After Mr. Tom Henderson had left the Mayflower with John Temple in Fern Dene, he walked onward with a frowning brow and an angry heart. He was in love with the pretty girl he had just seen sitting with another man lying at her feet; in love with her, and jealous of her very words, and moreover he knew who this other man was.
He had seen John Temple at poor young Phil Temple’s funeral the day before, and knew therefore that this good-looking, pleasant-tongued man was the new heir of Woodlea.
“And how on earth did Margaret Churchill pick up his acquaintance?” he asked himself, scowlingly. He felt savage at the very thought. He was a hot-tempered man, and had been brought up at home, and always had had very much his own way at StourtonGrange. And now he was master there, and had no small opinion of his own importance.
He knew that in point of family and position he was a good match for Margaret Churchill. Margaret’s father was a tenant farmer, and Tom Henderson a land-owner, and he quite appreciated the difference. But the beauty of the neighborhood apparently did not. She did not treat the young squire of Stourton as he expected to be treated, and perhaps this really only added to her attractions in his eyes.
At all events he felt very angry at seeing her with John Temple. He walked on with hasty steps, and never noticed that presently he was followed by a woman. By and by he came to a field of tall uncut corn, which was swaying in the summer breeze. Then she made haste to overtake him. She quickened her steps, she almost ran, and a few moments later she called out his name.
“Tom!” she cried, and young Henderson hearing her voice turned quickly round, and a dusky flush rose to his face as he did so.
“Well, Elsie,” he said, stopping and looking by no means well-pleased, “where have you cast up from?”
“Ah! I’ve followed you ever so far, Tom,” panted the girl; “I’ve been waiting about all the morning trying to see you.”
“That was wasting your time then, Elsie.”
“No, don’t say that, but I could not rest till I saw you. Why did you not come last night, Tom, as you promised?”
“I could not get away; some one came to the Grange.”
“Well I’ve got something to tell you; something that’s nearly driven me mad, though I know it’s nothing but lies—oh, yes, I know that, Tom.”
She looked up in his handsome face as she spoke—the half-averted face—and there was beseeching love and tenderness in her eyes.
“And what is this wonderful thing then, Elsie?” he asked.
“It was Elizabeth Jenkins, and she said—”
“Well, what did she say?”
“I know it’s all nonsense, and you mustn’t be angry, Tom—but she said you often went to Woodside Farm; that you—were running after Miss Churchill, in fact.”
The flush deepened on young Henderson’s face.
“Oh! that I was running after her, was I? Well, I haven’t caught her yet, Elsie,” he said, with an uneasy laugh.
“Oh, don’t jest about it, Tom, don’t laugh; it was a cruel thing to say—cruel to me.”
The young man did not speak; he cast his brown eyes down on the path; he moved the arm restlessly with which he was carrying his gun.
“Of course she just said it from spite—just because she knew—” continued the girl, hesitatingly.
Then Henderson looked up.
“What does she know, Elsie?” he said, glancing at the girl’s face.
Her lips quivered and her bosom heaved as he asked the question.
“What everyone must soon know, Tom,” she answered; “what you are and must be to me.”
An expression of great annoyance contracted Henderson’s features.
“And you mean to say you have talked to this woman?” he said, angrily.
“I have not said much,” she replied, half-sullenly, “but she knows.”
“Then you are a fool for your pains.”
He said this roughly enough, and a sudden rush of tears filled the poor girl’s eyes as he spoke.
“It can’t go on, Tom!” she cried, piteously, “your father’s dead now; you know you always promised to marry me when your father died.”
“This is folly,” muttered Henderson, under his thick mustache.
“What is folly?” asked the girl, sharply, looking up.
“This talk about our marriage—it’s an old story, Elsie, and we may as well drop it.”
The change in her expression was something terrible, as she listened to these heartless words. She grew deadly pale, and her whole frame trembled.
“Drop it—never!” she repeated, with passionate earnestness. “Tom, if you hate me now you must marry me; I will kill myself or you if you don’t.”
“It’s no good talking folly.”
“It’s not folly; it’s truth, as there is a God above us it is truth! What, after all, after all,” and she wrung her hands, “you would go back! But you shall not, Tom! You may think to throw me over because you are tired of me, and take up with another girl, but there are two words to that—I will go to Miss Churchill myself—”
“If you do,” interrupted Henderson, with a fierce oath, “I will strike you dead!”
“You can’t strike me worse than you’ve struck me now, but strike me or not, I’ll do what I say unless you keep your word.”
She stood there defying him, with her eyes gleaming and her hands clenched. She was a handsome woman, of a certain type, with a clear brown skin and thick, coarse black hair. She looked also determined and passionate, and perhaps Henderson was afraid to excite her further. At all events he moderated his tone.
“Well, don’t make any more row,” he said; “we can talk it over some other time.”
“But it must be settled, Tom; I can’t wait,” she answered.
An evil look came over Tom Henderson’s face.
“You are always worrying a man,” he said; “there’s no such wonderful hurry about it, and there’s my mother to consider.”
“There’s always something to consider; first it was your father, now your mother. But I am to be considered too, I—I and something besides.”
Henderson did not speak for a moment; he stood as though irresolute. Again he looked at the excited face before him; at the gleaming dark eyes and full quivering lips, and then he said more soothingly:
“Well, go home now, Elsie, and keep quiet, and we’ll see what can be done.”
“I am not going to be put off.”
“I must consider things, and see what I think best. If you go home now I’ll come and have a talk with you to-night at the old place about nine o’clock.”
“Will you be sure to come?”
“Yes, I’ll be sure. And now, good-by, Elsie; you go your way and I’ll go home.”
He nodded to her carelessly, and then turned away, and the girl stood looking after him as he went. And there was infinite pain in her expression, infinite distress.
“And he loved me once,” she muttered; “he loved me once.”
These words seemed like an epitaph on her life’s happiness. She knew it was all over, and that the young man to whom she had given so much was weary of her; weary of the frail bondage by which she held him.
And, in truth, never was man more weary. Young Henderson’s face was black as night as he strode on after he had left the girl he called Elsie. She was a chain around his neck, an intolerable burden, from which he could see no way to free himself.
