CHAPTER V.
Mr Crampton’s prognostications, with regard to himself, proved to be but too true. He had intended to take his wife and sister-in-law to a lovely place called Fochabers, in the Highlands of Scotland, but, on the way thither, he was taken so ill, that it was thought advisable they should stop at Aberdeen for the sake of medical advice, within a month of which time the old man had an apoplectic fit, and died without recovering consciousness. The news of this disaster was a fresh blow to Henry Hindes, but the intimation of it was accompanied by such an earnest appeal from the widow that he would go to them and help them in this calamity, as he had done in thelast, that he was obliged to pack his portmanteau at once and start for Aberdeen, to go through the same painful scenes he had done before.
Mr Crampton’s last wish was that he should be carried back to Hampstead and laid by Jenny’s side. So the same melancholy preparations had to be made, the same melancholy coming-home to be gone through, and the same melancholy funeral rites to be solemnised, till Mr Hindes almost thought the former misery must have been a dream, and that Jenny Walcheren was only now being laid in her untimely grave.
No wonder that he looked ill and distracted, people said. The high estimation in which he had been held by the dead man was proved by the fact that he had left him half his fortune. No! not to him, perhaps, but to his son, which amounted to the same thing. For what Henry Hindes had dreaded and tried to prevent had indeed come to pass. His late partner’s will left half his fortune,which was to remain in the business, to Walter James Henry Hindes, the son of his best friend, Henry Hindes; the other half to be his wife’s for her lifetime, and, after her death, her sister’s, on the same terms; and, when both were deceased, it was to be divided between the child or children of his best friend aforesaid, Henry Hindes. So he was forced to take it; to benefit by Jenny’s death; to see his offspring in the enjoyment of that wealth which her father had accumulated for her; and which, but for himself, she might have lived half a century to take advantage of.
Hannah was naturally delighted that their old friend had remembered her little son in his will, and could not understand why her husband would not hear the subject alluded to. However unhappy he may have been made by Jenny’s death, still, as the dear girl was gone beyond recall, she could not see why their darling Wally, who surely must be more to his father than any friend, howevermissed and mourned, should not benefit by Mr Crampton’s generosity.
The elaborate monument which Mr Crampton had designed for his daughter’s grave, and had set in hand before he left for Scotland, was now complete and ready to be erected. This task also fell to Mr Hindes, for the widow was incapable of acting for herself, and looked to him for everything. It was a massive column of red granite, lettered in gold. It stood twenty feet high, and could be seen over all the monuments in the cemetery. A second inscription had been added to commemorate the father’s death, and, a few weeks after Mr Crampton’s funeral, the masons having sent Hindes word that their work was completed and the monument placed in the cemetery, he walked down by himself to see if the orders given had been properly carried out, before payment was made. He dreaded the task beyond everything. He had been alternately fortifying his courage during the last few weeks by doses of morphia, pipesof opium, and glasses of brandy, until he had made himself physically, as well as mentally, ill. But he must go through this trial once, he said to himself, once and for all, for he had left off going to church lately. He was too great a coward to pass by the spot whereshelay, twice every Sunday. But Mrs Crampton had commissioned him to see that the monument to her husband and daughter was properly erected, so he was compelled to do so. He could not afford to neglect the wishes of the widow of the man who had so greatly benefited his son. That cursed legacy would bind him her slave for life.
He entered the cemetery with folded arms, and his eyes cast on the ground. The plot of earth surrounding Jenny’s grave had already been made beautiful by cartloads of flowering geraniums and other plants, transferred from the garden at The Cedars, and in the centre of them now reared the head of the red granite column. Henry Hindes knew the inscription by heart. He had seen it glaring athim through the darkness of the night, and had repeated it to himself until it seemed to be written in letters of fire on the tablets of his memory. But he had not calculated what it would look like, revealed in the glaring light of day, calling out, as it were, by its golden letters, to all men to come and read of his infamy. He looked up at it, and it seemed to blind his eyes. Something floated before them like a mist that prevented his seeing distinctly, and yet the very stones seemed to cry out the words:
‘Sacred to the memory of Jane Emily Crampton, the only child of John Crampton, Esq., of this parish, who was killed by a fall over the Dover cliffs on the 14th of August, 1875, in the twentieth year of her age. “Thou God knowest.”’ After which was written: ‘Also to the memory of John William Crampton, her father, who survived her loss only five weeks. “Vengeance is mine! I will repay, saith the Lord.”’
