As the days and weeks went on, and Lord and Lady Hartledon continued at Calne, there was one circumstance that began to impress itself on the mind of the former in a careless sort of way—that he was constantly meeting Pike. Go out when he would, he was sure to see Pike in some out-of-the-way spot; at a sudden turning, or peering forth from under a group of trees, or watching him from a roadside bank. One special day impressed itself on Lord Hartledon's memory. He was walking slowly along the road with Dr. Ashton, and found Pike keeping pace with them softly on the other side the hedge, listening no doubt to what he could hear. On one of these occasions Val stopped and confronted him.
"What is it you want, Mr. Pike?"
Perhaps Mr. Pike was about the last man in the world to be, as the saying runs, "taken aback," and he stood his ground, and boldly answered "Nothing."
"It seems as though you did," said Val. "Go where I will, you are sure to spring up before me, or to be peeping from some ambush as I walk along. It will not do: do you understand?"
"I was just thinking the same thing yesterday—that your lordship was always meetingme," said Pike. "No offence on either side, I dare say."
Val walked on, throwing the man a significant look of warning, but vouchsafing no other reply. After that Pike was a little more cautious, and kept aloof for a time; but Val knew that he was still watched on occasion.
One fine October day, when the grain had been gathered in and the fields were bare with stubble, Hartledon, alone in one of the front rooms, heard a contest going on outside. Throwing up the window, he saw his young son attempting to mount the groom's pony: the latter objecting. At the door stood a low basket carriage, harnessed with the fellow pony. They belonged to Lady Hartledon; sometimes she drove only one; and the groom, a young lad of fourteen, light and slim, rode the other: sometimes both ponies were in the carriage; and on those occasions the boy sat by her side, and drove.
"What's the matter, Edward?" called out Lord Hartledon to his son.
"Young lordship wants to ride the pony, my lord," said the groom. "My lady ordered me to ride it."
At this juncture Lady Hartledon appeared on the scene, ready for her drive. She had intended to take her little son with her—as she generally did—but the child boisterously demanded that he should ride the pony for once, and she weakly yielded. Lord Hartledon's private opinion, looking on, was that she was literally incapable of denying him any earthly thing he chose to demand. He went out.
"He had better go with you in the carriage, Maude."
"Not at all. He sits very well now, and the pony's perfectly quiet."
"But he is too young to ride by the side of any vehicle. It is not safe. Let him sit with you as usual."
"Nonsense! Edward, you shall ride the pony. Help him up, Ralph."
"No, Maude. He—"
"Be quiet!" said Lady Hartledon, bending towards her husband and speaking in low tones. "It is not for you to interfere. Would you deny him everything?"
A strangely bitter expression sat on Val's lips. Not of anger; not even mortification, but sad, cruel pain. He said no more.
And the cavalcade started. Lady Hartledon driving, the boy-groom sitting beside her, and Eddie's short legs striding the pony. They were keeping to the Park, she called to her husband, and she should drive slowly.
There was no real danger, as Val believed; only he did not like the child's wilful temper given way to. With a deep sigh he turned indoors for his hat, and went strolling down the avenue. Mrs. Capper dropped a curtsey as he passed the lodge.
"Have you heard from your son yet?" he asked.
"Yes, my lord, many thanks to you. The school suits him bravely."
Turning out of the gates, he saw Floyd, the miller, walking slowly along. The man had been confined to his bed for weeks in the summer, with an attack of acute rheumatism, and to the house afterwards. It was the first time they had met since that morning long ago, when the miller brought up the purse. Lord Hartledon did not know him at first, he was so altered; pale and reduced.
"Is it really you, Floyd?"
"What's left of me, my lord."
"And that's not much; but I am glad to see you so far well," said Hartledon, in his usual kindly tone. "I have heard reports of you from Mr. Hillary."
"Your lordship's altered too."
"Am I?"
"Well, it seems so to me. But it's some few years now since I saw you. Nothing has ever come to light about that pocket-book, my lord."
"I conclude not, or I should have heard of it."
"And your lordship never came down to see the place!"
"No. I left Hartledon the same day, I think, or the next. After all, Floyd, I don't see that it is of any use looking into these painful things: it cannot bring the dead to life again."
"That's, true," said the miller.
He was walking into Calne. Lord Hartledon kept by his side, talking to him. He promised to be as popular a man as his father had been; and that was saying a great deal. When they came opposite the Rectory, Lord Hartledon wished him good day and more strength, in his genial manner, and turned in at the Rectory gates.
About once a week he was in the habit of calling upon Mrs. Ashton. Peace was between them; and these visits to her sick-chamber were strangely welcome to her heart. She had loved Val Elster all her life, and she loved him still, in spite of the past. For Val was curiously subdued; and his present mood, sad, quiet, thoughtful, was more endearing than his gayer one had been. Mrs. Ashton did not fail to read that he was a disappointed man, one with some constant care upon him.
Anne was in the hall when he entered, talking to a poor applicant who was waiting to see the Rector. Lord Hartledon lifted his hat to her, but did not offer to shake hands. He had never presumed to touch her hand since the reconciliation; in fact, he scarcely ever saw her.
"How is Mrs. Ashton to-day?"
"A little better, I think. She will be glad to see you."
He followed the servant upstairs, and Anne turned to the woman again. Mrs. Ashton was in an easy-chair near the window; he drew one close to her.
"You are looking wonderful to-day, do you know?" he began in tones almost as gay as those of the light-hearted Val Elster. "What is it? That very becoming cap?"
"The cap, of course. Don't you see its pink ribbons? Your favourite colour used to be pink, Val. Do you remember?"
"I remember everything. But indeed and in truth you look better, dear Mrs. Ashton."
"Yes, better to-day," she said, with a sigh. "I shall fluctuate to the end, I suppose; one day better, the next worse. Val, I think sometimes it is not far off now."
Very far off he knew it could not be. But he spoke of hope still: it was in his nature to do so. In the depths of his heart, so hidden from the world, there seemed to be hope for the whole living creation, himself excepted.
"How is your wife to-day?"
"Quite well. She and Edward are out with the ponies and carriage."
"She never comes to see me."
"She does not go to see anyone. Though well, she's not very strong yet."
"But she's young, and will grow strong. I shall only grow weaker. I am brave to-day; but you should have seen me last night. So prostrate! I almost doubted whether I should rise from my bed again. I do not think you will have to come here many more times."