And yet he must be free! Margaret Churchill’s lovely face rose before him as he passed down the fields of waving corn. He would not give her up, he told himself; he would not let this folly of his almost boyhood come between himself and his fair love.
He remembered the days when he had first known Elsie Wray; the days when he used to ride past the pretty, rather picturesque wayside public house where her father lived, and where the handsome, motherless girl occasionally acted as barmaid.
He was just about nineteen when he had first spoken to her—a handsome, dark-browned lad—and, having been caught in a passing storm, he had taken shelter at the wayside house. Elsie was about his own age—perhaps a year younger—and these two had driftedfirst into a flirtation, and then, on the girl’s part at least, into a deep and passionate love.
It went on for years, always, young Henderson believed, in secret, on account of his father. The squire of Stourton was an irascible old gentleman, and would have allowed “no folly,” as he would have called it, between his son and a barmaid. Alas, for the poor girl! The young, ardent, handsome lover came night after night in the gloaming, and the two wandered together in the dewy fields, and sat on the lone hillsides, and talked of the days when they would be free to wed, and when there would be no partings between them any more.
So it went on until, in an evil hour for poor Elsie, young Henderson saw Margaret Churchill’s (the Mayflower’s) fairer face, and his first love-dream was over. Over for him but not for Elsie Wray, with all its bitter fruits. She could not believe at first that he had changed; it seemed impossible, and she so fond. Then his father died, and her hopes of speedy marriage revived. But there was always some excuse from the once ardent lover. It was too soon after his father’s death, his affairs were not settled, and so on.
And now for the first time she had heard from some friend that he went to Woodside Farm, and, naturally, as Miss Churchill was considered the prettiest girl in all the country round, her jealousy was aroused. She, however, little guessed how far her false lover had committed himself with his new love. He had, in fact, asked Margaret Churchill to be his wife, and though she had said him nay, he still held determinately to his purpose.
“No one and nothing shall come between us,” he muttered, with gloomy emphasis, with his teeth set hard, as he walked on homeward after his stormy interview with Elsie. And there was a look on his face, a dark, savage look, that boded ill for the poor girl who had loved him too well.
“I can not get that girl’s face out of my head,” John Temple thought more than once, as he walked back to the Hall. Her beauty had indeed a wonderful charm for him. He had seen and known many pretty women, but to his mind none so fair and sweet as the Mayflower. And he liked to think of her by this name.
“She is just like a flower,” he told himself. “Ah! that such a face should ever fade!”
This idea made him more thoughtful. He began to muse on the brief tenure of earthly things. And as he approached the stately house that in all probability would one day be his, he was thinking thus still.
“I may never come here,” he thought, looking at the old Hall, with the summer sunshine falling on its gray walls; “never, nor child of mine.”
A shadow passed over his face; he struck impatiently with his walking stick at a tall thistle growing by the wayside, and there was a cloud still on his brow as he entered the hall, and went up the broad staircase that led to the bedroom appropriated to his use.
As he passed down one of the corridors, a tall lady in black suddenly opened one of the doors and appeared before him. She was very pale, and her dark eyes were gleaming as though she were laboring under strong mental excitement.
She looked at John Temple, and then came out on the corridor and confronted him.
“So,” she said, “you have come to take my boy’s place?”
Then John knew at once who she was. This was his uncle’s wife, the bereaved mother, who had lost her only child. He bowed low, and a look of pity came into his gray eyes.
“I have felt very much,” he said, “for your great grief.”
“It has benefited you, at any rate,” she answered, bitterly.
“I can not feel it a benefit at such a cost.”
She looked at him keenly as he said this, and then her faced softened.
“You can not tell what he was to me,” she murmured in a broken voice; “my only one, my only one!”
A sudden passion of tears here came to her relief. Her bosom heaved and her whole form was convulsed, and John Temple naturally felt exceedingly disconcerted. He tried to say some consoling words; he endeavored to take one of her trembling hands. But the sound of her sobs soon attracted the attention of someone within the bedroom from which she had come out. A respectable maid appeared and endeavored to persuade her to return.
“Oh, madam! do not give way so,” she said; “I was sure it was a pity you should see—this gentleman so soon. But she would see you, sir,” she added, looking at John Temple.
“If my presence distresses you,” said John, courteously, looking pityingly at the weeping woman, “I shall leave the Hall at once.”
“What matter is it, what matter is it!” moaned Mrs. Temple; “nothing matters to me now!”
With this she turned away and went back into the bedroom, and the maid hastily closed the door after her, and John saw her no more. But the incident affected him; her grief was evidently so deep and heartrending; her bitter words to him only the natural outpouring of her troubled heart.
“Poor woman,” thought John, and he said nothing to his uncle of this meeting when they dined together in the evening.
The squire again spoke to John of the property and his tenants.
“I have improved some of the farm holdings very much during the last few years,” he said; “at Woodside Farm especially the whole of the outbuildings have been renewed.”
“Ah,” said John, interested, “at Woodside Farm?”
“Yes, that is one of the best farms on the property, and is let to a very respectable man named Churchill. Suppose we walk over to-morrow morning, and I will show you the place?”
John, nothing loath, at once assented.
“The house is old and somewhat picturesque,” continued the squire, “and now that the outbuildings are in such good order, I consider Woodside a sort of model place.”
John expressed himself desirous of seeing it, and he doubtless was. He had not forgotten that Woodside was the Mayflower’s home, and he wished again to look on her fair face.
“There can be no harm in it,” he thought; “it is a very innocent pleasure indeed to admire a pretty girl.”
Accordingly at breakfast the next morning he reminded the squire of his proposition of the night before.
“Didn’t you say, sir,” he said, “that we had to go over and see some model farm or other this morning?”
“Yes, to be sure, Woodside Farm,” answered the squire, “but it had gone out of my head, as things sometimes do now. I am glad you reminded me of it.”
The uncle and nephew accordingly started together almost immediately breakfast was over.
“We will get there, I think, before Churchill gets away among his fields,” said the squire. “I should like you to see him, for I believe him to be a highly respectable man.”