Not a word of her marriage—not a mention of Frederick Walcheren’s name—onlythose words and quotations, which, to those who knew the circumstances of the case, revealed but too plainly what the friends of the dead girl thought about her mysterious death. To the guilty conscience of Henry Hindes, it was almost as if the monument cried out to the whole world to come and read howhehad thrown the daughter over the cliff, and killed her father into the bargain. It terrified and alarmed him. He would have liked to have rooted it all up again. But he knew it must stand there for ever—for centuries, perhaps, after his own death, an enduring testimony to his shame and remorse and disgrace. And it was Jenny—Jenny, whom he loved, who lay there, condemning him! The unhappy man sunk down on his knees before the red granite column, and sighed forth the anguish of his soul.
‘Oh, my darling! my darling!’ he groaned within himself. ‘You know, don’t you, that I never thought of the awful consequences of my hasty act—thatI never meant to harm you, that it was your unkind words that led me on until I was no longer master of my self. You know I didn’t want to take your father’s money—yourmoney, Jenny, and I would give it back, with all that I possess myself, to undo the fatal accident of that day. For itwasan accident, my darling—you must know that now, and how your miserable lover is suffering for his rashness. Oh, Jenny! if I could only think so! if I could only think so!’
He had buried his face in his hands, and was unaware of the approach of any one until he was roused by the voice of Frederick Walcheren demanding indignantly,—
‘And pray, Mr Hindes, may I ask by what right I find you weeping over my wife’s grave?’
He had come as privately as possible to see the spot where they had laid his Jenny, intending to give himself the poor consolation of praying above her ashes for the repose of her soul; but, to findhis intentions forestalled, and by the man he so much disliked and distrusted, roused all the old Adam in him again. At the imperious question, Henry Hindes also felt the fighting spirit rise in his breast. The instinct of self-preservation made him resent the idea that it was anything out of the way for him to be found kneeling on the grave of his friends. He drew himself up haughtily and replied,—
‘I am not aware, Mr Walcheren, that this cemetery belongs exclusively to you, or that you have any right to forbid my mourning the loss of my friends. There are two victims beneath this stone. The father, as well as the daughter, owes his death to your behaviour. He has only survived her five weeks.’
‘My God!’ murmured Frederick below his breath, and then, looking at the inscription, he added, ‘But why ismyname not recorded here? Why is there no mention that she was my wife? Whom have I to thank for this insult?’
‘The monument was designed, and theinscription written by Mr Crampton himself, sir, before he died,’ replied Hindes.
‘I don’t believe it,’ cried Frederick, hotly. ‘And these texts! They are a positive reflection upon me. They say as plainly as possible that there is a doubt about the manner of my darling’s death—that she was not killed by accident but design. Is this some of your doing, Mr Hindes, as well as the suppression of my wife’s real name?’
‘I have already told you that the whole thing is of Mr Crampton’s ordering. He did not believe in the legality of your marriage—that I know. As to the texts, he had his own reasons, doubtless, for selecting them, but he did not confide them to me.’
‘And I have told you that I do not believe you. You were in all Mr Crampton’s confidences, and a precious bad use you made of your knowledge. My poor girl told me as much as that. She said several times how much she feared and suspected you. She said you wereagainst her in everything, that you were always persuading her father to thwart her wishes and refuse her requests, and that she hated you for it.’
‘She—Jenny—said—she hated me, and to—you!’ exclaimed Henry Hindes. ‘It is impossible. You are deceiving me. We were the greatest friends.’
‘You may have thought so—shedid not. And I will thank you to speak of my dead wife by her proper name, as Mrs Walcheren,’ cried Frederick, in a fury. ‘You should never have been allowed to call her by her Christian name, and I forbid you to do so now.’
