One of Heathcote's first cares after the Penmorval funeral had been to write to the Baronne de Maucroix. His letter was to the following effect:
"It is my grave duty to inform you, Madame, that the murderer of your son has confessed his crime, and also that he has escaped from all earthly tribunals to answer for his sins before the Judge of all men. A painful malady, from which he had been for some time a sufferer, ended fatally on the evening of the 19th inst., within the hour in which he confessed his guilt. His case had been pronounced hopeless by a distinguished physician; but it is just possible the shock caused by the unexpected revelation of his crime may have hastened his end."Accept, Madame, my respectful homage, and permit me also to express my admiration of that truly Christian spirit which you evinced at our late interview."EDWARD HEATHCOTE."
"It is my grave duty to inform you, Madame, that the murderer of your son has confessed his crime, and also that he has escaped from all earthly tribunals to answer for his sins before the Judge of all men. A painful malady, from which he had been for some time a sufferer, ended fatally on the evening of the 19th inst., within the hour in which he confessed his guilt. His case had been pronounced hopeless by a distinguished physician; but it is just possible the shock caused by the unexpected revelation of his crime may have hastened his end.
"Accept, Madame, my respectful homage, and permit me also to express my admiration of that truly Christian spirit which you evinced at our late interview.
"EDWARD HEATHCOTE."
By return of post Heathcote received an answer to his letter; but the answer was not in the handwriting of the Baronne de Maucroix. That hand was at rest for ever. The letter was from the Baronne's friend and confessor, the curé of the village adjacent to her château.
"Monsieur,—Under the sad circumstances prevailing at the château, I have taken it upon myself, with the permission of the late Baronne's legal representative, to reply to your polite communication, which was never seen by the eyes of my lamented friend and benefactress, Madame de Maucroix. Upon that very evening which you name in your letter as the date of the murderer's death, I called at the château, soon after vespers, according to my daily custom; being permitted at that period of the day's decline to enjoy an hour's quiet conversation with that saintly woman who has now been taken from us. I was ushered as usual into thesalon, where I quietly awaited Madame de Maucroix's appearance, having been told that she was in her son's room, that apartment which she used as her oratory."I knew that it was her custom to spend hours in that chamber of her beloved dead, absorbed in spiritual meditations; so I waited with patience, and without surprise, for more than an hour, musing by the fire. Then, wondering at this unusual forgetfulness in one always so considerate, I ventured to lift theportièreand to pass through the interveningsalon, which was in darkness, to the bedchamber, where, through the half-open door, I saw a lamp burning."I pushed the door a little further open, and went in. The Baronne was on her knees beside the bed, her clasped hands stretched out straight before her upon the satin coverlet, her face leaning forward. I should have withdrawn in respectful silence, but there was something stark and rigid in the dear lady's attitude which filled me with fear. I wondered that she had not been disturbed by the sound of my footsteps, for my heavy shoes had creaked as I walked across the floor. I drew nearer to her. Not a breath, not a movement."I bent over her and touched the clasped hands. They were still for ever in death. It was a peaceful, a blessed ending: such an end as they who best loved that noble creature would have chosen for her."Accept, Monsieur, the assurance of my high consideration."PIERRE DUPLESSI."
"Monsieur,—Under the sad circumstances prevailing at the château, I have taken it upon myself, with the permission of the late Baronne's legal representative, to reply to your polite communication, which was never seen by the eyes of my lamented friend and benefactress, Madame de Maucroix. Upon that very evening which you name in your letter as the date of the murderer's death, I called at the château, soon after vespers, according to my daily custom; being permitted at that period of the day's decline to enjoy an hour's quiet conversation with that saintly woman who has now been taken from us. I was ushered as usual into thesalon, where I quietly awaited Madame de Maucroix's appearance, having been told that she was in her son's room, that apartment which she used as her oratory.
"I knew that it was her custom to spend hours in that chamber of her beloved dead, absorbed in spiritual meditations; so I waited with patience, and without surprise, for more than an hour, musing by the fire. Then, wondering at this unusual forgetfulness in one always so considerate, I ventured to lift theportièreand to pass through the interveningsalon, which was in darkness, to the bedchamber, where, through the half-open door, I saw a lamp burning.
"I pushed the door a little further open, and went in. The Baronne was on her knees beside the bed, her clasped hands stretched out straight before her upon the satin coverlet, her face leaning forward. I should have withdrawn in respectful silence, but there was something stark and rigid in the dear lady's attitude which filled me with fear. I wondered that she had not been disturbed by the sound of my footsteps, for my heavy shoes had creaked as I walked across the floor. I drew nearer to her. Not a breath, not a movement.
"I bent over her and touched the clasped hands. They were still for ever in death. It was a peaceful, a blessed ending: such an end as they who best loved that noble creature would have chosen for her.
"Accept, Monsieur, the assurance of my high consideration.
"PIERRE DUPLESSI."
The Cornish tors, those wild brown hills upon whose dark foreheads time writes no wrinkles, were just one year older since Julian Wyllard's death, and Bothwell Grahame was established in his house at Trevena as an instructor of the embryo Engineer. Already two lads had gone forth from Bothwell's house, after six months' training, and had done well at Woolwich. Other lads were coming to him—sons of men he had known in Bengal. He was on the high road to reputation.
After that first passionate disgust with all things, during which he had stopped the builders, and prepared to quash that contract which he had signed with such delight, there had come a more tranquil spirit; and Bothwell Grahame had faced his last unexpected trouble with a resolute mind.
A conversation which he had with Edward Heathcote soon after Julian Wyllard's death had given him his first gleam of light. Heathcote spoke to him hopefully of the future, and urged him to wait quietly.
