I should be the last person to wish you to overwork or distress yourself; but of that we will talk another time. What I am now anxious to remedy is, if possible, the state of this poor little Gregson’s mind. Would not hard work in the fields be a wholesome and excellent way of enabling him to forget?”
“I was in hopes, my lady, that you would have permitted me to bring him up to act as a kind of clerk,” said Mr Horner, jerking out his project abruptly.
“A what?” asked my lady, in infinite surprise.
“A kind of – of assistant, in the way of copying letters and doing up accounts. He is already an excellent penman and very quick at figures.”
“Mr Horner,” said my lady, with dignity, “the son of a poacher and vagabond ought never to have been able to copy letters relating to the Hanbury estates; and, at any rate, he shall not. I wonder how it is that, knowing the use he has made of his power of reading a letter, you should venture to propose such an employment for him as would require his being in your confidence, and you the trusted agent of this family. Why, every secret (and every ancient and honourable family has its secrets, as you know, Mr Horner) would be learnt off by heart, and repeated to the first comer!”
“I should have hoped to have trained him, my lady, to understand the rules of discretion.”
“Trained! Train a barn door fowl to be a pheasant, Mr Horner! That would be the easier task. But you did right to speak of discretion rather than honour. Discretion looks to the consequences of actions – honour looks to the action itself, and is an instinct