Henry Hindes’s natural impulse would have been to retort by saying that Mr Walcheren had no rights whatever in the matter, and he should call his late friend by what name he chose, but his former assertion was still rankling in his memory.
‘Jenny said she hated me,’ he murmured to himself, ‘and tohim! It was not on the impulse of the moment, then, as I hoped—as I have believed. She meant it—goodheavens!—she meant it, and I—I loved her so.’
His face was white as ashes as he turned it towards Frederick Walcheren.
‘We will not quarrel, sir,’ he said, ‘and especially here. I came to the cemetery this afternoon at Mrs Crampton’s request to see if her orders had been carried out, with respect to the initialing and erection of this monument, with neither of which, as I told you, have I anything to do. But since you doubtless would wish to be left in privacy, I will withdraw.’
Saying which, he made a low bow and walked out of the cemetery. But he had left his sting behind him. Frederick Walcheren no longer felt in the disposition for prayer, or even tears.
‘What is it about that man that makes him so repulsive to me?’ he thought, as he found himself alone. ‘He speaks fair enough, but there is something behind it all that I cannot understand. Well, they have taken care between them that I shall not want to visit this spot too often. Mypoor darling! What must she think of their depriving her of the title which made her my wife. I was a weak fool for letting them take her from me so easily. But I little thought they would insult us both in this manner. Perhaps it is as well. Sheismy wife. No false inscription can unmake her that, God be thanked! And Father Tasker says I must wean my heart from all these earthly longings as soon as may be. One is squashed at any rate. I shall never want to look upon her grave again, with those vile texts written beneath her dear name. “Thou God knowest.” Yes, Goddoesknow that I am innocent of all blame in this matter, except of tempting her to leave her home. Well, well, it is not to be thought of. The sooner I turn my mind to other things the better.’
He stooped down and gathered two or three little blue flowers that were blossoming above Jenny’s remains, and, kissing them, put them carefully betweenthe folds of his pocket-book. Then he knelt down and said a prayer above her, and, dashing his hand across his eyes, turned slowly away. Meanwhile, Henry Hindes was walking back to The Old Hall, with his heart on fire. He had been trying hard to persuade himself lately that Jenny had meant nothing by the hasty words she had used to him just before her death. Hannah had reiterated so often how fond the girl had been of them both, and it had pleased him to think that she was right, and that, when he met Jenny again, there would be no cloud between them, but only the old feeling of affection. He had begun to address her, in the solitude of his own chamber, as his darling and his love and his true wife, from whom he had been separated only by the conflicting circumstances of the world. But Walcheren’s statement had blown all his airy fancies away at a breath. She had really meant what she said. It had not been the meaningless outcome of a younggirl’s petulance. It was ante-dated to the moment. Jenny had even told her bridegroom of a day of the feelings she entertained against her father’s friend. The truth made him feel fierce and wretched and revengeful all at once. For the moment he was not sorry that he had pushed her over the cliff and deprived her and her husband of their life’s happiness. But this feeling did not last, and it was succeeded by a paroxysm of unusual despair, in which both Earth and Heaven seemed to have arrayed themselves against him. He retired to his room on the plea of a headache, and there indulged in the custom which was fast becoming habitual to him—of inhaling opium until his senses were stupefied and all his fears laid to rest. He remained alone all the evening, and retired to bed without seeing his wife again. This was now so much his custom that Hannah was beginning to think nothing of it. She believed that her husband suffered from acuteneuralgia which necessitated his taking a soporific, after which it was unwise to disturb him. So she walked over to The Cedars, where she was always very welcome now, and tried to cheer up the two lonely women, who would persist in sitting down with their grief in their laps, instead of doing their utmost to dispel it. Hannah almost talked them into a promise that evening that they would spend the winter abroad. They had never visited Paris, and she pressed them so hard to have a little pity on themselves that Mrs Crampton actually authorised her to make inquiries about the best means of getting there, and which hotel would be the most suitable for her sister and herself to stay at. She therefore returned home, well satisfied with her success, and feeling she had done a good night’s work. It was past her usual bed hour when she reached The Hall, so that, after a brief visit to the nursery, Hannah retired herself.