"Your marriage will be so much the wiser, so much the more likely to result in lasting happiness, for this delay," he said. "If you are as loyal and staunch as I believe you to be; if it is really my sister you would like to many, and not this fascinating widow, who woos you with fortune in one hand and social status in the other; if you are really bent upon sacrificing these good things for Hilda's sake, be sure she will ultimately accept your sacrifice. In the mean time be patient, and pursue your independent course. A woman always respects a man who can live without her."
"But I cannot," answered Bothwell. "Life will be less than life to me till Hilda and I are one."
"Don't let her know that, if you mean to be master of your fate in the future," said Heathcote. "Time can be the only test of your truth. If when a year is past you have not married Lady Valeria Harborough, the chances are that my sister will begin to have faith in you. I know that she loves you."
"Tell me where she is, that I may go to her—that I may convince her."
"I have promised to respect her secret," answered Heathcote firmly.
Bothwell accepted this friendly counsel with a good grace, went back to his old lodgings at Trevena, set the builders at work again, spent his days in the open air and his nights in hard study, ate little, slept less, and looked like the ghost of his former self.
He saw no more of Lady Valeria; but a society paper informed him early in November that she had taken a villa at Monaco. He could guess from what fount of consolation she was obtaining oblivion of her griefs. Her grace, her charm of manner, were dwelt upon fondly by the paragraphist. She was leading a life of absolute seclusion on account of her recent bereavement; but she was the admired and observed of all wherever she appeared.
The succeeding paragraph told of Sir George Varney's residence at one of the chief hotels. He was a distinguished figure at the tables, had broken the bank on more than one occasion.
Bothwell smiled a cynical smile at the juxtaposition of those two names.
"I suppose the gentleman has forgotten his beating," he said to himself.
It was an infinite relief to him to know that Lady Valeria was on the other side of the Channel, that her pale face could not rise before him ghostlike amidst the home which she had ruined. He worked on with all the better will at that embryo home of his for the knowledge that this dreaded siren was far away—worked with such energy that the builders were whipped out of their customary jog-trot, and laid bricks as bricks were never laid before. Bothwell watched every brick, with a three-foot rule in his hand, and pointed out every flaw in the setting. He paid his builder promptly, as the work progressed, and gave him every encouragement to be speedy.
The alterations and improvements in the old cottage were all completed by the end of November, and the builders had finished the brickwork of the new rooms. The old rooms were thoroughly dry and ready for occupation before Christmas; and Bothwell spent his Christmas in his own house, the first Christmas he had so spent, and a very dismal one. But he had his dog, a devoted collie, the gift of Dora Wyllard; he had his pipe and his books; and he made the best of his solitude. He had a couple of lads—his first pupils—coming to him early in January, and he wanted to air the house in his own person. He was a little proud of this first house of his own, even in the midst of his sadness, as every man is proud of the thing that he has created. He walked about the rooms, opening and shutting doors and window-sashes, to see how they worked. Needless to say that some of them did not work at all, and that he had various interviews with foremen and carpenters, by whom a good deal of tinkering had to be done before everything was ship-shape. That was Bothwell's favourite expression. He wanted things ship-shape. "He ought to call his house Ship-shape Hall," said the foreman.
Bothwell's chief delight was derived from his own little inventions and contrivances, his shelves in odd corners, his pegs and books, and ingenious little cupboards. These he gazed upon and examined daily in silent rapture. When his two boys came to him—long-legged brawny youths, with open countenances, grinning perpetually for very shyness—he took them to see all the shelves and books, and expounded his theories in relation to those conveniences. There was not to be a slovenly corner in the house; every article was to have its peg or book, or shelf or cupboard. Tennis-balls, rackets, foils, single-sticks, skates, whips, guns, boots, caps, and gloves. Everything was to be classified, departmented. Organisation was to be the leading note.
Before a week was over, the boys had begun to adore Bothwell. They were sporting, and could afford to keep horses; and Bothwell and they hunted with fox-hounds and harriers all through that long winter, far into the gladness of spring. The boys were always with their tutor. He had no leisure in which to abandon himself to sadness; except when he shut himself up in his study to write to his cousin Dora, who was living in Florence, attended by the faithful Priscilla, who hated Italy as the stronghold of the Scarlet Lady, and by Stodden, the old Penmorval butler. Julian Wyllard's widow was living in absolute retirement, broken-hearted, seeing no one, seen by no one. The society papers had nothing to say abouther.
From Bothwell, Heathcote sometimes heard of her, heard of her with an aching heart. No message of friendship, no line of recognition had there ever been for him in any of those letters to Bothwell, of which he was generally told, some of which had been read to him.
Hilda had been quietly pursuing her studies at the Conservatoire all this time, seeing a good deal of Parisian life in a very modest way—that inner life of struggling artists and men of letters, and their homely industrious families, a life in which she found much that was intellectual, blended with a pleasant simplicity, an absence of all pretence. She liked the Tillet girls, and she liked her surroundings; while music, which had always been a passion with her, now became the sole object of her existence.
"I suppose you will come back to The Spaniards some day, and take care of the twins and me," her brother said to her when they met for an hour in the August after Wyllard's death.
He had stopped in Paris to see Hilda, on his way to Switzerland.
"Yes, I shall go back to the old home—when Bothwell is married."
"That is rather hard lines for me, seeing that I don't believe Bothwell has any idea of getting married to any one except you."
Hilda blushed, and then shook her head despondingly.
"Who can tell what he means to do?" she said. "General Harborough died less than a year ago. Lady Valeria could scarcely marry within the year."
"But if Bothwell meant to marry Lady Valeria, he would scarcely be grinding lads at Trevena," answered Heathcote. "He has behaved so well that I feel it my duty to plead for him."