"Oh, Mrs. Ashton!"
"A little sooner or a little later, what does it matter, I try to ask myself; but parting is parting, and my heart aches sometimes. One of my aches will be leaving you."
"A very minor one then," he said, with deprecation; but tears shone in his dark blue eyes.
"Not a minor one. I have loved you as a son. I never loved you more, Percival, than when that letter of yours came to me at Cannes."
It was the first time she had alluded to it: the letter written the evening of his marriage. Val's face turned red, for his perfidy rose up before him in its full extent of shame.
"I don't care to speak of that," he whispered. "If you only knew what my humiliation has been!"
"Not of that, no; I don't know why I mentioned it. But I want you to speak of something else, Val. Over and over again has it been on my lips to ask it. What secret trouble is weighing you down?"
A far greater change, than the one called up by recollection and its shame, came over his face now. He did not speak; and Mrs. Ashton continued. She held his hands as he bent towards her.
"I have seen it all along. At first—I don't mind confessing it—I took it for granted that you were on bad terms with yourself on account of the past. I feared there was something wrong between you and your wife, and that you were regretting Anne. But I soon put that idea from me, to replace it with a graver one."
"What graver one?" he asked.
"Nay, I know not. I want you to tell me. Will you do so?"
He shook his head with an unmistakable gesture, unconsciously pressing her hands to pain.
"Why not?"
"You have just said I am dear to you," he whispered; "I believe I am so."
"As dear, almost, as my own children."
"Then do not even wish to know it. It is an awful secret; and I must bear it without sympathy of any sort, alone and in silence. It has been upon me for some years now, taking the sweetness out of my daily bread; and it will, I suppose, go with me to my grave. Not scarcely to lift it off my shoulders, would I impart it toyou."
She sighed deeply; and thought it must be connected with some of his youthful follies. But she loved him still; she had faith in him; she believed that he went wrong from misfortune more than from fault.
"Courage, Val," she whispered. "There is a better world than this, where sorrow and sighing cannot enter. Patience—and hope—and trust in God!—always bearing onwards. In time we shall attain to it."
Lord Hartledon gently drew his hands away, and turned to the window for a moment's respite. His eyes were greeted with the sight of one of his own servants, approaching the Rectory at full speed, some half-dozen idlers behind him.
With a prevision that something was wrong, he said a word of adieu to Mrs. Ashton, went down, and met the man outside. Dr. Ashton, who had seen the approach, also hurried out.
There had been some accident in the Park, the man said. The pony had swerved and thrown little Lord Elster: thrown him right under the other pony's feet, as it seemed. The servant made rather a bungle over his news, but this was its substance.
"And the result? Is he much hurt?" asked Lord Hartledon, constraining his voice to calmness.
"Well, no; not hurt at all, my lord. He was up again soon, saying he'd lash the pony for throwing him. He don't seem hurt a bit."
"Then why need you have alarmed us so?" interrupted Dr. Ashton, reprovingly.
"Well, sir, it's her ladyship seems hurt—or something," cried the man.
Lord Hartledon looked at him.
"What have you come to tell, Richard? Speak out."
Apparently Richard could not speak out. His lady had been frightened and fainted, and did not come to again. And Lord Hartledon waited to hear no more.
The people, standing about in the park here and there—for even this slight accident had gathered its idlers together—seemed to look at Lord Hartledon curiously as he passed them. Close to the house he met Ralph the groom. The boy was crying.
"'Twasn't no fault of anybody's, my lord; and there ain't any damage to the ponies," he began, hastening to excuse himself. "The little lord only slid off, and they stood as quiet as quiet. There wasn't no cause for my lady's fear."
"Is she fainting still?"
"They say she's—dead."
Lord Hartledon pressed onwards, and met Mr. Hillary at the hall-door. The surgeon took his arm and drew him into an empty room.
"Hillary! is it true?"
"I'm afraid it is."
Lord Hartledon felt his sight failing. For a moment he was a man groping in the dark. Steadying himself against the wall, he learned the details.
The child's pony had swerved. Ralph could not tell at what, and Lady Hartledon did not survive to tell. She was looking at him at the time, and saw him flung under the feet of the other pony, and she rose up in the carriage with a scream, and then fell back into the seat again. Ralph jumped out and picked up the child, who was not hurt at all; but when he hastened to tell her this, he saw that she seemed to have no life in her. One of the servants, Richard, happened to be going through the Park, within sight; others soon came up; and whilst Lady Hartledon was being driven home Richard ran for Mr. Hillary, and then sought his master, whom he found at the Rectory. The surgeon had found her dead.
"It must have been instantaneous," he observed in low tones as he concluded these particulars. "One great consolation is, that she was spared all suffering."
"And its cause?" breathed Lord Hartledon.
"The heart. I don't entertain the least doubt about it."
"You said she had no heart disease. Others said it."
"I said, if she had it, it was not developed. Sudden death from it is not at all uncommon where disease has never been suspected."
And this was all the conclusion come to in the case of Lady Hartledon. Examination proved the surgeon's surmise to be correct; and in answer to a certain question put by Lord Hartledon, he said the death was entirely irrespective of any trouble, or care, or annoyance she might have had in the past; irrespective even of any shock, except the shock at the moment of death, caused by seeing the child thrown. That, and that alone, had been the fatal cause. Lord Hartledon listened to this, and went away to his lonely chamber and fell on his knees in devout thankfulness to Heaven that he was so far innocent.
"If she had not given way to the child!" he bitterly aspirated in the first moments of sorrow.
That the countess-dowager should come down post-haste and invade Hartledon, was of course only natural; and Lord Hartledon strove not to rebel against it. But she made herself so intensely and disagreeably officious that his patience was sorely tried. Her first act was to insist on a stately funeral. He had given orders for one plain and quiet in every way; but she would have her wish carried out, and raved about the house, abusing him for his meanness and want of respect to his dead wife. For peace' sake, he was fain to give her her way; and the funeral was made as costly as she pleased. Thomas Carr came down to it; and the countess-dowager was barely civil to him.
Her next care was to assume the entire management of the two children, putting Lord Hartledon's authority over them at virtual, if not actual, defiance. The death of her daughter was in truth a severe blow to the dowager; not from love, for she really possessed no natural affection at all, but from fear that she should lose her footing in the house which was so desirable a refuge. As a preliminary step against this, she began to endeavour to make it more firm and secure. Altogether she was rendering Hartledon unbearable; and Val would often escape from it, his boy in his hand, and take refuge with Mrs. Ashton.