She was not very sleepy, however, so,having dismissed her maid, she sat down in her room to discuss a new novel that Mrs Crampton had lent her. It was an interesting tale, and engrossed her attention to that extent that she pored over it much longer than she had intended.
She was first roused to a sense how time was going on by hearing a noise, as she imagined, in the passage outside her door, and glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece, found, to her surprise, that it was past two.
The household must have long retired to rest. What, then, could the noise be which she had heard on the landing? Hannah was not a nervous woman as a rule, but it had sounded so much like voices, that she began to fear that some one might have got into the house with the intent to steal. She rose, therefore, and listened attentively. A moment’s consideration showed her that the sound proceeded not from the passage, but her husband’s bedroom. Perhaps hewas ill, and, perceiving the light in her room, had called to her. So she unclosed the door between them and peeped in. What she saw there paralysed her into a silent witness. She did not speak to him, but stood leaning against the door-post, listening with all her ears. She felt her flesh creep as the full meaning of his words riveted itself upon her memory, but she did not scream out, nor do anything to disturb the speaker.
Henry Hindes was in his night-shirt, sitting on, or rather leaning against, the side of the bed. He was not asleep; at least his eyes were wide open, but it was evident that he neither saw nor heard anything around him. The sweat was pouring off his face, and his hair was damp with it, but it did not appear to inconvenience him, as he stared wildly into the darkness and muttered to himself,—
‘It was an accident, Jenny—you know it was an accident—I did not pushyou intentionally—How could I tell it would cause your death?—Why did you aggravate me so?—Why should you hate me?—I, who love you—love you—My God! don’t say it—I cannot bear it—cannot bear it! And tohim, too—my rival—the man who stole you from me! Jenny! Jenny!—don’t look so—don’t speak so, or I shall push you over the cliff!—Ah! she is gone!—it is done! Why did I do it?—Why did I do it?—I have killed her, Jenny! My God! this is hell—hell—hell!’
He glared with his opium-laden eyes straight before him, and had just sense enough left to catch sight of Hannah’s white night-dress as she stood, horror-stricken, at the open doorway, through which a light streamed from her bedroom.
‘Ah!’ he screamed in terror, ‘don’t come near me! Don’t touch me—I didn’t mean to do it, Jenny! It was the devil prompted me to push you!—Havemercy! Don’t haunt me. Don’t haunt me, or you will drive me mad—mad—mad!’
He slid down upon his bare knees as he concluded, hiding his face in his hands, and Hannah had just strength left to withdraw herself and close and lock the door between them.
She understood it all now! Her husband’s unaccountable grief and sleeplessness and irritable temper. He was pursued by an undying remorse. And for what? Oh! it was terrible, terrible! Hannah reached her bed, but it was only to sink down by the side of it, and pour out her soul in prayer for her wretched husband and herself. And when she was exhausted with prayer and weeping, she threw her dressing-gown around her, and sat down to consider what she ought to do about the dreadful truth that had been made known to her.
Her husband was a murderer! There was no end served by disguising thehorrid truth from herself. He had pushed sweet, darling Jenny Crampton over the Dover Cliffs. Oh! how could he have done it? Howcouldhe have done it? Their pretty, loving Jenny! It was too awful to think of, but it was true! She had heard him confess it with his own lips! But the idea that she could desert him on that account, or deliver him up to justice on his own confession, never entered the wife’s mind. He was hers, and she was his, for better or worse; there must be no treachery between them. He had told his secret to the darkness; with the darkness it must remain!
Only, how ought she to act herself, so as not to become aparticeps criminis; what steps should she take to prevent further wrong? To betray Henry, even if she could have made up her mind to do so, would not bring back poor, murdered Jenny, or the old father who had followed her so quickly to the grave.
But the money which Mr Crampton had left in such good faith to the son of his ‘best friend,’ Wally should not touch it, now or ever. She would not let her innocent child’s hands be stained by the touch of blood money. It must be spent on some other purpose. It should never go to Wally.
