by Ellen Wood
Lord Hartledon had left the room after his wife. She sent the children to the nursery; and he found her alone in her chamber sobbing bitterly.
Certainly he was a contradiction. He fondly took her in his arms, beseeching her to pardon him, if he had unwittingly slighted her, as Laura implied; and his blue eyes were beaming with affection, his voice was low with persuasive tenderness.
“There are times,” she sobbed, “when I am tempted to wish myself back in my father’s house!”
“I cannot think whence all this discomfort arises!” he weakly exclaimed. “Of one thing, Anne, rest assured: as soon as Edward changes for the better or the worse — and one it must inevitably be — that mischief-making old woman shall quit my house for ever.”
“Edward will never change for the better,” she said. “For the worse, he may soon: for the better, never.”
“I know: Hillary has told me. Bear with things a little longer, and believe that I will remedy them the moment remedy is possible. I am your husband.”
Lady Hartledon lifted her eyes to his. “We cannot go on as we are going on now. Tell me what it is you have to bear. You remind me that you are my husband; I now remind you that I am your wife: confide in me. I will be true and loving to you, whatever it may be.”
“Not yet; in a little time, perhaps. Bear with me still, my dear wife.”
His look was haggard; his voice bore a sound of anguish; he clasped her hand to pain as he left her. Whatever might be his care, Anne could not doubt his love.
And as he went into the drawing-room, a smile on his face, chatting with the curate, laughing with his newly-married wife, both those unsuspicious visitors could have protested when they went forth, that never was a man more free from trouble than that affable servant of her Majesty’s the Earl of Hartledon.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
EXPLANATIONS.
A change for the worse occurred in the child, Lord Elster; and after two or three weeks’ sinking he died, and was buried at Hartledon by the side of his mother. Hartledon’s sister quitted Hartledon House for a change; but the countess-dowager was there still, and disturbed its silence with moans and impromptu lamentations, especially when going up and down the staircase and along the corridors.
Mr. Carr, who had come for the funeral, also remained. On the day following it he and Lord Hartledon were taking a quiet walk together, when they met Mrs. Gum. Hartledon stopped and spoke to her in his kindly manner. She was less nervous than she used to be; and she and her husband were once more at peace in their house.
“I would not presume to say a word of sympathy, my lord,” she said, curtseying, “but we felt it indeed. Jabez was cut up like anything when he came in yesterday from the funeral.”
Val looked at her, a meaning she understood in his earnest eyes. “Yes, it is hard to part with our children: but when grief is over, we live in the consolation that they have only gone before us to a better place, where sin and sorrow are not. We shall join them later.”
She went away, tears of joy filling her eyes. She had a son up there, waiting for her; and she knew Lord Hartledon meant her to think of him when he had so spoken.
“Carr,” said Val, “I never told you the finale of that tragedy. George Gordon of the mutiny, did turn up: he lived and died in England.”
“No!”
“He died at Calne. It was that poor woman’s son.”
Mr. Carr looked round for an explanation. He knew her as the wife of clerk Gum, and sister to Hartledon’s housekeeper. Val told him all, as the facts had come out to him.
“Pike always puzzled me,” he said. “Disguised as he was with his black hair, his face stained with some dark juice, there was a look in him that used to strike some chord in my memory. It lay in the eyes, I think. You’ll keep these facts sacred, Carr, for the parents’ sake. They are known only to four of us.”
“Have you told your wife yet?” questioned Mr. Carr, recurring to a different subject.
“No. I could not, somehow, whilst the child lay dead in the house. She shall know it shortly.”
“And what about dismissing the countess-dowager? You will do it?”
“I shall be only too thankful to do it. All my courage has come back to me, thank Heaven!”
The Countess-Dowager of Kirton’s reign was indeed over; never would he allow her to disturb the peace of his house again. He might have to pension her off, but that was a light matter. His intention was to speak to her in a few days’ time, allowing an interval to elapse after the boy’s death; but she forestalled the time herself, as Val was soon to find.