That Lord Hartledon's love for his children was intense there could be no question about; but it was nevertheless of a peculiarly reticent nature. He had rarely, if ever, been seen to caress them. The boy told tales of how papa would kiss him, even weep over him, in solitude; but he would not give him so much as an endearing name in the presence of others. Poor Maude had called him all the pet names in a fond mother's vocabulary; Lord Hartledon always called him Edward, and nothing more.
A few evenings after the funeral had taken place, Mirrable, who had been into Calne, was hurrying back in the twilight. As she passed Jabez Gum's gate, the clerk's wife was standing at it, talking to Mrs. Jones. The two were laughing: Mrs. Gum seemed in a less depressed state than usual, and the other less snappish.
"Is it you!" exclaimed Mrs. Jones, as Mirrable stopped. "I was just saying I'd not set eyes on you in your new mourning."
"And laughing over it," returned Mirrable.
"No!" was Mrs. Jones's retort. "I'd been telling of a trick I served Jones, and Nance was laughing at that. Silk and crêpe! It's fine to be you, Mrs. Mirrable!"
"How's Jabez, Nancy?" asked Mirrable, passing over Mrs. Jones's criticism.
"He's gone to Garchester," replied Mrs. Gum, who was given to indirect answers. "I thought I was never going to see you again, Mary."
"You could not expect to see me whilst the house was in its recent state," answered Mirrable. "We have been in a bustle, as you may suppose."
"You've not had many staying there."
"Only Mr. Carr; and he left to-day. We've got the old countess-dowager still."
"And likely to have her, if all's true that's said," put in Mrs. Jones.
Mirrable tacitly admitted the probability. Her private opinion was that nothing short of a miracle could ever remove the Dowager Kirton from the house again. Had any one told Mirrable, as she stood there, that her ladyship would be leaving of her own accord that night, she had simply said it was impossible.
"Mary," cried the weak voice of poor timid Mrs. Gum, "how was it none of the brothers came to the funeral? Jabez was wondering. She had a lot, I've heard."
"It was not convenient to them, I suppose," replied Mirrable. "The one in the Isle of Wight had gone cruising in somebody's yacht, or he'd have come with the dowager; and Lord Kirton telegraphed from Ireland that he was prevented coming. I know nothing about the rest."
"It was an awful death!" shivered Mrs. Gum. "And without cause too; for the child was not hurt after all. Isn't my lord dreadfully cut up, Mary?"
"I think so; he's very quiet and subdued. But he has seemed full of sorrow for a long while, as if he had some dreadful care upon him. I don't think he and his wife were very happy together," added Mirrable. "My lord's likely to make Hartledon his chief residence now, I fancy, for—My gracious! what's that?"
A crash as if a whole battery of crockery had come down inside the house. A moment of staring consternation ensued, and nervous Mrs. Gum looked ready to faint. The two women disappeared indoors, and Mirrable turned homewards at a brisk pace. But she was not to go on without an interruption. Pike's head suddenly appeared above the hurdles, and he began inquiring after her health. "Toothache gone?" asked he.
"Yes," she said, answering straightforwardly in her surprise. "How did you know I had toothache?" It was not the first time by several he had thus accosted her; and to give her her due, she was always civil to him. Perhaps she feared to be otherwise.
"I heard of it. And so my Lord Hartledon's like a man with some dreadful care upon him!" he went on. "What is the care?"
"You have been eavesdropping!" she angrily exclaimed.
"Not a bit of it. I was seated under the hedge with my pipe, and you three women began talking. I didn't tell you to. Well, what's his lordship's care?"
"Just mind your own business, and his lordship will mind his," she retorted. "You'll get interfered with in a way you won't like, Pike, one of these days, unless you mend your manners."
"A great care on him," nodded Pike to himself, looking after her, as she walked off in her anger. "A great care!Iknow. One of these fine days, my lord, I may be asking you questions about it on my own score. I might long before this, but for—"
The sentence broke off abruptly, and ended with a growl at things in general. Mr. Pike was evidently not in a genial mood.
Mirrable reached home to find the countess-dowager in a state more easily imagined than described. Some sprite, favourable to the peace of Hartledon, had been writing confidentially from Ireland regarding Kirton and his doings. That her eldest son was about to steal a march on her and marry again seemed almost indisputably clear; and the miserable dowager, dancing her war-dance and uttering reproaches, was repacking her boxes in haste. Those boxes, which she had fondly hoped would never again leave Hartledon, unless it might be for sojourns in Park Lane! She was going back to Ireland to mount guard, and prevent any such escapade. Only in September had she quitted him—and then had been as nearly ejected as a son could eject his mother with any decency—and had taken the Isle of Wight on her way to Hartledon. The son who lived in the Isle of Wight had espoused a widow twice his own age, with eleven hundred a year, and a house and carriage; so that he had a home: which the countess-dowager sometimes remembered.
Lord Hartledon was liberal. He gave her a handsome sum for her journey, and a cheque besides; most devoutly praying that she might keep guard over Kirton for ever. He escorted her to the station himself in a closed carriage, an omnibus having gone before them with a mountain of boxes, at which all Calne came out to stare.
And the same week, confiding his children to the joint care of Mirrable and their nurse—an efficient, kind, and judicious woman—Lord Hartledon departed from home and England for a sojourn on the Continent, long or short, as inclination might lead him, feeling as a bird released from its cage.
Some eighteen months after the event recorded in the last chapter, a travelling carriage dashed up to a house in Park Lane one wet evening in spring. It contained Lord Hartledon and his second wife. They were expected, and the servants were assembled in the hall.
Lord Hartledon led her into their midst, proudly, affectionately; as he had never in his life led any other. Ah, you need not ask who she was; he had contrived to win her, to win over Dr. Ashton; and his heart had at length found rest. Her fair countenance, her thoughtful eyes and sweet smile were turned on the servants, thanking them for their greeting.
"All well, Hedges?" asked Lord Hartledon.
"Quite well, my lord. But we are not alone."
"No!" said Val, stopping in his progress. "Who's here?"
"The Countess-Dowager of Kirton, my lord," replied Hedges, glancing at Lady Hartledon in momentary hesitation.