It was a bright, fresh morning, and John Temple enjoyed the walk. The waving mazes of uncut corn; the hedge-rows scented with the meadow-sweet; the cattle standing under the trees, made to his mind a pleasant picture.
“After all, the country is charming,” he said, raising his head as though more freely to inhale the air, and looking round at the green and fertile landscape.
“Do you think you would not tire of it?” asked the old man by his side, lifting his sad eyes and lookingsteadfastly at his nephew’s good-looking face. He was wondering what his life had been; how the last decade of his thirty years had passed. Not in riotous living he told himself, for John Temple’s features bore no marks of dissipation nor sin. His eyes were clear and resolute, his whole bearing that of a man who had led at least a fairly good life.
“He looks honest,” thought the squire, and then he sighed, thinking of his dead boy, and all the fond hopes which lay buried in his untimely grave.
“I might tire of it,” answered John, smiling in reply to his uncle’s question, “if I never had any change, for I think we all want change. It is human nature, part of our heritage, to desire it.”
Again the old man sighed.
“You must marry now, John,” he said, and as he spoke a flush rose to his nephew’s face.
“I think not,” he answered.
“You will think differently I hope, some day,” continued the squire. “But here we are at Woodside; it is a pretty spot.”
It was indeed a pretty spot; a long, low, white house, standing amid a large old-fashioned garden, with trim box-borders, and fruit trees laden with their ripening crops. They approached the house from the front, but at the rear the squire pointed out with some pardonable pride the new and expensive outbuildings.
“I wish every farm on the property was in such good order,” he said. “But we will go into the garden, and I dare say will find the farmer somewhere about, or perhaps his daughter can tell us where he is.”
As he spoke the squire opened the garden gate and passed down the walks, accompanied by John Temple and followed by two dogs. A little summer house stood on the path, and a moment later a pretty scrimmage ensued. A very handsome gray kitten was disporting itself at the entrance of the summer house, and at the sight of the avowed enemies of its race, the kitten prepared for battle. With tail erected and every hair on end, it stood to receive the charge it evidentlyexpected. The dogs saw it, and with vicious yells ran forward, and the brave kitten’s moments had been numbered had not its mistress with a cry sprang forward from the interior of the summer house and caught it to her breast. The squire and John called back the dogs; the Mayflower protected her kitten, and then stood smiling and blushing to receive her visitors at the entrance of the summer house.
“Oh, Mr. Temple, your dogs frightened me so!” she said, as the squire offered her his hand.
“I am very sorry,” he answered, “but they have not touched your kitten, have they?”
“In another instant they would,” smiled the Mayflower, holding her pet tightly in her arms.
“What a pretty creature it is,” said John Temple, now stroking the kitten’s striped head, whose large eyes were wide open with terror.
“Yes, isn’t he a beauty?” answered the Mayflower. “Poor Jacky! and would the naughty dogs have eaten you?”
Jacky looked as if he decidedly thought that they would, and clung to his mistress’ white frock, who soothed and comforted him. The Mayflower certainly was a lovely creature as she stood thus, with her fair head uncovered. She had been sewing in the summer house; trimming a white straw hat, and ribbons and flowers lay strewn about, and as a man of taste John Temple found it impossible not to admire so pretty a picture.
“Is your father in the house?” now asked the squire.
“He was in the garden five minutes ago, looking at the apple trees,” replied the Mayflower. “Shall I call him, Mr. Temple?”
But at this moment Mr. Churchill, the farmer, was seen advancing toward them, as he had heard in another part of the garden the squire and John Temple calling back their dogs, and now came to see what was the matter. He took off his low-crowned hat when he recognized the squire, but Mr. Temple held out his thin hand to his favorite tenant.
“Well, Mr. Churchill, how are you?” he said. “I have brought my nephew to see you; my nephew—and now my heir.”
His voice faltered a little as he said the last few words, and a look of respectful sympathy passed over the farmer’s brown face.
“Glad to make your acquaintance, sir,” he said, looking at John Temple with a pair of very intelligent gray eyes.
Altogether he was a good-looking man, and was, moreover, an excellent farmer. He had gone with the times, and instead of grumbling at the price of corn and foreign competition, grew on his land the crops he found to sell best. He was a great breeder of horses also, and his stud was quite a famous one. He was also a keen man at a bargain, and prosperous. He had married a lady in a superior social position to himself, whom he had won by his good-looking face, and he had given his only daughter Margaret Alice Churchill (the Mayflower) an excellent education. Mrs. Churchill had died two years ago, but as yet he had taken no second wife, so May, as she was always called at the farm, was the mistress of the house.
He had two other children, both schoolboys, and Willie Churchill (the second boy) had been one of the players in the fatal game of football when poor Phil Temple, the little heir of Woodlea, had met his death. The squire knew this fact, but no particular blame had been laid on the boy. A rush had taken place, and the little heir had fallen, and it was said to be impossible to tell who had given the actual kick or blow that had destroyed Phil Temple’s life.
“I think it will interest my nephew to have a look at your stud,” continued the squire; “he’s lived mostly in towns, and knows nothing of farming, I dare say, but horses interest nearly all men.”
“To be sure,” answered Mr. Churchill. “But won’t you come in, gentlemen, and rest awhile first, and have a glass of claret, or a taste of our home-brew or cider?”
The squire accepted the farmer’s offer, and said hewould have a glass of the home-brewed ale, as he knew it of old. He therefore walked on toward the house, accompanied by Mr. Churchill; and May Churchill, still carrying her kitten, followed the two, with John Temple by her side.
“I was quite glad when my uncle proposed to come here to-day, Miss Churchill,” he said; “I wanted to see your pretty home.”
“You are very welcome,” answered the Mayflower, with such a charming grace of manner that John Temple could not help wondering where she could possibly have acquired it.
“You must show me your fernery,” he continued; “and,” he added hastily, for they were now nearing the house, “will you come one day to Fern Dene, and let me try to find some rare ones for you? Will you come to-day—this afternoon?”
May blushed to her pretty white brow.
“This afternoon?” she repeated with hesitation.
“Yes, why not? It is fine; promise to come?”
“Very well,” said May, and as she spoke her father turned round and addressed her.