Hilda put her arms round her brother's neck and kissed him, by way of answer.
"Let me finish my studies at the Conservatoire; and then, at the beginning of next winter, I will go back to The Spaniards, if you still want me there. But perhaps you will have found another mistress for the old house before that time."
"I know what you mean, Hilda," he answered gravely. "No, there is no hope of that."
"Not yet, perhaps. It is too soon. Dora is too loyal and true to forget easily. But the day will come when her heart will turn to her first love. You have never ceased to care for her, have you, Edward?"
"No, dear; such a love as mine means once, and once only. My wife was all goodness, and I was grateful to her, and fond of her—but that affection was not like the old love, and it never extinguished the old love."
"Be sure your reward will come in due time."
"I can afford to wait."
He went on to Switzerland, and from Switzerland strayed into Italy, the St. Gotha route inviting him. He spent a month at Florence, and he saw Dora Wyllard several times during that period, for half an hour at a time. She had taken up her abode for the summer at an hotel—near the Abbey of the Gray Monks, in the forest of Vallombrosa, a truly romantic spot amidst wooded hills. Hither Edward Heathcote made his pilgrimage, deeming himself richly rewarded by half an hour's interview; but there was little in those interviews to stimulate hope. The widow was bowed down by the burden of her sorrow. Her only feeling in relation to Edward Heathcote was that he alone upon earth knew the story of her husband's life, and that he alone could fully sympathise with her in her hopeless misery.
There are widows and widows. While Dora Wyllard was living alone among the pines and chestnuts of the Apennines, seeing no one but monks and occasional tourists, and religiously, avoiding the latter, Lady Valeria Harborough was living up the Thames, in a neighbourhood which has of late become so fashionable that it now ranks rather as an annexe to West-End-London than as the country.
General Harborough's widow had hired one of the prettiest villas at Marlow, a dainty bungalow, built by an artist, who soon tired of his toy, and exchanged the villa for a house-boat, which was less commodious and a good deal more unhealthy, but which possessed the charm of not being rooted in the soil. The house had seemed perfect when Lady Valeria took it, but she had sent down a West End upholsterer with a keen eye for the beautiful to make all possible improvements; and the result was a nest which might have satisfied a modern Cleopatra. But it did not quite satisfy Lady Valeria, who found fault with a good many things, and informed the upholsterer that although his taste was fairly good, and his colouring well chosen, there was an absence of originality in his work.
"I have seen other houses almost as pretty," she said, "and I have seen drawing-rooms just like this, which is worse. I hate to live in rooms like other people's."
The upholsterer murmured something about a royal princess and a royal duchess, both of whom had condescended to express themselves pleased at his decoration of their houses; but Lady Valeria froze him with her look of scorn.
"I hope you don't compare me with royal princesses," she said contemptuously. "They are accustomed to let other people think for them, poor creatures, and they take anything they can get. No one expects originality in a palace. I don't wish to grumble, Mr. Sherrendale, but I am just a little disappointed in your work. It has nocachet."
The upholsterer accepted his rebuke meekly, but with an air of being wounded to the quick; and he took care to debit his wounded feelings against Lady Valeria when he made out his bill.
That villa up the river in the lovely June and July weather seemed to be in the midst of the world's fair. It was gayer than Park Lane—a more concentrated gaiety. Pleasure wore her zone a little looser here than in London. There was just a touch of Bohemianism. People dressed as they liked, said what they liked, did as they liked. There were few stately entertainments, few formal dinners, or smart dances; but every one kept open house; there was a perpetual dropping in, or going and coming, which kept carriages and horses at work all day between houses and stations. The river was like a high-road, and half the population lived in white flannel, and smart tennis frocks, and eccentric hats. It was a world apart—a bright glad summer world in which there was no such thing as thought or care; a world of shining blue water and green meadows, dipping willows, rushy eyots, and hanging woods; a world in which there were hardly any regular meals, only a perpetual picnic, the popping of champagne corks heard in every creek and backwater, while humbler revellers rested on their oars to drink deep of shandygaff; a world musical every evening with glees, and songs, and serenades, to an accompaniment of feathering oars.
In such a world as this Lady Valeria Harborough lived over again the same kind of life she had lived at Simla—but not quite the same; for at Simla she had maintained her dignity as General Harborough's wife; she had received the worship of her admirers as a queen in the old days of chivalry might receive the homage of true knights. Now she had a different air; and the homage that was offered was of a different quality. That winter of widowhood at Monaco, with her staunch ally Sir George Varney in constant attendance upon her, had made a curious change in Lady Valeria. It had vulgarised her with that gratuitous vulgarity which has become of late years one of the leading notes in English society—the affectation of clipped words and slang phrases, the choice of vulgar ideas, the studious cultivation of vulgar manners. Naturally this acquired vulgarity of Mayfair is not quite the same as that of Brixton or Highbury. There is not the genuine ring about it. The accent is the accent of Patricia, but the words are the words of Plebeia. It is, however, all the more offensive, because of that blending of aristocratic insolence—that Pall Mall swagger which givestonto the idioms of Hoxton and Holloway.
Lady Valeria had fallen into the fashionable slang and the current drivel. She had left off reading, and had taken to cigarettes. Her court was less of a court than of old, and more of a smoke-room. People came and went, and did and said what they liked in her presence. Sometimes in the dreamy noontide, when the closed Venetians and the shadowy rooms recalled the atmosphere of Simla, Lady Valeria reclined in her lounging chair, fanning herself languidly, and half stupefied with chloral, a state which she described as being "a little low." Sometimes in the evening she was all fire and sparkle, a vivacity which her enemies attributed to dry champagne. There was a great deal of champagne consumed at that ideal villa, but with a perpetual dropping in of visitors—a household conducted upon the laxest principles—who could tell what became of the wine? The empty bottles were the only difficulty, since there seems to be no use yet invented for empty champagne bottles; the very outcasts, the rag and bone collectors, reject them.