"Oh, indeed!" said Val, as if not enjoying the information. "Just see, Hedges, that the things inside the carriage are all taken out. Don't come up, Mrs. Ball; I will take Lady Hartledon to her rooms."
It was the light-hearted Val of the old, old days; his face free from care, his voice gay. He did not turn into any of the reception-rooms, but led his wife at once to her chamber. It was nearly dinner-time, and he knew she was tired.
"Welcome home, my darling!" he whispered tenderly ere releasing her. "A thousand welcomes to you, my dear, dear wife!"
Tears rose to his eyes with the fervour of the wish. Heaven alone knew what the past had been; the contrast between that time and this.
"I will dress at once, Percival," she said, after a few moments' pause. "I must see your children before dinner. Heaven helping me, I shall love them and always act by them as if they were my own."
"I am so sorry she is here, Anne—that terrible old woman. You heard Hedges say Lady Kirton had arrived. Her visit is ill-timed."
"I shall be glad to welcome her, Val."
"It is more than I shall be," replied Val, as his wife's maid came into the room, and he quitted it. "I'll bring the children to you, Anne."
They had been married nearly five weeks. Anne had not seen the children for several months. The little child, Edward, had shown symptoms of delicacy, and for nearly a year the children had sojourned at the seaside, having been brought to the town-house just before their father's marriage.
The nursery was empty, and Lord Hartledon went down. In the passage outside the drawing-room was Hedges, evidently waiting for his master, and with a budget to unfold.
"When did she come, Hedges?"
"My lord, it was only a few days after your marriage," replied Hedges. "She arrived in the most outrageous tantrum—if I shall not offend your lordship by saying so—and has been here ever since, completely upsetting everything."
"What was her tantrum about?"
"On account of your having married again, my lord. She stood in the hall for five minutes when she got here, saying the most audacious things against your lordship and Miss Ashton—I mean my lady," corrected Hedges.
"The old hag!" muttered Lord Hartledon.
"I think she's insane at times, my lord; I really do. The fits of passion she flies into are quite bad enough for insanity. The housekeeper told me this morning she feared she would be capable of striking my lady, when she first saw her. I'm afraid, too, she has been schooling the children."
Lord Hartledon strode into the drawing-room. There, as large as life—and a great deal larger than most lives—was the dowager-countess. Fortunately she had not heard the arrival: in fact, she had dropped into a doze whilst waiting for it; and she started up when Val entered.
"How are you, ma'am?" asked he. "You have taken me by surprise."
"Not half as much as your wicked letter took me," screamed the old dowager. "Oh, you vile man! to marry again in this haste! You—you—I can't find words that I should not be ashamed of; but Hamlet's mother, in the play, was nothing to it."
"It is some time since I read the play," returned Hartledon, controlling his temper under an assumption of indifference. "If my memory serves me, the 'funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage table.'Mylate wife has been dead eighteen months, Lady Kirton."
"Eighteen months! for such a wife as Maude was to you!" raved the dowager. "You ought to have mourned her eighteen years. Anybody else would. I wish I had never let you have her."
Lord Hartledon wished it likewise, with all his heart and soul; had wished it in his wife's lifetime.
"Lady Kirton, listen to me! Let us understand each other. Your visit here is ill-timed; you ought to feel it so; nevertheless, if you stay it out, you must observe good manners. I shall be compelled to request you to terminate it if you fail one iota in the respect due to this house's mistress, my beloved and honoured wife."
"Yourbelovedwife! Do you dare to say it to me?"
"Ay; beloved, honoured and respected as no woman has ever been by me yet, or ever will be again," he replied, speaking too plainly in his warmth.
"What a false-hearted monster!" cried the dowager, shrilly, apostrophizing the walls and the mirrors. "What then was Maude?"
"Maude is gone, and I counsel you not to bring up her name to me," said Val, sternly. "Your treachery forced Maude upon me; and let me tell you now, Lady Kirton, if I have never told you before, that it wrought upon her the most bitter wrong possible to be inflicted; which she lived to learn. I was a vacillating simpleton, and you held me in your trammels. The less we rake up old matters the better. Things have altered. I am altered. The moral courage I once lacked does not fail me now; and I have at least sufficient to hold my own against the world, and protect from insult the lady I have made my wife. I beg your pardon if my words seem harsh; they are true; and I am sorry you have forced them from me."
She was standing still for a moment, staring at him, not altogether certain of her ground.
"Where are the children?" he asked.
"Where you can't get at them," she rejoined hotly. "You have your beloved wife; you don't want them."
He rang the bell, more loudly than he need have done; but his usually sweet temper was provoked. A footman came in.
"Tell the nurse to bring down the children."
"They are not at home, my lord."
"Not at home! Surely they are not out in this rain!—and so late!"
"They went out this afternoon, my lord: and have not come in, I believe."
"There, that will do," tartly interposed the dowager. "You don't know anything about it, and you may go."
"Lady Kirton, where are the children?"
"Where you can't get at them, I say," was Lady Kirton's response. "You don't think I am going to suffer Maude's children to be domineered over by a wretch of a step-mother—perhaps poisoned."
He confronted her in his wrath, his eyes flashing.
"Madam!"
"Oh, you need not 'Madam' me. Maude's gone, and I shall act for her."
"I ask you where my children are?"
"I have sent them away; you may make the most of the information. And when I have remained here as long as I choose, I shall take them with me, and keep them, and bring them up. You can at once decide what sum you will allow me for their education and maintenance: two maids, a tutor, a governess, clothes, toys, and pocket-money. It must be a handsome sum, paid quarterly in advance. And I mean to take a house in London for their accommodation, and shall expect you to pay the rent."
The coolness with which this was delivered turned Val's angry feelings into amusement. He could not help laughing as he looked at her.
"You cannot have my children, Lady Kirton."
"They are Maude's children," snapped the dowager.
"But I presume you admit that they are likewise mine. And I shall certainly not part with them."
"If you oppose me in this, I'll put them into Chancery," cried the dowager. "I am their nearest relative, and have a right to them."
"Nearest relative!" he repeated. "You must have lost your senses. I am their father."
"And have you lived to see thirty, and never learnt that men don't count for anything in the bringing up of infants?" shrilly asked the dowager. "If they had ten fathers, what's that to the Lord Chancellor? No more than ten blocks of wood. What they want is a mother."
"And I have now given them one."