“May, my dear,” he said, “give me the cellar keys.”
“At three o’clock,” remarked John Temple in a low tone, but May had heard the words.
She hurriedly entered the flower-festooned porch of the house, which opened into a long low hall with windows on either side of the door, which also were filled with flowers.
The whole place, indeed, had an air of comfort and refinement, and the dining-room into which Mr. Churchill ushered the squire and John Temple was not only substantially but handsomely furnished. A rich turkey carpet lay on the polished oak floor, and the sideboard and mantel-piece were of carved oak. John Temple looked around with astonishment. He had pictured a tenant-farmer’s house to be so very different. For, from the silver flagon in which a neat hand-maiden bore the home-brewed ale, to the fair young daughter, everything at Woodside was of the very best.
May Churchill lingered in the room a few minutes, and then when the squire began to talk of the stud and their accommodation, she went out, and John Temple saw her once more enter the garden. But he did not see her again during his visit to the farm. The farmer was intent on his different breeds of horses, and had made a good bargain with the government during the last months for mounts for the troops. John got a little weary, it must be confessed, to all this, but the squire was interested. John was thinking of the sunny garden not far away, and wishing he was wandering with fair May among the flowers. However, he made no sign of this. He left Mr. Churchill with the impression that he was a sensible, well-bred young man, and likely to make a good landlord, and this last idea was an important point to Mr. Churchill’s mind.
The uncle and nephew left Woodside in time to be back to the Hall for lunch, and when they entered the dining-room, to their great surprise they found Mrs. Temple awaiting their arrival.
It was the first time that she had been down-stairs since her boy’s death, and the squire went forward with some emotion, and took her hand when he saw her.
“My dear,” he said, “I am very glad you are able to come down to-day—this is John Temple, my nephew.”
John bowed low, and Mrs. Temple fixed her dark eyes on his face, but did not speak, or make any allusion to their meeting on the corridor the day before.
“We have had a long walk,” continued the squire, a little nervously, “and you must be hungry, John?”
“Please sit down, then,” said Mrs. Temple, still looking at John with her restless eyes, and waving him to take a seat at the table. “It’s a fine day outside, isn’t it?”
“A charming day,” answered John. “Do you think you will feel well enough to venture out a little?”
“I don’t know,” she replied; “I am weary of being indoors. I feel as if I can not breathe, and yet to go out so soon, so soon”—and she covered her face with her hand.
“My love, I entreat you not to agitate yourself,” said the squire, yet more nervously.
She took her hand from her face; her eyes were dry and hard, and she smiled a bitter smile.
“I did not mean to make a scene,” she said. “I meant to be as if nothing had happened—as if I had still something to live for. I apologize to you, Mr. Temple.”
Again John bowed low his comely head.
“I wish you could understand,” he said, “how deeply and truly I sympathize with your grief—I do, indeed, Mrs. Temple.”
There was the ring of truth in his voice; the gleam of truth in his gray eyes, and Mrs. Temple seemed to understand this.
“Do not let us speak of it,” she said, and as she spoke she seated herself at the table. “Now, tell me where you have both been?”
“We have been over some of the farms,” answered the squire, hastily, and John understood that for some reason or other he did not wish to speak of their visit to Woodside to his wife.
But John was an easy conversationalist, and the lunch hour passed not unpleasantly. After it was over Mrs. Temple rose, restlessly.
“Come with me into the garden for a short time,” she said, addressing John; “it will occupy my mind a little to talk to you.”
“I shall be most happy,” he answered, and for the next half-hour he walked up and down the garden walks with his uncle’s wife. She was evidently trying to keep herself under control, but occasionally she grew excited.
“You must have thought me mad yesterday,” she said once, “to waylay you as I did. But I felt so restless to see you; I hated you, you know, because—because you had come to take my darling’s place.”
“I hope you will not hate me any longer,” replied John, gently.
She looked at him searchingly.
“No,” she said, “I do not think I shall. But bear with me for a little while, for I have suffered so much. Mine has been a life of suffering,” she added, impetuously. “No one knows, none but my own heart, what I have gone through.”
“We all suffer at times, I believe,” answered John, gravely.
“But men do not suffer as women do,” continued Mrs. Temple, excitedly. “Men can go out into the world, can fight, can struggle, while we sit breaking our hearts at home. But why speak of it? Anyone can tell what my life has been—look at my marriage?”
“But my uncle is most devoted to you?”
“A young woman married to an old man! Take my advice, Mr. Temple, don’t marry an old woman.”
She gave a harsh little laugh as she said this, and it jarred on John’s ears. He grew restless to go away. It must be nearing three o’clock, he knew, and he wanted to be in the woods at Fern Dene, with someone who was fresh and fair, not like this dark, handsome, spirit-torn woman. And with quick intuition Mrs. Temple perceived this.
“You are tired of me,” she said, “and I am getting tired of you. Good-by for the present; we will meet again at dinner;” and with this she nodded and turned away, and John was free to follow his own inclinations.
What these inclinations were we may easily guess. To walk as quickly to Fern Dene as possible, yet when he arrived there he found that May Churchill was just preparing to go home.
“I could not come before,” he explained, hastily; “my uncle’s wife took into her head to go into thegarden, and asked me to go with her, and what could I do?”
“Poor Mrs. Temple!” said May, pityingly.
“Yes, indeed, she is greatly to be pitied.”
“Her loss was terrible, most terrible. Phil was such a dear, bright boy, and to die unconscious, as he did, must have nearly broken his mother’s heart.”
“Do you know her?” inquired John Temple.
“A little; merely through things connected with the schools and the church, you know. I used to teach at the schools once,” added the Mayflower, with a smile rippling over her rosy lips; “but Mrs. Layton made herself so disagreeable that I left off, and since then I have been one of her black sheep.”
“I hope I shall be one of her black sheep, too.”
“It has its disadvantages though, I assure you. If you have any little peccadillos or failings, Mrs. Layton will find them out and preach them on the housetops, unless you are in her good graces.”
“I am sure you have neither peccadillos nor failings.”
“Ask Mrs. Layton,” laughed May.
“Mrs. Layton’s opinion would never change mine.”