Dinner that evening was a sad meal — sad and silent. The only one who did justice to it was the countess-dowager — in a black gauze dress and white crêpe turban. Let what would betide, Lady Kirton never failed to enjoy her dinner. She had a scheme in her head; it had been working there since the day of her grandson’s death; and when the servants withdrew, she judged it expedient to disclose it to Hartledon, hoping to gain her point, now that he was softened by sorrow.
“Hartledon, I want to talk to you,” she began, critically tasting her wine; “and I must request that you’ll attend to me.”
Anne looked up, wondering what was coming. She wore an evening dress of black crêpe, a jet necklace on her fair neck, jet bracelets on her arms: mourning far deeper than the dowager’s.
“Are you listening to me, Val?”
“I am quite ready,” answered Val.
“I asked you, once before, to let me have Maude’s children, and to allow me a fair income with them. Had you done so, this dreadful misfortune would not have overtaken your house: for it stands to reason that if Lord Elster had been living somewhere else with me, he could not have caught scarlet-fever in London.”
“We never thought he did catch it,” returned Hartledon. “It was not prevalent at the time; and, strange to say, none of the other children took it, nor any one else in the house.”
“Then what gave it him?” sharply uttered the dowager.
What Val answered was spoken in a low tone, and she caught one word only, Providence. She gave a growl, and continued.
“At any rate, he’s gone; and you have now no pretext for refusing me Maude. I shall take her, and bring her up, and you must make me a liberal allowance for her.”
“I shall not part with Maude,” said Val, in quiet tones of decision.
“You can’t refuse her to me, I say,” rejoined the dowager, nodding her head defiantly; “she’s my own grandchild.”
“And my child. The argument on this point years ago was unsatisfactory, Lady Kirton; I do not feel disposed to renew it. Maude will remain in her own home.”
“You are a vile man!” cried the dowager, with an inflamed face. “Pass me the wine.”
He filled her glass, and left the decanter with her. She resumed.
“One day, when I was with Maude, in that last illness of hers in London, when we couldn’t find out what was the matter with her, poor dear, she wrote you a letter; and I know what was in it, for I read it. You had gone dancing off somewhere for a week.”
“To the Isle of Wight, on your account,” put in Lord Hartledon, quietly; “on that unhappy business connected with your son who lives there. Well, ma’am?”
“In that letter Maude said she wished me to have charge of her children, if she died; and begged you to take notice that she said it,” continued the dowager. “Perhaps you’ll say you never had that letter?”
“On the contrary, madam, I admit receiving it,” he replied. “I daresay I have it still. Most of Maude’s letters lie in my desk undisturbed.”
“And, admitting that, you refuse to act up to it?”
“Maude wrote in a moment of pique, when she was angry with me. But—”
“And I have no doubt she had good cause for anger!”
“She had great cause,” was his answer, spoken with a strange sadness that surprised both the dowager and Lady Hartledon. Thomas Carr was twirling his wine-glass gently ro
und on the white cloth, neither speaking nor looking.
“Later, my wife fully retracted what she said in that letter,” continued Val. “She confessed that she had written it partly at your dictation, Lady Kirton, and said — but I had better not tell you that, perhaps.”
“Then you shall tell me, Lord Hartledon; and you are a two-faced man, if you shuffle out of it.”
“Very well. Maude said that she would not for the whole world allow her children to be brought up by you; she warned me also not to allow you to obtain too much influence over them.”
“It’s false!” said the dowager, in no way disconcerted.
“It is perfectly true: and Maude told me you knew what her sentiments were upon the point. Her real wish, as expressed to me, was, that the children should remain with me in any case, in their proper home.”
“You say you have that other letter still?” cried the dowager, who was not always very clear in her conversation.
“No doubt.”
“Then perhaps you’ll look for it: and read over her wishes in black and white.”