Without another word, with the red flush of emotion on his cheek, he went up to his wife's room. She was alone then, dressed, and just coming out of it. He put his arm round her to draw her in again, as he shortly explained the annoyance their visitor was causing him.
"You must stay here, my dearest, until I can go down with you," he added. "She is in a vile humour, and I do not choose that you should encounter her, unprotected by me."
"But where are you going, Val?"
"Well, I really think I shall get a policeman in, and frighten her into saying what she has done with the children. She'll never tell unless forced into it."
Anne laughed, and Hartledon went down. He had in good truth a great mind to see what the effect would be. The old woman was not a reasonable being, and he felt disposed to show her very little consideration. As he stood at the hall-door gazing forth, who should arrive but Thomas Carr. Not altogether by accident; he had come up exploring, to see if there were any signs of Val's return.
"Ah! home at last, Hartledon!"
"Carr, what happy wind blew you hither?" cried Val, as he grasped the hands of his trusty friend. "You can terrify this woman with the thunders of the law if she persists in kidnapping children that don't belong to her." And he forthwith explained the state of affairs.
Mr. Carr laughed.
"She will not keep them away long. She is no fool, that countess-dowager. It is a ruse, no doubt, to induce you to give them up to her."
"Give them up to her, indeed!" Val was beginning, when Hedges advanced to him.
"Mrs. Ball says the children have only gone to Madame Tussaud's, my lord," quoth he. "The nurse told her so when she went out."
"I wish she was herself one of Madame Tussaud's figure-heads!" cried Val. "Mr. Carr dines here, Hedges. Nonsense, Carr; you can't refuse. Never mind your coat; Anne won't mind. I want you to make acquaintance with her."
"How did you contrive to win over Dr. Ashton?" asked Thomas Carr, as he went in.
"I put the matter before him in its true light," answered Val, "asking him whether, if Anne forgave me, he would condemn us to live out our lives apart from each other: or whether he would not act the part of a good Christian, and give her to me, that I might strive to atone for the past."
"And he did so?"
"After a great deal of trouble. There's no time to give you details. I had a powerful advocate in Anne's heart. She had never forgotten me, for all my misconduct."
"You have been a lucky man at last, taking one thing with another."
"You may well say so," was the answer, in tones of deep feeling. "Moments come over me when I fear I am about to awake and find the present a dream. I am only now beginning tolive. The past few years have been—you know what, Carr."
He sent the barrister into the drawing room, went upstairs for Anne, and brought her in on his arm. The dowager was in her chamber, attiring herself in haste.
"My wife, Carr," said Hartledon, with a loving emphasis on the word. She was in an evening dress of white and black, not having yet put off mourning for Mrs. Ashton, and looked very lovely; far more lovely in Thomas Carr's eyes than Lady Maude, with her dark beauty, had ever looked. She held out her hand to him with a frank smile.
"I have heard so much of you, Mr. Carr, that we seem like old friends. I am glad you have come to see me so soon."
"My being here this evening is an accident, Lady Hartledon, as you may see by my dress," he returned. "I ought rather to apologize for intruding on you in the hour of your arrival."
"Don't talk about intrusion," said Val. "You will never be an intruder in my house—and Anne's smile is telling you the same—"
"Who's that, pray?"
The interruption came from the countess-dowager. There she stood, near the door, in a yellow gown and green turban. Val drew himself up and approached her, his wife still on his arm. "Madam," said he, in reply to her question, "this is my wife, Lady Hartledon."
The dowager's gauzes made acquaintance with the carpet in so elaborate a curtsey as to savour of mockery, but her eyes were turned up to the ceiling; not a word or look gave she to the young lady.
"The other one, I meant," cried she, nodding towards Thomas Carr.
"It is my friend Mr. Carr. You appear to have forgotten him."
"I hope you are well, ma'am," said he, advancing towards her.
Another curtsey, and the countess-dowager fanned herself, and sailed towards the fireplace.
Meanwhile the children came home in a cab from Madame Tussaud's, and dinner was announced. Lord Hartledon was obliged to take down the countess-dowager, resigning his wife to Mr. Carr. Dinner passed off pretty well, the dowager being too fully occupied to be annoying; also the good cheer caused her temper to thaw a little. Afterwards, the children came in; Edward, a bold, free boy of five, who walked straight up to his grandmother, saluting no one; and Maude, a timid, delicate little child, who stood still in the middle of the carpet where the maid placed her.
The dowager was just then too busy to pay attention to the children, but Anne held out her hand with a smile. Upon which the child drew up to her father, and hid her face in his coat.
He took her up, and carried her to his wife, placing her upon her knee. "Maude," he whispered, "this is your mamma, and you must love her very much, for she loves you."
Anne's arms fondly encircled the child; but she began to struggle to get down.
"Bad manners, Maude," said her father.
"She's afraid of her," spoke up the boy, who had the dark eyes and beautiful features of his late mother. "We are afraid of bad people."
The observation passed momentarily unnoticed, for Maude, whom Lady Hartledon had been obliged to release, would not be pacified. But when calmness ensued, Lord Hartledon turned to the boy, just then assisting himself to some pineapple.
"What did I hear you say about bad people, Edward?"
"She," answered the boy, pointing towards Lady Hartledon. "She shan't touch Maude. She's come here to beat us, and I'll kick if she touches me."
Lord Hartledon, with an unmistakable look at the countess-dowager, rose from his seat in silence and rang the bell. There could be no correction in the presence of the dowager; he and Anne must undo her work alone. Carrying the little girl in one arm, he took the boy's hand, and met the servant at the door.
"Take these children back to the nursery."
"I want some strawberries," the boy called out rebelliously.
"Not to-day," said his father. "You know quite well that you have behaved badly."
His wife's face was painfully flushed. Mr. Carr was critically examining the painted landscape on his plate; and the turban was enjoying some fruit with perfect unconcern. Lord Hartledon stood an instant ere he resumed his seat.
"Anne," he said in a voice that trembled in spite of its displeased tones, "allow me to beg your pardon, and I do it with shame that this gratuitous insult should have been offered you in your own house. A day or two will, I hope, put matters on their right footing; the poor children, as you see, have been tutored."
"Are you going to keep the port by you all night, Hartledon?"
Need you ask from whom came the interruption? Mr. Carr passed it across to her, leaving her to help herself; and Lord Hartledon sat down, biting his delicate lips.
When the dowager seemed to have finished, Anne rose. Mr. Carr rose too as soon as they had retired.
