Chapter 30

"This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have
walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds."

Macbeth.

The honeymoon was passed at Clawbonny, and many, many other honeymoons
that have since succeeded it. I never saw a man more delighted than Mr.
Hardinge was, at finding me actually his son-in-law. I really believed he
loved me more than he did Rupert, though he lived and died in ignorance of
his own son's true character. It would have been cruel to undeceive him;
and nothing particular ever occurred to bring about an _éclaircissement_.
Rupert's want of principle was a negative, rather than an active quality,
and was only rendered of account by his vanity and selfishness.
Self-indulgence was all he aimed at, and he was much too self-indulgent
and shrewd to become an active rogue. He would have spent Lucy's and my
joint fortunes, had they been put at his control; but, as they never were,
he was fain to limit his expenditures to such sums as we saw fit to give
him, with certain extra allowances extorted by his debts. Our intercourse
was very much restricted to visits of ceremony, at least on my part;
though Lucy saw him oftener; and no allusion was ever made to the past. I
called him "Mr. Hardinge" and he called me "Mr. Wallingford." "Rupert"
and "Miles" were done with for ever, between us. I may as well dispose of
the history of this person and his wife, at once; for I confess it gives
me pain to speak of them, even at this distance of time.

Rupert lived but four years, after my marriage to his sister. As soon as
he found it necessary to give up the Broadway house, he accepted the use
of Riversedge and his sister's $2000 a-year, with gratitude, and managed
to get along on that sum, apparently, down to the hour of his death. It is
true, that I paid his debts, without Lucy's knowledge, twice in that short
period; and I really think he was sensible of his errors, to a certain
extent, before his eyes were closed. He left one child, a daughter, who
survived him only a few months. Major Merton's complaints had carried him
off previously to this. Between this old officer and myself, there had
ever existed a species of cordiality; and I do believe he sometimes
remembered his various obligations to me and Marble, in a proper temper.
Like most officials of free governments, he left little or nothing behind
him; so that Mrs. Hardinge was totally dependent on her late husband's
friends for a support, during her widowhood. Emily was one of those
semi-worldly characters, that are not absolutely wanting in good
qualities, while there is always more or less of a certain disagreeable
sort of calculation in all they do. Rupert's