“To what end? It would make no difference in my decision. I tell you, ma’am, I am consulting Maude’s wishes in keeping her child at home.”
“I know better,” retorted the dowager, completely losing her temper. “I wish your poor dear wife could rise from her grave and confute you. It’s all stinginess; because you won’t part with a paltry bit of money.”
“No,” said Val, “it’s because I won’t part with my child. Understand me, Lady Kirton — had Maude’s wishes even been with you in this, I should not carry them out. As to money — I may have something to say to you on that score; but suppose we postpone it to a more fitting opportunity.”
“You wouldn’t carry them out!” she cried. “But you might be forced to, you mean man! That letter may be as good as a will in the eyes of the law. You daren’t produce it; that’s what it is.”
“I’ll give it you with pleasure,” said Val, with a smile. “That is, if I have kept it. I am not sure.”
She caught up her fan, and sat fanning herself. The reservation had suggested a meaning never intended to her crafty mind; her rebellious son-in-law meant to destroy the letter; and she began wondering how she could outwit him.
A sharp cry outside the door interrupted them. The children were only coming in to dessert now; and Reginald, taking a flying leap down the stairs, took rather too long a one, and came to grief at the bottom. Truth to say, the young gentleman, no longer kept down by poor Edward, was getting high-spirited and venturesome.
“What’s that?” asked Anne, as the nurse came in with them, scolding.
“Lord Elster fell down, my lady. He’s getting as tiresome as can be. Only to-day, I caught him astride the kitchen banisters, going to slide down them.”
“Oh, Regy,” said his mother, holding up her reproving finger.
The boy laughed, and came forward rubbing his arm, and ashamed of his tears. Val caught him up and kissed them away, drawing Maude also to his side.
That letter! The dowager was determined to get it, if there was a possibility of doing so. A suspicion that she would not be tolerated much longer in Lady Hartledon’s house was upon her, and she knew not where to go. Kirton had married again; and his new wife had fairly turned her out more unceremoniously than the late one did. By hook or by crook, she meant to obtain the guardianship of her granddaughter, because in giving her Maude, Lord Hartledon would have to allow her an income.
She was a woman to stop at nothing; and upon quitting the dining-room she betook herself to the library — a large, magnificent room — the pride of Hartledon. She had come in search of Val’s desk; which she found, and proceeded to devise means of opening it. That accomplished, she sat herself down, like a leisurely housebreaker, to examine it, putting on a pair of spectacles, which she kept surreptitiously in a pocket, and would not have worn before any one for the world. She found the letter she was in search of; and she found something else for her pains, which she had not bargained for.
Not just at first. There were many tempting odds and ends of things to dip into. For one thing, she found Val’s banking book, and some old cheque-books; they served her for some time. Next she came upon two packets sealed up in white paper, with Val’s own seal. On one was written, “Letters of Lady Maude;” on the other, “Letters of my dear Anne.” Peering further into the desk, she came upon an obscure inner slide, which had evidently not been opened for years, and she had difficulty in undoing it. A paper was in it, superscribed, “Concerning A.W.;” on opening which she found a letter addressed to Thomas Carr, of the Temple.
Thomas Carr’s letters were no more sacred with her than Lord Hartledon’s. No woman living was troubled with scruples so little as she. It proved to have been written by a Dr. Mair, in Scotland, and was dated several years back.
But now — did Lord Hartledon really know he had that dangerous letter by him? If so, what could have possessed him to preserve it? Or, did he not rather believe he had returned it to Mr. Carr at the time? The latter, indeed, proved to be the case; and never, to the end of his life, would he, in one sense, forgive his own carelessness.
Who was A.W.? thought the curious old woman, as she drew the light nearer to her, and began the tempting perusal, making the most of the little time left. They could not be at tea yet, and she had told Lady Hartledon she was going to take her nap in her own room. The gratification of rummaging false Val’s desk was an ample compensation; and the countess-dowager hugged herself with delight.