"I have an engagement, Hartledon, and am obliged to run away. Make my adieu to your wife."
"Carr, is it not a crying shame?—enough to incense any man?"
"It is. The sooner you get rid of her the better."
"That's easier said than done."
When Lord Hartledon reached the drawing-room, the dowager was sleeping comfortably. Looking about for his wife, he found her in the small room Maude used to make exclusively her own, which was not lighted up. She was standing at the window, and her tears were quietly falling. He drew her face to his own.
"My darling, don't let it grieve you! We shall soon right it all."
"Oh, Percival, if the mischief should have gone too far!—if they should never look upon me except as a step-mother! You don't know how sick and troubled this has made me feel! I wanted to go to them in the nursery when I came up, and did not dare! Perhaps the nurse has also been prejudiced against me!"
"Come up with me now, love," he whispered.
They went silently upstairs, and found the children were then in bed and asleep. They were tired with sight-seeing, the nurse said apologetically, curtseying to her new mistress.
The nurse withdrew, and they stood over the nursery fire, talking. Anne could scarcely account for the extreme depression the event seemed to have thrown upon her. Lord Hartledon quickly recovered his spirits, vowing he should like to "serve out" the dowager.
"I was thankful for one thing, Val; that you did not betray anger to them, poor little things. It would have made it worse."
"I was on the point of betraying something more than anger to Edward; but the thought that I should be punishing him for another's fault checked me. I wonder how we can get rid of her?"
"We must strive to please her while she stays."
"Please her!" he echoed. "Anne, my dear, that is stretching Christian charity rather too far."
Anne smiled. "I am a clergyman's daughter, you know, Val."
"If she is wise, she'll abstain from offending you in my presence. I'm not sure but I should lose command of myself, and send her off there and then."
"I don't fear that. She was quite civil when we came up from dinner, and—"
"As she generally is then. She takes her share of wine."
"And asked me if I would excuse her falling into a doze, for she never felt well without it."
Anne was right. The cunning old woman changed her tactics, finding those she had started would not answer. It has been remarked before, if you remember, that she knew particularly well on which side her bread was buttered. Nothing could exceed her graciousness from that evening. The past scene might have been a dream, for all traces that remained of it. Out of the house she was determined not to go in anger; it was too desirable a refuge for that. And on the following day, upon hearing Edward attempt some impudent speech to his new mother, she put him across her knee, pulled off an old slipper she was wearing, and gave him a whipping. Anne interposed, the boy roared; but the good woman had her way.
"Don't put yourself out, dear Lady Hartledon. There's nothing so good for them as a wholesome whipping. I used to try it on my own children at times."
The time went on. It may have been some twelve or thirteen months later that Mr. Carr, sitting alone in his chambers, one evening, was surprised by the entrance of his clerk—who possessed a latch-key as well as himself.
"Why, Taylor! what brings you here?"
"I thought you would most likely be in, sir," replied the clerk. "Do you remember some few years ago making inquiries about a man named Gorton—and you could not find him?"
"And never have found him," was Mr. Carr's comment. "Well?"
"I have seen him this evening. He is back in London."
Thomas Carr was not a man to be startlingly affected by any communication; nevertheless he felt the importance of this, for Lord Hartledon's sake.
"I met him by chance, in a place where I sometimes go of an evening to smoke a cigar, and learned his name by accident," continued Mr. Taylor. "It's the same man that was at Kedge and Reck's, George Gorton; he acknowledged it at once, quite readily."
"And where has he been hiding himself?"
"He has been in Australia for several years, he says; went there directly after he left Kedge and Reck's that autumn."
"Could you get him here, Taylor? I must see him. Tell me: what coloured hair has he?"
"Red, sir; and plenty of it. He says he's doing very well over there, and has only come home for a short change. He does not seem to be in concealment, and gave me his address when I asked him for it."
According to Mr. Carr's wish, the man Gorton was brought to his chambers the following morning by Taylor. To the barrister's surprise, a well-dressed and really rather gentlemanly man entered. He had been accustomed to picturing this Gorton as an Arab of London life. Casting a keen glance at the red hair, he saw it was indisputably his own.
A few rapid questions, which Gorton answered without the slightest demur, and Mr. Carr leaned back in his chair, knowing that all the trouble he had been at to find this man might have been spared: for he was not the George Gordon they had suspected. But Mr. Carr was cautious, and betrayed nothing.
"I am sorry to have troubled you," he said. "When I inquired for you of Kedge and Reck some years ago, it was under the impression that you were some one else. You had left; and they did not know where to find you."
"Yes, I had displeased them through arresting a wrong man, and other things. I was down in the world then, and glad to do anything for a living, even to serving writs."
"You arrested the late Lord Hartledon for his brother," observed Mr. Carr, with a careless smile. "I heard of it. I suppose you did not know them apart."
"I had never set eyes on either of them before," returned Gorton; unconsciously confirming a point in the barrister's mind; which, however, was already sufficiently obvious.
"The man I wanted to find was named Gordon. I thought it just possible that you might have changed your name temporarily: some of us finding it convenient to do so on occasion."
"I never changed mine in my life."
"And if you had, I don't suppose you'd have changed it to one so notorious as George Gordon."
"Notorious?"
"It was a George Gordon who was the hero of that piratical affair; that mutiny on board theMorning Star."
"Ah, to be sure. And an awful villain too! A man I met in Australia knew Gordon well. But he tells a curious tale, though. He was a doctor, that Gordon; had come last from somewhere in Kirkcudbrightshire."
"He did," said Thomas Carr, quietly. "What curious tale does your friend tell?"
"Well, sir, he says—or rather said, for I've not seen him since my first visit there—that George Gordon did not sail in theMorning Star. He was killed in a drunken brawl the night before he ought to have sailed: this man was present and saw him buried."
"But there's pretty good proof that Gordon did sail. He was the ringleader of the mutiny."
"Well, yes. I don't know how it could have been. The man was positive. I never knew Gordon; so that the affair did not interest me much."
"You are doing well over there?"
"Very well. I might retire now, if I chose to live in a small way, but I mean to take a few more years of it, and go on to riches. Ah! and it was just the turn of a pin whether I went over there that second time, or whether I stopped in London to serve writs and starve."
"Val was right," thought the barrister.