“Then you are stanch to your friends,” said May, looking at him with her beautiful eyes.
“I know I shall always be stanch to you.”
May laughed and turned away her head, and John saw the white throat color and the lovely bloom on her smooth cheeks deepen.
“We are forgetting the ferns,” she said.
“So we are; tell me the best place to find them.”
She led him up a green arcade, through which a shallow stream went bubbling on. By the marge of the water strong, hardy ferns were plentiful, but these were principally of the larger kinds. But here and there in little mossy dells, the rarer fronds in their delicate greenery grew, and John Temple, pen-knife in hand, was speedily engaged in cutting them from the earth. The Mayflower stood by his side, while John knelt on the ground, and John felt conscious that the situation was a dangerous one. Alone in the woods with abeautiful girl, kneeling practically at her feet! Yet he felt wonderfully happy. His years seemed to roll back; he was a youth again, with all the hopes and aspirations of youth.
He looked up at the fresh, bright face bending over him, and he forgot many things that he ought to have remembered. As for May Churchill she also felt perfectly happy. She had never known anyone she liked half so much as Mr. Temple, she was thinking. “And he is so good-looking, too,” pretty May also reflected, glancing down on John’s brown head.
These two, in truth, were fast drifting into that dangerous stream where too often lives are wrecked and hearts are broken. Standing on the marge the golden tide flows by, and we only see the shining surface, not the rocks below. But sweet are these hours; sweet the dawn, the dream, of joys to come! The dawn may cloud, the dream be broken, but the coming shadows seem far away.
It was only the early dawn for John and May. Neither of them, indeed, had for a moment reflected that this meeting would make any difference in their lives. Feelings are strange and subtle, and creep in unawares to the human heart. They only both felt very happy, and the world seemed very bright. Bright to them, and dark and black to jealous eyes watching them from the higher ground above.
These jealous, fiery brown eyes were those of young Henderson of Stourton Grange. He had hoped to meet May Churchill during the afternoon in Fern Dene, as she often went there, and to his rage, when he arrived at the crest of the hill above the Dene, he saw May again with John Temple.
He could see John look up in her face, as he knelt on the ground, and May look down and smile on his. Henderson had gone to the Dene in a most unhappy and unsettled state of mind, and this sight seemed to half-madden him. His brow grew black as night, and a bitter curse broke from his lips.
“But if I swing for it, this shall not be,” he muttered.
Then he thought darkly of his interview with Elsie Wray the night before, and now this girl stood as an obstacle in his way. He had not dared openly to refuse to marry her, yet he never meant to do so. He feared her; she might fulfill her threat, and write or go to May Churchill, and then he knew that in that case all hope of winning May was over.
“I must try to get her to go away,” he thought, frowning and knitting his black brows. “But then there’s that confounded old fool, her father.”
It was certainly a miserable enough position in which he found himself. Bound by his honor, by a hundred promises, to marry one woman, and passionately in love with another! He stood mentally cursing his folly, his fate, and the unhappy girl who had trusted him too much. But give up May he would not. There was a dogged obstinacy about this young man; the sullen, unreasonable obstinacy of a low order of mind, and when once he had determined on a thing nothing would turn him from his purpose.
So gnawing his thick, red underlip beneath his brown mustache, and grinding his strong white teeth in his wrath, he watched the two below dallying on the green sward. He did not seek to interrupt them. He had already learnt to hate the smiling indifference of John Temple’s manner to him, and he knew he could not rely on his own temper. No; he saw them arrange the ferns they had got in May’s little basket; he saw them stand side by side, looking at the bubbling stream, and then he watched them leave the Dene and cross the rustic bridge which led to it.
They were still together when he lost sight of them, and then he turned homeward, with a gloomy brow and an angry heart. As he strode on, various plans crossed his brain. But of one thing he was determined. Cost what it might, he would get rid of Elsie Wray.
As he neared Stourton Grange, a substantial square stone house, standing in an extensive well-kept garden, he encountered a tall, good-looking lady in deep mourning. This was his widowed mother, and Tom Hendersonwas her only son. Her face brightened when she saw him, and she put out her hand when she met him, and laid it on his arm.
“My dear, how lucky that I should come upon you,” she said, smiling affectionately.
Young Henderson’s smile in return was a somewhat forced one, and her fond eyes instantly perceived this.
“Something is worrying you, Tom,” she said, quickly. “What is it?”
Tom did not speak; something was worrying him, more than worrying him, but it was not a thing he could exactly tell his mother.
She looked up fondly into his eyes.
“My dear,” she asked, “can I help you in anything? I am sure there is something wrong.”
“You are quite right,” he answered abruptly.
“What is it, Tom? Surely you can trust your mother.”
“Oh, I can’t tell you about it.”
He said this very impatiently, and Mrs. Henderson looked at him anxiously.
“Is it about some woman, Tom?” she said.
Tom replied by a sort of a groan.
“I wish you would marry, Tom,” continued Mrs. Henderson, earnestly. “Many mothers don’t wish their sons to marry because they say it takes them away from themselves, but I don’t feel this. Your happiness would be mine. Tom, a little bird has whispered to me that you run after a certain very pretty girl; is this true?”
“You mean May Churchill?” answered Tom Henderson; “well, I certainly do admire her very much.”
“And—are you engaged to her?”
“No; there are always worries in the way.”
“Not surely—”
“Mother, I may as well tell you that I have made a fool of myself, but I must get out of it.”
“But Tom—”
“There! don’t talk of it like a good old woman; I’ll get out of it, that I’m determined.”
Mrs. Henderson did not say anything more. Shewalked on with her hand through her son’s arm, feeling very anxious. Tom Henderson had been a wayward boy, and he was a wayward man, and his mother was conscious perhaps that she had spoilt her only child. She had heard a rumor—got one of those painful hints which friends do not scruple to give—about her son’s connection with Elsie Wray of the Wayside Inn. But she had never spoken of it to Tom. She was a delicate-minded woman, and extremely attached to him, and there were subjects on which Mrs. Henderson felt she could not speak to her boy.
The mother and son walked home together and then parted, Mrs. Henderson to see after some household arrangements, Tom to retire to his own room to write a letter to Elsie Wray.