But what was this she had come upon — this paper “concerning A. W.”? The dowager’s mouth fell as she read; and gradually her little eyes opened as if they would start from their sockets, and her face grew white. Have you ever watched the livid pallor of fear struggling to one of these painted faces? She dashed off her spectacles; she got up and wrung her hands; she executed a frantic war-dance; and finally she tore, with the letter, into the drawing-room, where Val and Anne and Thomas Carr were beginning tea and talking quietly.
They rose in consternation as she danced in amongst them, and held out the letter to Lord Hartledon.
He took it from her, gazing in utter bewilderment as he gathered in its contents. Was it a fresh letter, or — his face became whiter than the dowager’s. In her reckless passion she avowed what she had done — the letter was secreted in his desk.
“Have you dared to visit my desk?” he gasped— “break my seals? Are you mad?”
“Hark at him!” she cried. “He calls me to account for just lifting the lid of a desk! But what is he? A villain — a thief — a spy — a murderer — and worse than any of them! Ah, ha, my lady!” nodding her false front at Lady Hartledon, who stood as one petrified, “you stare there at me with your open eyes; but you don’t know what you are! Ask him! What was Maude — Heaven help her — my poor Maude? What was she? And you in the plot; you vile Carr! I’ll have you all hanged together!”
Lord Hartledon caught his wife’s hand.
“Carr, stay here with her and tell her all. No good concealing anything now she has read this letter. Tell her for me, for she would never listen to me.”
He drew his wife into an adjoining room, the one where the portrait of George Elster looked down on its guests. The time for disclosing the story to his wife had been somewhat forestalled. He would have given half his life that it had never reached that other woman, miserable old sinner though she was.
“You are trembling, Anne; you need not do so. It is not against you that I have sinned.”
Yes, she was trembling very much. And Val, in his honourable, his refined, shrinking nature, would have given his life’s other half not to have had the tale to tell.
It is not a pleasant one. You may skip it if you please, and go on to the last page. Val once said he had been more sinned against than sinning: it may be deemed that in that opinion he was too lenient to himself. Anne, his wife, listened with averted face and incredulous ears.
“
You have wanted a solution to my conduct, Anne — to the strange preference I seemed to accord the poor boy who is gone; why I could not punish him; why I was more thankful for the boon of his death than I had been for his life. He was my child, but he was not Lord Elster.”
She did not understand.
“He had no right to my name; poor little Maude has no right to it. Do you understand me now?”
Not at all; it was as though he were talking Greek to her.
“Their mother, when they were born, was not my wife.”
“Their mother was Lady Maude Kirton,” she rejoined, in her bewilderment.
“That is exactly where it was,” he answered bitterly. “Lady Maude Kirton, not Lady Hartledon.”
She could not comprehend the words; her mind was full of consternation and tumult. Back went her thoughts to the past.
“Oh, Val! I remember papa’s saying that a marriage in that unused chapel was only three parts legal!”
“It was legal enough, Anne: legal enough. But when that ceremony took place” — his voice dropped to a miserable whisper, “I had — as they tell me — a wife living.”
Slowly she admitted the meaning of the words; and would have started from him with a faint cry, but that he held her to him.
“Listen to the whole, Anne, before you judge me. What has been your promise to me, over and over again? — that, if I would tell you my sorrow, you would never shrink from me, whatever it might be.”
She remembered it, and stood still; terribly rebellious, clasping her fingers to pain, one within the other.
“In that respect, at any rate, I did not willingly sin. When I married Maude I had no suspicion that I was not free as air; free to marry her, or any other woman in the world.”
“You speak in enigmas,” she said faintly.
“Sit down, Anne, whilst I give you the substance of the tale. Not its details until I am more myself, and that voice” — pointing to the next room— “is not sounding in my ears. You shall hear all later; at least, as much as I know myself; I have never quite believed in it, and it has been to me throughout as a horrible dream.”