Lady Valeria was going to the bad. That was the general opinion among her nearest and dearest—the people who ate her dinners and drank her wine, and smoked her cigarettes, and used her luxurious rooms as if the villa had been a club. She had taken a horror of solitude, must have a crowd about her always, be amused, cost what it might; and as she hated her own family she would have none of them at any price. Hence the somewhat rowdy following which made the house by the river notorious; known by those lighted windows which shone late into the small hours, when all other casements were dark; known by the sound of strident laughter and the rattle of dice.
Lady Valeria had been ruined by a winter at Monaco. That was what some people said. Others ascribed her deterioration to the fact of having escaped all control, and having too much money at her disposal. Others shook their heads, and asked what could be expected of any woman whose guide, philosopher, and friend was George Varney.
"And he means to be her husband," added one shrewd observer.
"My dear Aubrey, she detests him," urged another.
"That makes no difference. He means to marry her. A woman who takes chloral will marry any man who makes up his mind to have her."
Perhaps, among all Valeria's friends and admirers, Sir George Varney was the only man who had any inkling of the truth, who was keen enough to discover the real cause of that moral decay which in its results was obvious to every one. He had enjoyed more of Lady Valeria's confidence than anybody else, and he had watched her closely, both before and after her husband's death. She had tried to keep him at a distance when they first met at Monaco; she had let him see that her resentment was as strong as ever; but at a race-meeting in the neighbourhood he had contrived to make his peace with her. The gambler's common instinct drew them together. She was alone in a strange land—or in other words, she knew no one except Sir George Varney whose counsel upon turf questions was worth sixpence; and she humiliated herself, and forgot that burning wrong of the past, tried to forget that for her sake her dead husband had beaten this man. She allowed Sir George to call upon her one February afternoon, and tell her all about his book for the Craven and the First Spring, across the dainty Moorish tea-tray, with its little brazen tea-pot, and eggshell cups and saucers. After that they became staunch allies, if not staunch friends. Valeria had now the command of ample funds, and could bet as much as she liked. When she took Sir George's advice she was generally a winner. She invariably lost when she followed her own inclinations. He initiated her as to the mysteries of the tables at Monte Carlo, expounded the whole theory of martingales, and showed her how she might beguile the tedium of her days with the occult science of chance, as exemplified by pricking rows of figures on a card.
They were a great deal together as the season wore on, and, as a natural consequence, they were talked about a great deal by that section of society whose chief conversation is of the follies and sins of its own particular set.
Sir George felt that he was getting on; but in his heart of hearts he knew perfectly well that Valeria did not care a straw for him, and that she was never likely to care for him. He knew that she had passionately loved Bothwell Grahame, and that despair at his abandonment was the mainspring of all her conduct. She was reckless of herself and of her good name—spent her money like water—ruined her health—indulged every caprice of the moment—gave way to every fit of ill-temper—simply because, having lost Bothwell Grahame, she had nothing in life worth living for, except such things as could give her feverish excitement, and with that excitement forgetfulness.
Knowing all this, knowing that the woman's heart was like an empty sepulchre, George Varney was not the less determined to win her for his wife.
"We suit each other so well," he said modestly, when his friends congratulated him, considerably in advance, after their manner. "No, we are not engaged. I only wish we were; but I daresay, if I am good, it may run to that by and by. She is a very fine woman, and has a remarkable head for the turf—remarkable, by Jove! She's always wrong; but the mind is there, don't you know, a very remarkable mind. And she's a very fair judge of a horse, too, or would be if she would only look at his legs, which she never does."
"And she has plenty of lucre, eh, George? I think that's the main point in your case, isn't it?"
"Very sorry for myself, but can't do without the filthy lucre. Couldn't afford to elope with Mrs. Menelaus, if she was a pauper," answered Sir George, with cheery frankness.
"Some idiot told me that her husband knocked you down at the last party they ever gave at Fox Hill," said his friend, with a half grin; "that was a lie, of course."
"No, there is some truth—we had a little passage at fisticuffs: and that's why I mean to marry his widow," answered Sir George savagely. "I meant to have the law of him; but as he bilked the beak by dying before the hearing of the summons, I mean to have his money by way of consolation. It will be a pleasanter remedy."
"And the lady thrown in by way of make-weight," grinned his friend.
The time came when Sir George thought he might venture to advance his claim, in a purely business-like manner. Lady Valeria and he had made a splendid book for the Derby, and the lady had won something over five thousand pounds, graphically described by her coadjutor as a pot of money. The money was of very little consequence to her nowadays, for she had not yet succeeded in living beyond her income; but she was as eager to win as she had been in the old time at Simla when losing meant difficulty, and might mean ruin. She loved the sensation of success, the knowledge that her horse had struggled to the front and kept there at the crucial moment.
Emboldened by this brilliantcoup, Sir George reminded Valeria of his patience and devotion, and asked her to accept him as her second husband.
"I don't expect you to marry me just yet," he said. "It's only six months since the General died—and I know women are sticklers for etiquette in these matters, though they are leaving off widow's caps, and a good deal of humbug. But I should like to have your word for the future. I don't want another fellow to cut in and win the cup after I've made all the running."
Lady Valeria looked at him in a leisurely way with that contemptuous smile of hers, a smile that had crushed so many a gallant admirer.