Let us look over his shoulder as he sat, pen in hand, with his black brows knitted and his handsome face distorted with the angry passions in his heart. He began:
“Dear Elsie,” and then paused. He did not in truth know what to say. He knew he was acting shamefully, but he told himself it was folly to sacrifice the happiness of his whole life because a foolish girl had loved him too well.
Again he began “Dear Elsie,” on a fresh note-sheet, and this time continued his letter:
“Dear Elsie: Our interview of last night was very unsatisfactory, and I want to see you again, and I hope we will come to some lasting agreement. I am quite willing to come down handsomely for any supposed wrong I may have done you, and I hope you will act like a sensible girl and accept my proposition. Will you meet me to-night at nine o’clock, on the ridge above Fern Dene? It’s a quiet place, and we can have our talk out there without being interrupted as we were last night. There is always someone about near your house, seemingly. But do act sensibly, and don’t make a row about what can not be helped now.
“Yours sincerely,
“T. H.”
He finished this letter, and then put it in his pocket and walked to the stables, and gave it to his groom. This man was engaged rubbing down a horse when his master appeared, and he seemed quite accustomed to receive such missions.
“Take that over to Miss Wray, Jack,” said young Henderson; “make some excuse—have a pot of beer or something—but give it into her own hands, and no one else’s, and here’s a shilling for the beer.”
“Very well, master,” answered Jack, pocketing the note and the shilling with something between a grin and a nod, and then touching his forelock. “Must I go directly?”
“Yes,” said Henderson, and then he turned away, and went whistling out of the stables with his hands in his pockets.
Upon which Jack took a rough towel and rubbed his own face and hands, and otherwise improved his appearance, and then started off on his way to the wayside public house.
“The game’s nearly up,” he thought, with another grin, as he went shambling on. “Miss Elsie will ha’ to look a bit lower than the young master before she’s done.”
He speedily arrived at his destination. It was a pretty spot—this wayside house, with its trellised walls, covered with creepers and roses, and its open porch. In the porch the master of the house, James Wray, was sitting smoking a long white pipe, and he took it from his mouth and nodded in a friendly manner when the groom from Stourton Grange appeared.
“Well, Jack, my lad,” he said, “and how are ye all at the Grange?”
James Wray was not unaware of the intimacy of his daughter with the young owner of the Grange, or without his private hopes that some day he might see Elsie the mistress there. He therefore made room for Jack, the groom, to take a seat beside him in the porch, but this did not suit Jack’s views.
“No, master,” he said, “I’m that dry I must ha’ a drop o’ beer first, and I’ll go in and get it, and then come out and ha’ a bit crack.”
The landlord nodded his head and resumed his pipe, and Jack entered the house. Two or three men were sitting drinking, and a good-looking smart girl was acting as barmaid, but Elsie Wray was not visible. Jack looked around, called for his beer, but had a word to whisper in the barmaid’s ears as she was serving it.
“Where’s the young missis?” he asked.
“She’s in the parlor, I think, Mr. Impudence,” answered the smart barmaid, tossing her head.
“Tell her one of the lads fra’ the Grange wants a word wi’ her,” said Jack, winking one eye, upon which, with another toss of the head, the barmaid vanished; and a few moments later Elsie Wray, who looked pale, agitated, and handsome, appeared.
Jack touched his forelock and went up to her, and produced Tom Henderson’s letter.
“The young master sent this for you, miss,” he said.
Elsie put out a shapely brown hand and eagerly caught at the letter, and then without another word retired with it and ran hastily upstairs to her own little bedroom to read it.
When she got there she tore it open with trembling fingers, and, as her eyes fell on the insulting words it contained, the poor girl turned deadly pale, and staggered back as if something had struck her.
“How dare he! How dare he!” she cried aloud, in sharp bitter tones of anguish.
Again she read the cruel words. She stared at them as though they burned into her brain, and then with sudden passion she flung the letter on the floor and trampled it beneath her feet.
“The coward! The base coward!” she muttered. “So he would buy me off, would he? Me! But he shall see; he shall see!”
She began to pace up and down the room after this, evidently revolving some question in her mind. Then she suddenly remembered that the groom from Stourtonwould probably be waiting for an answer. And with her eyes flashing, and her head thrown back, she returned to the bar in the room below.
Jack was still sitting there drinking his beer, and he rose when Elsie appeared.
Without a moment’s hesitation she went up to him.
“Tell him,” she said, in concentrated tones of suppressed anger and passion, “that I will be there.”
That was all; without another word she turned and left the bar, and the men sitting there looked at each other as she did so. The expression of her face was so tragic that it seemed to forebode evil. Jack Reid—the groom’s surname was Reid—said nothing. He looked rather frightened, and shortly afterward left the Wayside Inn, declining the offer of the landlord, who was still sitting on the porch, to remain any longer.
Meanwhile in her room upstairs Elsie Wray was in a state of mind bordering on distraction. All the hopes of her future life seemed dashed to dust. But with hard-set teeth she told herself that she would not give in. Tom Henderson must keep his word and marry her, even if he never spoke to her afterward.
“Or he or I shall die for it,” she muttered with bated breath.
Then she stole to her father’s room, and from a locked cupboard there drew out a loaded revolver. Elsie, a favorite daughter, and one whom he completely trusted, always kept the landlord’s keys.
Having thus secured the weapon, about two hours later she started with a determined heart to keep the tryst that Tom Henderson had given her.
By this time a fitful moon had risen, the light being constantly obscured by drifting clouds. It was a wild-looking night, and seemed to suit the mood of the unhappy woman who went out to meet her false lover under such cruel circumstances.
Before Elsie Wray quitted the Wayside Inn, however, she had a word to say to the young barmaid who had brought her the message that the groom from Stourton Grange wished to speak to her.
She beckoned this girl to her, who was officiating at the bar, and whispered a few words to her in the passage outside the room.
“Alice,” she said, “I am going out, but don’t tell father. Say, if he asks after me, that I have gone to bed with a bad headache. Do you understand?”