Hannah sat and pondered over these puzzles all night, how could she do her duty to her husband and children, and yet not become a participator in his crime—a crime which must, under any circumstances, have caused a great revulsion in her feelings towards him, but when connected with Jenny Crampton, made her feel as if it were impossible for her to live with him again. Yet, if she left him, what depths might he not fall to? The only hope for him seemed to be in her presence and protection.
But, for her children, it was different. At all risks, she would separate her girls, now growing old enough to understand the meaning of most things that took placearound them, from so tainted a father! Elsie and Laurie must leave home. Hannah felt as if she could not endure to see him kiss them again, or touch them with the hands that had sent their darling Jenny to her death.
She was not aware that her husband had adopted the fatal practice of inhaling opium. She attributed the strange manner which he occasionally exhibited, to too much alcohol, or the doses of morphia which he said he took for toothache. She would have borne patiently with all that, to whatever lengths he had carried it, but what she had heard was beyond the limits of woman’s forbearance to tolerate.Herduty, perhaps, was to remain by him, but her children should, at all risks, be saved from contamination.
Henry Hindes came down the next morning, looking haggard and stupid and heavy-eyed, after the fashion of men who indulge too much in any sort of narcotic, but he could scarcely have looked worse than Hannah, who was aswhite as her gown, and trembling with dread of what lay before her.
‘Henry,’ she said, as soon as their breakfast was concluded, ‘I wish to speak to you. Will you come into the library?’
‘What’s up now?’ he grumbled, as he followed his wife’s footsteps.
‘I will soon tell you. I have come to the conclusion that it will be better for my daughters to leave home. I intend to take them over to my old friend, Mrs Tredgold, this afternoon, and leave them with her for their education.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’ exclaimed Henry Hindes. ‘Send the girls away! Are you mad?’
‘I think not. You will understand my reason if you think a little. I do not consider that they ought to live any longer at home. And if Wally were old enough to leave my care, I should send him away too.’
‘I never heard of such an extraordinary thing in my life,’ said her husband, who, nevertheless, was becoming rather uncomfortableunder the coldness and decision of her manner, so different from the gentleness of Hannah’s general demeanour. ‘What the h—l will you do next? How long have you arrived at this decision?’
‘Not long,’ she answered, passing her hand in a weary manner over her aching brow, ‘but this is not all, Henry! The money that Mr Crampton left to Wally. The child shall not keep it. It must be drawn out of the business at once, and if it is useless to try and persuade Mrs Crampton to take it back again, it must be spent in charity. No child of mine shall touch it.’
‘Hannah!’ said her husband fiercely, catching her by the wrist, ‘what does all this mean? You have some latent reason for talking to me in this fashion. What is it? I insist upon knowing.’
‘I don’t think there is any necessity to force me to put my meaning into so many words, Henry,’ replied his wife, quietly, but with a fast-beating heart, as she disengaged her wrist from hisgrasp; ‘the reason is, that you have taken to talking in your sleep of late, and last night you were so noisy that I opened the door between our rooms, and I heard—all!’
Hindes became as white as a sheet, as he stood gazing at her, and breathing hard. After a long pause he said,—
‘Well, and what are you going to do?’
‘The money must be given up, of course,’ she answered, as quietly as if they were discussing the most ordinary topic, ‘and the children must be removed from home. It seems hard, but I could not—I could not bear to see them—playing with you, or caressing you.’
Hindes groaned and turned away. That he had rendered himself an unfit associate for his little ones, was perhaps the worst thing he had been yet called upon to bear.
‘And you, Hannah,’ he whispered after a moment’s pause, ‘what shall you do?’
‘I am your wife, Henry,’ she answered, simply; ‘my place is with you.’
‘You will stay by me—knowing all—hating all?’ he asked, fearfully.
‘Knowing all and hating all,’ she said softly, ‘but not necessarily hatingyou.’
He crept to her side and, burying his face in the folds of her dress, burst into a flood of tears.