"I thought we understood each other too well for this kind of thing to happen," she said, with perfect good temper and placidity. "We have been getting on remarkably well together—and I have even taught myself to forget your impertinence that night at Fox Hill. As to marriage, you may be almost sure of one thing, and quite sure of another—first, that I shall never marry at all; secondly, that I shall never marry you."
Sir George bowed, and said not another word. The partnership on the turf and at baccarat was too profitable to be imperilled. But he meant the alliance to become closer and more binding, before he and Lady Valeria had done with each other.
And now in this lovely July weather, when the river and the woods were at their fairest, Sir George Varney felt himself several furlongs nearer the winning-post than he had been at Monaco. Lady Valeria had become a more sensitive creature of late. The strings of the lyre were played upon more easily. In other words, Valeria had taken to chloral. Sir George was on excellent terms with her maid, and had received information of a character which he himself called "the straight tip" from that astute damsel. Lady Valeria had her good days and her bad days; and on the bad days she was sunk in an abyss of despair, from which not even some great success in her racing speculations could rouse her. It was in one of these fits of despondency that Sir George Varney made his second proposal of marriage. But this time he did not sue as her slave, nor did he adopt the calm anddébonnairetone of a business man advocating an advantageous alliance. He approached her with a brutal energy, a coarse plainness of speech, which shocked the shattered nerves, and frightened her into submission.
He told her the scandals that were rife about her—told her how, if she did not rehabilitate her character by becoming his wife, she would find herself cut by society as his mistress—laughed at her half-indignant, half-hysterical protest—told her that the world was much too wicked to believe in any innocent alliance between a beautiful woman and a man of forty, whose past life had not been stainless; talked to her as no man had ever dared to talk to her until that hour—talked till she sat trembling before him, vanquished, subjugated by the strangeness of sheer brutality, she who a year ago had been sheltered and defended from slander and insult by the protecting love of a noble heart.
She sat cowering before him. Was the world so vile as to suspect her—and of caring for this man, whom she loathed? She covered her face with her hands and sobbed aloud.
"There is no one upon earth who would stir a foot to protect me against their vile slanders; not one of my own kin who would stand up for me," she sobbed.
"How could you expect it," asked Sir George, "when you have kept all your people at arm's length? You may lay long odds not one ofthatlot will take our part. I would give some of your traducers a sound horsewhipping to-morrow, but that would do you more harm than good, unless you mean to marry me."
"Horsewhip them, and Iwillmarry you," cried Valeria, rising and rushing from the room, tremulous with rage.
Upon this hint Sir George promptly acted. He took an early opportunity of leading on a harmless youth to say something uncivil of Lady Valeria, and thereupon chastised him in his flannels before a select audience. The scapegoat writhed under the strong gut riding-whip, could not understand why he was so castigated, vowed vengeance, and sent a friend to Sir George that evening, proposing an early meeting on the sands near Ostend; at which message Sir George openly laughed.
"When boys are rude they must be punished," he said, "but I don't shoot boys. Tell your young friend I am sorry I lost my temper; and that if he will write a nice little letter, apologising to my future wife for his rashness of speech, I shall consider we are quits."
It was known next day along both banks of the river that Lady Valeria was to marry Sir George Varney immediately on the expiry of her mourning. TheDaily Telegraphpossessed itself of the fact before theMorning Post, and it was recorded in all the society papers of the following week. Bothwell Grahame read of it a week later in theUnited Service Gazette, read and was thankful; for now this restless spirit, which had wrought him so much evil, would be exorcised and bound for ever in the thrall of matrimony.
"I am sorry she is to marry a scoundrel," he said to himself; "otherwise my feeling would be unalloyed gladness."
And now Bothwell dared to hope that the wandering bird Hilda might be lured home to her nest—now that doubting heart might have faith once more.
If he could but write to her, tell her of Valeria's engagement, ask her if he had not proved himself faithful, if she could not trust him henceforward with perfect trustfulness! She had believed in him when his fellow-men pointed at him as a suspected murderer; she had fled from him because an audacious woman claimed him for her lover. Strange inconsistency of a woman's heart, so strong and yet so weak!
Heathcote was in Italy, and Heathcote was the only channel of communication between Bothwell and his lost love. He saddled Glencoe and rode over to The Spaniards, where he hoped to hear of Heathcote's speedy return; but the Fräulein was quite in the dark as to her employer's movements. He wrote very seldom; he left everything in her hands. She had received a little note from Florence nearly a fortnight ago. He had written not one word as to the probable time of his return.
Bothwell talked about Hilda, and insidiously questioned the Fräulein, who might perchance know the girl's whereabouts. But Miss Meyerstein was quite as dark upon the subject as Greek society in general was about the adventures of Ariadne. All Miss Meyerstein could tell Bothwell was that Hilda had Glossop with her, which preference of Glossop the mild Fräulein evidently regarded as something in the way of a slight to herself.
"If Glossop can be trusted to know where Hilda, is, I think I might have been trusted," she said.
"I wonder a frivolous person like Glossop has not told the secret to half Bodmin before now," said Bothwell.
He wrote to Hilda that night, enclosing his letter to Heathcote at Florence. It seemed a wearily roundabout way of reaching Hilda, who might be in Scotland or in Scandinavia for all he knew; but it was his only way, and it was just possible that she might be with her brother, and receive his letter sooner than he dared hope. He wrote a few lines to Heathcote with the enclosure, telling him about Lady Valeria's engagement. "I suppose when they two are married our banns may be put up in Bodmin Church," he wrote; "unless Hilda has any other objection to me."
He counted the days, the hours almost, while he waited for a reply to his letter. He followed the letter in its journey, now over sea, and then over land—halted with it at Calais, went southward with it, skirted the Mediterranean, pierced the Alps, and then it was all darkness. Who could tell where the letter might have to go after it reached Florence?
