Clare Avery | Page 7

eyes, and that she was not a whit less particular
than usual to know what there was for supper.
For six whole months this state of things lasted. Orige arrayed herself
in the deepest sables; she spoke of herself as a wretched widow who
could never taste hope again; and of her baby as a poor hapless orphan,
as yet unwitting of its misery. She declined to see any visitors, and
persisted in being miserable and disconsolate, and in taking lonely
walks to brood over her wretchedness. And at the end of that time she
electrified her husband's family--all but one--by the announcement that
she was about to marry again. Not for love this time, of course; no,
indeed!--but she thought it was her duty. Sir Thomas Enville--a
widower with three children--had been very kind; and he would make
such a good father for Clare. He had a beautiful estate in the North. It
would be a thousand pities to let the opportunity slip. Once for all, she
thought it her duty; and she begged that no one would worry her with
opposition, as everything was already settled.
Kate Avery, Walter's elder and only surviving sister, was exceedingly
indignant. Her gentle, unsuspicious mother was astonished and puzzled.
But Mr Avery, after a momentary look of surprise, only smiled.
"Nay, but this passeth!" [surpasses belief] cried Kate.
"Even as I looked for it," quietly said her father. "I did but think it
should maybe have been somewhat later of coming."
"Her duty!" broke out indignant Kate. "Her duty to whom?"
"To herself, I take it," said he. "To Clare, as she counteth. Methinks she
is one of those deceivers that do begin with deceiving of themselves."
"To Clare!" repeated Kate. "But, Father, she riddeth her of Clare. The
babe is to 'bide here until such time as it may please my good Lady to
send for her."
"So much the better for Clare," quietly returned Mr Avery.

And thus it happened that Clare was six years old, and her mother was
still an utter stranger to her.
The family at Bradmond, however, were not without tidings of Lady
Enville. It so happened that Mr Avery's adopted son, Robert Tremayne,
was Rector of the very parish in which Sir Thomas Enville lived; and a
close correspondence--for Elizabethan days--was kept up between
Bradmond and the Rectory. In this manner they came to know, as time
went on, that Clare had a little sister, whose name was Blanche; that
Lady Enville was apparently quite happy; that Sir Thomas was very
kind to her, after his fashion, though that was not the devoted fashion
of Walter Avery. Sir Thomas liked to adorn his pretty plaything with
fine dresses and rich jewellery; he surrounded her with every comfort;
he allowed her to go to every party within ten miles, and to spend as
much money as she pleased. And this was precisely Orige's beau ideal
of happiness. Her small cup seemed full--but evidently Clare was no
necessary ingredient in the compound.
If any one had taken the trouble to weigh, sort, and label the prejudices
of Barbara Polwhele, it would have been found that the heaviest of all
had for its object "Papistry,"--the second, dirt,--and the third, "Mistress
Walter." Lieutenant Avery had been Barbara's darling from his cradle,
and she considered that his widow had outraged his memory, by
marrying again so short a time after his death. For this, above all her
other provocations, Barbara never heartily forgave her. And a great
struggle it was to her to keep her own feelings as much as possible in
the background, from the conscientious motive that she ought not to
instil into Clare's baby mind the faintest feeling of aversion towards her
mother. The idea of the child being permanently sent to Enville Court
was intensely distasteful to her. Yet wherever Clare went, Barbara must
go also.
She had promised Mrs Avery, Clare's grandmother, on her dying bed,
never to leave the child by her own free will so long as her childhood
lasted, and rather than break her word, she would have gone to
Siberia-- or to Enville Court. In Barbara's eyes, there would have been
very little choice between the two places. Enville Court lay on the

sea-coast, and Barbara abhorred the sea, on which her only brother and
Walter Avery had died: it was in Lancashire, which she looked upon as
a den of witches, and an arid desert bare of all the comforts of life; it
was a long way from any large town, and Barbara had been used to live
within an easy walk of one; she felt, in short, as though she were being
sent into banishment.
And there was no help for it. Within the last few weeks, a letter had
come