The barmaid nodded; she quite understood that her mistress was going out to meet the young squire from Stourton Grange. This affair was known and had been much commented on by the small circle round the inn-keeper’s family. Some had shaken their heads over it, and wished it might end well. Others took a more charitable view. But Alice, the barmaid, had seen the look in Elsie’s face when she had given her message to Jack Reid the groom, and her expression did not bode well.
“You won’t be late, mistress?” whispered the girl.
“No,” answered Elsie, in a low, slow tone, and she clutched the revolver she held beneath her cloak yet harder as she spoke. “I will go out by the back door,” she added.
“I’ll watch till you come back,” said Alice, and Elsie nodded and then glided away into the darkness, and the barmaid looked after her for a moment, but was quickly recalled to her duties by her master’s voice.
Elsie having quitted the house and closed the door softly behind her, passed down through the kitchen garden, and speedily found herself on the high road.
She had a long walk—at least two miles and a half—before she could reach the high land that lies above Fern Dene. Stourton Grange stands about a mile tothe west of Fern Dene, and once or twice in the early days of their love, Elsie had met young Henderson in the Dene. But this was before Henderson had discovered that this shady and romantic spot was the favorite walk and resort of pretty May Churchill. After this there were no more meetings in the Dene with his lowly-born sweetheart. Henderson chose another direction, and ran no risks of encountering May Churchill while walking with Elsie Wray.
Now swiftly and silently beneath the drifting clouds the forsaken woman went on to what Henderson meant to be her last tryst with him. She never looked up nor around. She knew the way well, and every feeling of her heart was concentrated on one object.
“He shall die unless he does me justice,” was the thought that entirely possessed her. She was desperate, and in her desperation she was capable of anything.
In the meanwhile Tom Henderson was feeling anything but comfortable. The groom, Jack Reid, had returned and had given Elsie’s message to his young master, and added what he called a hint of his own.
“She looked mortal bad,” he said, significantly.
Tom Henderson whistled, but he by no means liked the prospect before him. He drank more wine at dinner than was his wont, and his mother again and again looked at him anxiously. She did not like his restless movements, his somewhat disjointed words. At last he rose and said he would go out for a smoke and a stroll.
“Don’t be late, my dear,” answered his mother.
“No,” said Tom, and then she watched him walk down the avenue till the red tip of his cigar disappeared in the darkness.
He went on slowly enough. He knew he was going to meet an angry, disappointed woman, and he knew he had done Elsie the worst wrong a man can do, yet he never swerved from his purpose. But he wished it was over; he was essentially selfish, and he was thinking of his own feelings of discomfort and not of the poor girl’s, as he went on through the gusty night.
Presently he came to the ridge of high land above Fern Dene. This is rather a remarkable piece of ground; the dip of the hill from it down to the Dene being exceedingly steep, even precipitous. This descent is thickly studded with trees, brambles, and undergrowth. On the ridge there is a narrow walk, with the fall of the hill on one side and stretching fields on the other.
Along this walk Henderson went, still slowly, and as he did so the moon suddenly broke forth from the drifting clouds, and showed him dark and distinct the figure of a woman on the pathway before him.
It was Elsie Wray wrapped in a long cloak, and standing on the very verge of the descent below, gazing down into its gloomy depths. Henderson could see her face in the moonlight; could see the sharply cut profile and the black brows, for the hood of her cloak had fallen back, and her head was uncovered. She looked a weird and tragic figure in this lonely spot, and for a moment Henderson hesitated to approach her. Then he pulled himself together.
“It must be done,” he told his sinking heart, and he therefore began to walk more quickly forward, and at the sound of his footsteps Elsie turned her face away from the ravine and looked around.
But she made no forward movement to meet him. She stood there awaiting his approach, silent, motionless, and something in her attitude made Henderson yet more uneasy.
At last he neared her.
“Well, Elsie,” he said, holding out his hand, “I’m afraid you’ve had a long walk.”
She did not answer, nor did she attempt to take his proffered hand.
“I asked you to come here, Elsie,” continued Henderson, somewhat hurriedly and nervously, “because I want to have a good talk with you. I want in fact to make some arrangements, some permanent arrangement. You see all that talk about our marriage is nonsense. I’ve others to consider, my mother to consider,and a marriage between us would never do, that’s a fact.”
“When did you first learn this fact?” asked Elsie, bitterly.
“Well, you see, I was only a lad when I first knew you, Elsie, and lads do and say a lot of foolish things. But I want to make it all square and act handsomely, as I told you in my letter, if you will only be a sensible girl.”
“And how much do you propose to buy my silence for?” said Elsie, yet more bitterly.
“Oh, well, it’s no use speaking in that tone. I mean to do what I say, and settle enough on you to make you comfortable for life. Why not emigrate, and you could marry some fellow out there with the money I give you? I thought of even as much as two thousand pounds.”
“Not for ten hundred thousand pounds!” cried Elsie, raising her voice in passionate accents. “Not for all the money that was ever coined, Tom Henderson!” she went on. “What do you take me for? Do you think I would sell my rights, the rights of my unborn child? Never! You must marry me, or you will rue the day.”
“I can not marry you,” answered Henderson, doggedly. “Don’t you see it’s impossible for a fellow in my position to do so? How can I take a wife from a public house? You should look at things more sensibly, Elsie!”
“You should have thought of all this before—before it was too late. Now it is. If not for my sake, for the sake of the child—”
“Oh, bother the child!” muttered Henderson, brutally.
The face of the woman he addressed turned absolutely livid. Her eyes dazed, her breath came short, and her hand convulsively grasped the revolver hidden beneath her cloak.
“It shall not be the child of shame,” she cried in a low fierce tone. “If you do not promise to do mejustice, Tom Henderson, as sure as there is a God above us I will shoot you dead first, and then myself.”
She lifted the revolver as she spoke, and Henderson saw the gleam of steel in the moonlight, and his face grew pale.
“Will you promise?” repeated Elsie, sternly, and her blazing eyes never left the changing face of the man standing before her. Henderson faltered. He saw she was in earnest, and he changed his manner.
“Do not be foolish, Elsie,” he said.
“It is not folly,” she answered in a determined voice. “Long have I borne with you; borne with your neglect, your insults; but now I have made up my mind. Either you marry me, or we both shall die.”