"She may be hiding herself somewhere in England, and that wretched letter may have to travel all the way back again," he told himself ruefully.
He waited, and waited, and waited; bearing himself with a brave front before his pupils all the while, teaching them, botanising with them, boating, riding; shooting with them, and never once losing temper with them on account of his own trouble. But he was suffering an agony of impatience and suspense all the same, and one of the more thoughtful of his lads saw that he was paler than usual, and worn and haggard.
"You mustn't work with us if you are ill, Mr. Grahame," said the boy; "we'll get on with our work by ourselves for a bit."
"No, my dear boy, I'm not ill; I have not been sleeping very well lately—that's all. 'Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care.'"
"Yes, we can't get on without that beggar," answered the boy. "I know what it is to be awake all night with the toothache. I've often wondered that the nights should be so jolly short when one's asleep, and so jolly long when one's awake."
At breakfast a few days later one of the lads, the son of a brother officer of Bothwell's, looked up from theEvening Standardwith an exclamation of surprise.
"Here's the widow of one of your old friends gone and got married, Mr. Grahame," he said. "'At Galbraith Church, N.B., Sir George Varney, Bart., of the Hop Poles, Maidstone, to Lady Valeria Harborough, of Galbraith Castle, Perthshire, and Fox Hill, Plymouth.' You saved the old General's life up at the hills, didn't you?" asked the boy. "I've heard my father talk about it."
"It wasn't worth talking about, Hector," answered Bothwell. "The General was a good friend to me, and I honour his memory."
"More than Lady Valeria does, or she wouldn't marry such a cad as Varney. I've heard my father say he is a cad."
"It is safer not to repeat opinions of that kind," said Bothwell.
He tried to play the schoolmaster while his heart was beating furiously for very joy. She was married, that viper who had so well-nigh spoiled his life; she was married to a scoundrel who would make her life miserable, and he, Bothwell, was his own man again. Hilda could have no further justification for distrust. He had held himself aloof from the siren, he had demonstrated by his conduct that he had no hankering after her or her fortune; and now that she was safely disposed of in second wedlock, Hilda could have no excuse for delaying his happiness.
All things had gone well with him, except this one thing. He had built and furnished his house, and laid out his garden; people were full of praises for his taste and cleverness. He had been lucky with his pupils, and he liked his work. He was able to save money, and before the year was out he had laid aside the first hundred pounds towards the extinction of his debt to his cousin. But Dora did not want the debt extinguished, and had written him an indignant letter when he offered to pay the money into her banking account.
"How dare you pinch and scrape in order to pay me off?" she wrote. "How do I know that you are not half-starving those poor lads, in your desire to get out of my debt? It is your paltry pride which rebels at an obligation even to your adopted sister."
To atone for the harshness of her letter she sent him an old Florentine cabinet of ebony and ivory, a gem which glorified his drawing-room, already enriched by her gifts; for she had sent him bronzes from one place, and pottery from another, and glass from a third. She had made up her mind that when the time came for Bothwell to lead his young wife home, the home should be in some wise worthy of the wife.
And now there was an end of all uncertainties about that first unhappy entanglement of Bothwell's; and nothing but caprice need keep him and Hilda apart any longer.
A fortnight had gone since he had written to Hilda, and there had been no sign. It was the fifth day after the announcement of Lady Valeria's marriage in the London papers, and Bothwell started once more upon that long ride by moorland and lane, across country from Trevena to Bodmin, and thence to The Spaniards. He expected the smallest comfort at the end of his journey; only a little talk with the Fräulein, who might have had a recent letter from Heathcote, and might be able to tell him something, were it ever so little. She was always friendly and compassionate; and she was always ready to talk to him about Hilda, and that was much. On one occasion she had gone so far as to take him into Hilda's private sitting-room, and let him gloat over the rows of prettily-bound books—Tennyson and Browning, and Dickens and Thackeray—and the little tables, and manifold nicknacks, the mantelpiece border which those dear hands had worked. There stood his own photograph, framed and curtained with plush, as if it were too sacred for the common eye. He had given her a smaller copy of the same photograph, and he hoped that she had taken that with her, that she looked at it sometimes, among strange faces.
Miss Meyerstein expatiated on Hilda's abrupt departure, and the little luggage with which she had provided herself.
"Only her dressing-bag and a small portmanteau," said the Fräulein. "She left all her pretty frocks hanging in the wardrobe; all her laces and ribbons, and gloves and ornaments in her drawers. She must have had to buy everything new. And there is her wedding-gown, just as it came from the dressmaker's the day after she left home."
And then, at Bothwell's urgent, reiterated entreaty, Miss Meyerstein went into the adjoining room, and came back, after a rattling of keys, bringing with her a white object which looked like the sheeted dead being carried away from a plague-stricken house.
It was only Hilda's wedding-gown, wrapped in voluminous coverings of white linen.
Miss Meyerstein flung off the coverings, and shook out the white satin gown, satin of so rich a fabric that it took all manner of pearly and opal hues in the autumn light—a smart little frock, with a round skirt, and just one big puff at the back of the waist, like a carelessly-tied sash.
"Short, for dancing," said Miss Meyerstein, as she held out the frock at arm's length, dangling in the air.
"But she didn't expect to dance upon her wedding-day!" ejaculated Bothwell stupidly.
"No, but afterwards. She would go to dances, and she would be expected to appear as a bride."
"Of course," muttered Bothwell, wondering how many dances—save the dances of pixies in a moonlit glen—might be expected to occur within easy reach of Trevena.
He knelt and kissed the hem of the white satin frock, and then turned away with a sigh that was almost a sob.