On the following Saturday Mr. Carr took a return-ticket, and went down to Hartledon: as he had done once or twice before in the old days. The Hartledons had not come to town this season; did not intend to come: Anne was too happy in the birth of her baby-boy to care for London; and Val liked Hartledon better than any other place now.
In one single respect the past year had failed to bring Anne happiness—there was not entire confidence between herself and her husband. He had something on his mind, and she could not fail to see that he had. It was not that awful dread that seemed to possess him in his first wife's time; nevertheless it was a weight which told more or less on his spirits at all times. To Anne it appeared like remorse; yet she might never have thought this, but for a word or two he let slip occasionally. Was it connected with his children? She could almost have fancied so: and yet in what manner could it be? His behaviour was peculiar. He rather avoided them than not; but when with them was almost passionately demonstrative, exactingly jealous that due attention should be paid to them: and he seemed half afraid of caressing Anne's baby, lest it should be thought he cared for it more than for the others. Altogether Lady Hartledon puzzled her brains in vain: she could not make him out. When she questioned him he would deny that there was anything the matter, and said it was her fancy.
They were at Hartledon alone: that is, without the countess-dowager. That respected lady, though not actually domiciled with them during the past twelve-month, had paid them three long visits. She was determined to retain her right in the household—if right it could be called. The dowager was by far too wary to do otherwise; and her behaviour to Anne was exceedingly mild. But somehow she contrived to retain, or continually renew, her evil influence over the children; though so insidiously, that Lady Hartledon could never detect how or when it was done, or openly meet it. Neither could she effectually counteract it. So surely as the dowager came, so surely did the young boy and his sister become unruly with their step-mother; ill-natured and rude. Lady Hartledon was kind, judicious, and good; and things would so far be remedied during the crafty dowager's absences, as to promise a complete cure; but whenever she returned the evil broke out again. Anne was sorely perplexed. She did not like to deny the children to their grandmother, who was more nearly related to them than she herself; and she could only pray that time would bring about some remedy. The dowager passed her time pretty equally between their house and her son's. Lord Kirton had not married again, owing, perhaps, to the watch and ward kept over him. But as soon as he started off to the Continent, or elsewhere, where she could not follow him, then off she came, without notice, to England and Lord Hartledon's. And Val, in his good-nature, bore the infliction passively so long as she kept civil and peaceable.
In this also her husband's behaviour puzzled Anne. Disliking the dowager beyond every other created being, he yet suffered her to indulge his children; and if any little passage-at-arms supervened, took her part rather than his wife's.
"I cannot understand you, Val," Anne said to him one day, in tones of pain. "You are not as you used to be." And his only answer was to strain his wife to his bosom with an impassioned gesture of love.
But these were only episodes in their generally happy life. Never more happy, more free from any external influence, than when Thomas Carr arrived there on this identical Saturday. He went in unexpectedly: and Val's violet eyes, beautiful as ever, shone out their welcome; and Anne, who happened to have her baby on her lap, blushed and smiled, as she held it out for the barrister's inspection.
"I dare not take it," said he. "You would be up in arms if it were dropped. What is its name?"
"Reginald."
A little while, and she carried the child away, leaving them alone. Mr. Carr declined refreshment for the present; and he and Val strolled out arm-in-arm.
"I have brought you an item of news, Hartledon. Gorton has turned up."
"Not Gordon?"
"No. And what's more, Gorton never was Gordon. You were right, and I was wrong. I would have bet a ten-pound note—a great venture for a barrister—that the men were the same; never, in point of fact, had a doubt of it."
"You would not listen to me," said Val. "I told you I was sure I could not have failed to recognize Gordon, had he been the one who was down at Calne with the writ."
"But you acknowledged that it might have been he, nevertheless; that his red hair might have been false; that you never had a distinct view of the man's face; and that the only time you spoke to him was in the gloaming," reiterated Thomas Carr. "Well, as it turns out, we might have spared half our pains and anxiety, for Gorton was never any one but himself: an innocent sheriff's officer, as far as you are concerned, who had never, in his life set eyes on Val Elster until he went after him to Calne."
"Didn't I say so?" reiterated Val. "Gordon would have known me too well to arrest Edward for me."
"But you admitted the general likeness between you and your brother; and Gordon had not seen you for three years or more."
"Yes; I admitted all you say, and perhaps was a little doubtful myself. But I soon shook off the doubt, and of late years have been sure that Gordon was really dead. It has been more than a conviction. I always said there were no grounds for connecting the two together."
"I had my grounds for doing it," remarked the barrister. "Gorton, it seems, has been in Australia ever since. No wonder Green could not unearth him in London. He's back again on a visit, looking like a gentleman; and really I can't discover that there was ever anything against him, except that he was down in the world. Taylor met him the other day, and I had him brought to my chambers; and have told you the result."
"You do not now feel any doubt that Gordon's dead?"
"None at all. Your friend, Gordon of Kircudbright, was the one who embarked, or ought to have embarked, on theMorning Star, homeward bound," said Mr. Carr. And he forthwith told Lord Hartledon what the man had said.
A silence ensued. Lord Hartledon was in deep and evidently not pleasant thought; and the barrister stole a glance at him.
"Hartledon, take comfort. I am as cautious by nature as I believe it is possible for any one to be; and I am sure the man is dead, and can never rise up to trouble you."
"I have been sure of that for years," replied Hartledon quietly. "I have just said so."
"Then what is disturbing you?"
"Oh, Carr, how can you ask it?" came the rejoinder. "What is it lies on my mind day and night; is wearing me out before my time? Discovery may be avoided; but when I look at the children—at the boy especially—it would have turned some men mad," he more quietly added, passing his hand across his brow. "As long as he lives, I cannot have rest from pain. The sins of the fathers—"
"Yes, yes," interposed Mr. Carr, hastily. "Still the case is light, compared with what we once dreaded."
"Light for me, heavy for him."
Mr. Carr remained with them until the Monday: he then went back to London and work; and time glided on again. An event occurred the following winter which shall be related at once; more especially as nothing of moment took place in those intervening months needing special record.
The man Pike, who still occupied his shed undisturbed, had been ailing for some time. An attack of rheumatic fever in the summer had left him little better than a cripple. He crawled abroad still when he was able, andwoulddo so, in spite of what Mr. Hillary said; would lie about the damp ground in a lawless, gipsying sort of manner; but by the time winter came all that was over, and Mr. Pike's career, as foretold by the surgeon, was drawing rapidly to a close. Mrs. Gum was his good Samaritan, as she had been in the fever some years before, going in and out and attending to him; and in a reasonable way Pike wanted for nothing.