“Think for a moment—”
“I will think no more; I have nearly gone mad with thinking; now I shall act. Tom Henderson, will you marry me?”
“Oh, well, if you put it in that way I suppose I must.”
Elsie’s raised hand, with which she had been pointing the revolver at Henderson’s throat, fell at these words, and a sigh of relief escaped her lips.
“Let it be so then,” she said, in a strange, weary tone. The strain had been so great; the struggle was over. Her arm dropped; her head fell on her breast. But in a moment—in this moment of weakness—the coward before her sprang upon her, grasping her arm, and wrenched the revolver from her grasp.
He did it so quickly that Elsie had not time to resist, nor to realize his action. He held the revolver in the air; he gave a brutal laugh of triumph.
“Now,” he cried, “will you shoot me now? So you were going to force me to marry you, were you, by your silly threats? But I won’t, there; do you hear, I won’t!”
He almost shouted the last words, and they fell on the ears of a woman stunned with misery.
“What!” she gasped forth. “What!”
“I’m not going to be bullied into doing anything Idon’t mean to do by your tragedy airs,” continued Henderson, his passions rising as he spoke. “I’ve made you a fair offer; most of women would consider it a handsome offer, but you’re a fool.”
She looked in his face with a stony look of despair.
“Do you mean to go back from what you promised?” she said.
“I never promised! Once for all, Elsie, make the best of the situation; take my money, and go away.”
“Coward!”
She hissed out this word with bitter emphasis. She stood there facing him pale to the very lips. Henderson held the revolver high in his strong hand, and she knew she could not reach it. He had robbed her of her weapon, but he had not conquered her soul.
“You have lied then,” she said, with concentrated scorn, “as you have done a thousand times. I might have known! But for all that you shall not marry Miss Churchill. I will go to her to-morrow, and tell her the whole story; tell her what you are, and how you have treated me, and I will tell my father.”
“You will do this?” cried Henderson, in sudden fury. “You never shall!”
“I will do it,” repeated Elsie, doggedly.
“I swear you shall not live to do it!”
“I will!” again said Elsie.
“Then I’ll shoot you dead before you do it!” cried Henderson, fiercely, pointing the revolver at Elsie as he spoke.
The woman did not flinch as the man had done. Perhaps she felt that all her life was ended that was worth living for. At all events she did not swerve.
“Swear that you will not go near Miss Churchill; that you will never tell your father anything of what has been between us,” continued Henderson, still pointing the revolver at Elsie’s head, “or by the heavens above us I’ll shoot you!”
“I will tell my father to-night; I will see Miss Churchill to-morrow.”
These were almost the unhappy woman’s last words.Henderson, maddened by anger, by the wine he had drunk, and by her obstinacy, with a savage oath pulled the trigger of the weapon he held, and the next moment Elsie, with a cry, made a little spring forward, and a moment later fell fatally wounded at his feet.
Then Henderson began to realize what he had done. He laid the revolver on the grass; he knelt down at Elsie’s side.
“Elsie, you are not any worse, are you?” he said; “I only meant to frighten you, I only—”
As he was speaking the moon, which had hitherto been partly obscured and hidden by the drifting clouds, suddenly shone out in its full radiancy. It shone on the face of a woman struggling in her death throes; on a ghastly wound which had torn open one side of her shapely throat, and from which a stream of blood was pouring fast.
Henderson, horror-stricken, drew out his handkerchief and tried to stanch this, but with a dying effort Elsie pushed his hand aside. She opened her eyes; she struggled for breath.
“Tom Henderson,” she gasped out, for each breath was a gasp, “God will bring you to account for this—I curse you with my dying breath.”
After this she spoke no more. Henderson, appalled by his own deed, felt powerless. He knelt there and watched the last struggles of the woman he had shot. He knelt there when it was all over, and when the loving, passionate heart that he had broken had ceased to beat. Did some dim memories rise before him as he did so? Did he think of Elsie as the bright young girl he once had loved? If so, he uttered no word. He waited till the last quiver was still, the last moan hushed, and then pale, trembling in every limb, he rose.
Elsie Wray was dead, and he had killed her! The night breeze seemed to whisper this, as they rustled in the ravine below; strange voices muttered it in his ears. Good God! And she had cursed him as she died!
Henderson shuddered as he remembered this. Again he glanced tremblingly at the dead woman’s face. Theflickering shadows of the moonlight still played on it; the half-open eyes were full of scorn.
But something must be done, yes, something must be done, Henderson told himself after a brief interval of horror. He must try to hide this deed that he had committed, this murder that his hand had wrought. Murder! The horrid word seemed to ring in his ears; it seemed written in flames before his eyes. Suddenly it all grew dark; the moon had hidden her light, and in the gloom Henderson stood alone with his dead.
Then it flashed across his brain that he had shot Elsie with the weapon that she had brought. This seemed to offer a hope of deliverance to his mind. She would be supposed to have shot herself. Who was there to tell? Henderson listened a few moments with bated breath. There was not a rustle, but the trees below stirred with the night wind; not a sound, and it was now dark, very dark.
Summoning all his courage, he once more approached the dead woman’s body. He meant to throw it down the ravine, where chance might hide it. With a sickening feeling of loathing he stooped and raised it in his arms. Bah? As he did so something still warm ran over his hand. He dropped the body with a suppressed cry; it was Elsie’s blood, and when he remembered this, it added new horror to his soul.
But it must be done. With a great effort he once more bent down. He pulled it along this time—this lifeless thing he feared to touch. He dragged it to the edge of the ravine; he rolled it over the sharp descent. He heard it fall, then stop. He thought it had found a resting place. But suddenly the crash of a branch giving way fell on his ears. Again came a ghastly fall, then another, then a third, and then all was still.
Henderson stood listening, spellbound with fear and horror. Great drops of moisture fell from his forehead, his very hair seemed to bristle with affright. Then after a time of unbroken silence, he slightly recovered himself. He sought for, and found, the revolver hehad laid on the grass. This he flung down the ravine after the dead woman, and having done this he turned and fled from the spot with the black curse of murder on his soul.