"Not a grain of dust has got to it," said Miss Meyerstein. "It will be ready when it is wanted."
"Yes," answered Bothwell. "The gown will be ready when it is wanted; but who can tell who the bridegroom will be?"
"He will be nobody if he is not you," said Miss Meyerstein. "That poor child positively adores you."
"How do you know? It is nearly a year since you saw her."
"Such love as that does not wear itself out in a year."
To-day Bothwell felt that he wanted even such poor comfort as might be had from feminine twaddle of this kind. He felt that even a romp with the twins would do him good. They were of her race, and she had loved them, and they could prattle to him about her.
It was a rainy afternoon late in October, a dreary day for that long ride over the hills. The Atlantic yonder had a look of unspeakable melancholy; a great gray sea into which gray earth and sky melted. It would be dark before Bothwell could get back to Trevena, and the ride was not the pleasantest after nightfall; but a man who had ridden through Afghan passes in his time was not to be scared by dark hills and narrow lanes. Bothwell was in a mood to ride somewhere, were it only in the hope of riding away from his own impatient thoughts. He had delayed starting till after luncheon, having waited to give his boys the full benefit of a long morning's work. It was between five and six when he came to the iron gates of The Spaniards, and the sun was setting behind the hills yonder above Penmorval, poor deserted Penmorval, where the pictured faces looked out upon empty floors, and where the housekeeper sighed as she went from room to room, attending to fires that warmed desolate hearths.
The Spaniards looked a little more cheerful than when Bothwell had seen it last, for there were lights in many of the lower windows, and those lamp-lit casements glowed brightly across the rainy dusk. He would be able to get a good cup of tea from the Fräulein, and to put up his horse for an hour or two before he turned homewards again.
An empty carriage passed him in the drive, and turned towards an opening in the shrubbery that led to the stable-yard. There were visitors at The Spaniards, upon that wet evening! Bothwell wondered who the guest, or guests, could be, in the absence of the master.
Or was it the master himself who had come back? His heart beat faster at the thought. He dismounted and rang the bell. The door was opened directly. There were a couple of servants in the hall and some luggage. Yes, the master of the house had returned.
"Take my horse to the stables, like a good fellow," said Bothwell to the man who had opened the door. "Your master has come home, I see."
"Yes, sir, ten minutes ago."
Bothwell waited to ask no further questions, did not wait to be announced even, but walked straight to the library, Heathcote's usual sitting-room, opened the door, and went in.
There was no lamp. The room was lighted only by the fire-glow, which gleamed on bookshelves and old oak panelling, and on the massive timbers of the ceiling. There was a tea-table in front of the wide old fireplace—one of those vagabond tea-tables which can make themselves at home anywhere—and the tea was being poured out by a girl who wore a neat little black velvet toque and dark cloth jacket, a girl who looked as if she had just come off a journey, while Heathcote reposed in his armchair on the other side of the hearth.
No one but Hilda could have been so much at her ease in that room, which was in some wise a sacred chamber, especially reserved for the master of the house. No one but Hilda had such pretty hair, or such a graceful bend of the head. The girl in the velvet toque was sitting with her back to Bothwell; but he had not a moment's doubt as to her identity.
He went over to the hearth, gave his hand to Heathcote silently, and then seated himself by Hilda's side, she looking up at him dumbly the while, half in fear.
"What have you to say to me, Hilda, after having used me so ill?" he asked, taking her hand in his.
"Only that it was for your own sake I went away on the eve of our marriage," she answered seriously. "I did not want to stand between you and happiness."
"Would it not have been wiser, and fairer to me, if you had taken my views upon the matter before you ran away?"
"You would have been too generous to tell me the truth; you would have sacrificed yourself to your sense of honour. How could I tell you did not love Lady Valeria better than me?"
"If you had readTom Jonesyou would have had a very easy way of solving that question. You would have had only to look in the glass, and there you would have seen, as Sophia Western saw, the reason for a lover's devotion. You would have seen purity and innocence, and fresh young beauty; and you would have known that your lover could not falter in his truth to you."
"I don't think Tom's conduct was altogether blameless, in spite of the looking-glass, eh, Bothwell?" said Heathcote, laughing at him. It is so hard to have to make love before a third person. "You have to thank me for bringing home your sweetheart. I read the advertisement of Lady Valeria's marriage at Genoa three days ago, as I was on my way home; so I stopped in Paris, and brought this young lady away from her musical studies at an hour's notice. I suppose she was getting tired of the Conservatoire, for she seemed uncommonly glad to come."
"And you were in Paris?" cried Bothwell. "So near! If I had only known!"
"There would have been nothing gained by following her," said Heathcote. "I never met with a more resolute young woman than this sister of mine. When she was determined to have you, there was not the least use in opposing her, and when she had made up her mind not to have you, she was just as inflexible. But now that Lady Valeria has taken to herself a second husband, and that you seem to bear the blow pretty cheerfully, perhaps Hilda may be inclined to change her mind for the second time."
"Her wedding-gown is hanging in her wardrobe ready for her," said Bothwell, drawing a little closer to his truant sweetheart, in the sheltering dusk, that delicious hour for true and loving hearts, blind-man's holiday, betwixt dog and wolf.
"How did you know that?" asked Heathcote.
"The Fräulein told me. She has been taking care of your wedding-gown, Hilda. She knew that it would be wanted. You had better wear it as soon as possible, dearest. It is a year old already; and it is going more and more out of fashion every day."
"She shall wear it before we are a month older," said Heathcote. "I have had too much trouble about this marriage already; and I'll stand no more shilly-shallying. We'll put up the banns next Sunday; and in less than a month from to-day you two foolish people shall be one."