"How long can I last?" he abruptly asked the doctor one morning. "Needn't fear to say.She's the only one that will take on; I shan't."
He alluded to Mrs. Gum, who had just gone out. The surgeon considered.
"Two or three days."
"As much as that?"
"I think so."
"Oh!" said Pike. "When it comes to the last day I should like to see Lord Hartledon."
"Why the last day?"
The man's pinched features broke into a smile; pleasant and fair features once, with a gentle look upon them. The black wig and whiskers lay near him; but the real hair, light and scanty, was pushed back from the damp brow.
"No use, then, to think of giving me up: no time left for it."
"I question if Lord Hartledon would give you up were you in rude health. I'm sure he would not," added Mr. Hillary, endorsing his opinion rather emphatically. "If ever there was a kindly nature in the world, it's his. What do you want with him?"
"I should like to say a word to him in private," responded Pike.
"Then you'd better not wait to say it. I'll tell him of your wish. It's all safe. Why, Pike, if the police themselves came they wouldn't trouble to touch you now."
"I shouldn't much care if they did," said the man. "Ihaven't cared for a long while; but there were the others, you know."
"Yes," said Mr. Hillary.
"Look here," said Pike; "no need to tell him particulars; leave them till I'm gone. I don't know that I'd likehimto look me in the face, knowing them."
"As you will," said Mr. Hillary, falling in with the wish more readily than he might have done for anyone but a dying man.
He had patients out of Calne, beyond Hartledon, and called in returning. It was a snowy day; and as the surgeon was winding towards the house, past the lodge, with a quick step, he saw a white figure marching across the park. It was Lord Hartledon. He had been caught in the storm, and came up laughing.
"Umbrellas are at a premium," observed Mr. Hillary, with the freedom long intimacy had sanctioned.
"It didn't snow when I came out," said Hartledon, shaking himself, and making light of the matter. "Were you coming to honour me with a morning call?"
"I was and I wasn't," returned the surgeon. "I've no time for morning calls, unless they are professional ones; but I wanted to say a word to you. Have you a mind for a further walk in the snow?"
"As far as you like."
"There's a patient of mine drawing very near the time when doctors can do no more for him. He has expressed a wish to see you, and I undertook to convey the request."
"I'll go, of course," said Val, all his kindliness on the alert. "Who is it?"
"A black sheep," answered the surgeon. "I don't know whether that will make any difference?"
"It ought not," said Val rather warmly. "Black sheep have more need of help than white ones, when it comes to the last. I suppose it's a poacher wanting to clear his conscience."
"It's Pike," said Hillary.
"Pike! What can he want with me? Is he no better?"
"He'll never be better in this world; and to speak the truth, I think it's time he left it. He'll be happier, poor fellow, let's hope, in another than he has been in this. Has it ever struck you, Lord Hartledon, that there was something strange about Pike, and his manner of coming here?"
"Very strange indeed."
"Well, Pike is not Pike, but another man—which I suppose you will say is Irish. But that he is so ill, and it would not be worth while for the law to take him, he might be in mortal fear of your seeing him, lest you betrayed him. He wanted you not to be informed until the last hour. I told him there was no fear."
"I would not betray any living man, whatever his crime, for the whole world," returned Lord Hartledon; his voice so earnest as to amount to pain. And the surgeon looked at him; but there rose up in his remembrance howhehad been avoiding betrayal for years. "Who is he?"
"Willy Gum."
Lord Hartledon turned his head sharply under cover of the surgeon's umbrella, for they were walking along together. A thought crossed him that the words might be a jest.
"Yes, Pike is Willy Gum," continued Mr. Hillary. "And there you have the explanation of the poor mother's nervous terrors. I do pity her. The clerk has taken it more philosophically, and seemed only to care lest the fact should become known. Ah, poor thing! what a life hers has been! Her fears of the wild neighbour, her basins for cats, are all explained now. She dreaded lest Calne should suspect that she occasionally stole into the shed under cover of the night with the basins containing food for its inmate. There the man has lived—if you can call such an existence living; Willy Gum, concealed by his borrowed black hair and whiskers. But that he was only a boy when he went away, Calne would have recognized him in spite of them."
"And he is not a poacher and a snarer, and I don't know what all, leading a lawless life, and thieving for his living?" exclaimed Lord Hartledon, the first question that rose to the surface, amidst the many that were struggling in his mind.
"I don't believe the man has touched the worth of a pin belonging to any one since he came here, even on your preserves. People took up the notion from his wild appearance, and because he had no ostensible means of living. It would not have done to let them know that he had his supplies—sometimes money, sometimes food—from respectable clerk Gum's."
"But why should he be in concealment at all? That bank affair was made all right at the time."
"There are other things he feared, it seems. I've not time to enter into details now; you'll know them later. There he is—Pike: and there he'll die—Pike always."
"How long have you known it?"
"Since that fever he caught from the Rectory some years ago. I recollect your telling me not to let him want for anything;" and Lord Hartledon winced at the remembrance brought before him, as he always did wince at the unhappy past. "I never shall forget it. I went in, thinking Pike was ill, and that he, wild and disreputable though he had the character of being, might want physic as well as his neighbours. Instead of the black-haired bear I expected to see, there lay a young, light, delicate fellow, with a white brow, and cheeks pink with fever. The features seemed familiar to me; little by little recognition came to me, and I saw it was Willy Gum, whom every one had been mourning as dead. He said a pleading word or two, that I would keep his secret, and not give him up to justice. I did not understand what there was to give him up for then. However, I promised. He was too ill to say much; and I went to the next door, and put it to Gum's wife that she should go and nurse Pike for humanity's sake. Of course it was what she wanted to do. Poor thing! she fell on her knees later, beseeching me not to betray him."
"And you have kept counsel all this time?"
"Yes," said the surgeon, laconically. "Would your lordship have done otherwise, even though it had been a question of hanging?"
"I!I wouldn't give a man a month at the treadmill if I could help it. One gets into offences so easily," he dreamily added.
They crossed over the waste land, and Mr. Hillary opened the door of the shed with a pass-key. A lock had been put on when Pike was lying in rheumatic fever, lest intruders might enter unawares, and see him without his disguise.
"Pike, I have brought you my lord. He won't betray you."