Edward Heathcote kept his word, and the smart white satin frock was worn one bright morning in November, worn by the prettiest bride that had been seen in Bodmin Church for many a year, the townspeople said—those townspeople who had now only praises and friendliest greetings for Bothwell Grahame, albeit a year ago he had seemed to them as a possible murderer.
A telegram had informed Dora Wyllard of the wedding-day, so soon as ever the date had been fixed, but she had not responded, as Hilda and her brother had hoped she would respond, to the invitation to be present at the wedding. She could not bear to see the Cornish hills yet awhile, she told Hilda, in her letter of congratulation. Years must pass, in all probability, before she could endure to look upon that familiar landscape again, or to see that roof-tree which had sheltered her when she was Julian Wyllard's happy wife.
"I am rejoiced to know that you and Bothwell have come to a safe haven at last," she wrote. "I shall always be interested in hearing of your welfare, cheered and comforted by the thought of your bright home. I cannot blame you for having made Bothwell wait for his happiness, Hilda; for I feel that you have acted wisely in making sure of his free choice. There can now be no after-thought, no lurking suspicion to come between you and your wedded love.
"For my own part I am at peace here, and that is much. I read a great deal, paint a little every day; and my picture, however bad it may be, is a kind of companion to me, a thing that seems to live as it grows under my hand. My models interest me, and through them I have become acquainted with several humble households in Florence, and find a great deal to interest me in this warmhearted, hot-headed race. Best of all, I am away from old scenes, old associations; and sometimes, sitting dreaming in my sunny balcony, with the blue waters of the Arno gliding past under my feet, I almost believe that I am some new creature without a history, and not that Dora Wyllard who was once mistress of Penmorval.
"I wish you and Bothwell would take your honeymoon holiday in the South, and spend a week or two here with me. There is plenty of accommodation for you in these grand old apartments of mine—a first-floor of a dozen rooms, all large and lofty. My old servants keep everything in exquisite order, and are devoted in their attention to me.
"It was a pleasure to me to see your brother when he was staying in Florence. Tell him that I left Vallombrosa only a week ago, and was very sorry to come away from wood and mountain even then."
Hilda and her husband accepted this friendly invitation, and spent half their honeymoon on the road to Florence, and the other half in that picturesque city. They found Dora the shadow of her former self. She had a gentle air of resignation, a pensive placidity which was inexpressibly touching. She never mentioned her dead husband. She was full of thoughtfulness for others, and had made herself the adored benefactress of a little colony of poor Florentines. She had furnished her rooms and established herself in a manner which indicated the intention to make a permanent home in the city; and here Bothwell and his wife left her, with deep regret.
"Will you never come back to Cornwall, Dora?" Hilda asked piteously, in the last farewell moments at the railway-station.
"Never is a long word, dearest. I suppose I shall see the old places again some day; but I must be a good deal older than I am now—a good deal further away from my old sorrows."
Dora spoke without reckoning upon that Providence which shapes our ends in spite of us; and happily for the cause of true love, Providence found a way of bringing Dora Wyllard back to Cornwall much sooner than she had intended to return.
A little more than a year after Bothwell and his wife left Florence, the happy home at Trevena was darkened by the shadow of an awful fear. A son had been born to Bothwell Grahame; and before the boy was a week old the young mother was in imminent danger of death. Edward Heathcote was in Italy, spending his autumn holiday, going over much of the same ground that he had visited before, and loitering longer and later than the previous year. A telegram from Bothwell told him of his sister's peril; and another telegram reached Mrs. Wyllard from the same source. Moved by the same impulse, Dora and Heathcote met at the station, each on the same errand, bent on starting by the first train for Paris. They travelled together in sad and silent companionship, each oppressed by the fear of a great calamity.
Heathcote had telegraphed before he started, asking for a telegram to meet him at the Paris station, and here the message brought a ray of comfort.
"A little better. The doctors are more hopeful."
Anxious days and nights followed Dora's arrival at Trevena. Poor Bothwell suffered a suppressed agony of grief, which seemed to have aged him at least ten years by the time the crisis was past, and the young mother was able to smile upon her firstborn. Happily these markings of care are soon erased from youthful faces; and before Christmas Bothwell was himself again, and ready to receive a new batch of pupils, the old lot having been disposed of triumphantly in the summer before his son's birth.
Dora stayed in Cornwall during that winter of '83 and '84, and she is in Cornwall still, but not at Penmorval. She has established herself at her birth-place, Tregony Manor, near the Land's End; and here old friends and neighbours flock round her, the people who knew her mother, the friends of her childish days, of her happy girlhood. They bring back sweet memories of the old time, and help to wean her from her gloomy thoughts.
One of her old companions, a spinster of thirty summers, is very often with her in the familiar home. They seem almost like the girl-friends of the past, painting together, playing, singing, working. All the old occupations have been resumed; as if the ten years intervening had hardly made any break in the two lives.
"Sometimes I fancy it is all a dream, and that you have never been away from Tregony," says Miss Beauchamp, one morning when they are sitting at work. "If we had but your dear good mother over there in her favourite, chair by the fireplace, I should quite believe the last ten years to be only a dream. But she is gone, dear soul, and that makes a sad difference. Do you know, yesterday, when I looked out of the window, and saw you and Mr. Heathcote walking on the terrace, I rubbed my eyes to make sure that I was awake. You both looked exactly as you used to look ten years ago, when you were engaged."
Dora went on with her work in placid silence.
"Dora, he is so good, so loyal, so devoted to you," cried Miss Beauchamp, in her affectionate impulsive way. "You cannot be so cruel as to spoil his life for ever. Surely you will reward him some day."
"Some day," sang Dora softly, with her face bent low over her work: and her story ends thus with the refrain of a popular ballad.