Eighteen years before the date of this story, two brothers had parted
with angry words. They were both in love with the same woman, and the
younger brother had won. The elder brother, only one year his senior,
could not stand defeat.
"I cannot stay in the old place," he said. "You can occupy the Castle
during my absence."
To this arrangement Edward Wynford agreed.
"Where are you going?" he said to his brother Frank.
"To the other side of the world--Australia probably. I don't know when I
shall return. It does not much matter. I shall never marry. The estate
will be yours. If Lady Frances has a son, it will belong to him."
"You must not think of that," said Edward. "I will live at the Castle
for a few years in order to keep it warm for you, but you will come
back; you will get over this. If she had loved you, old man, do you
think I would have taken her from you? But she chose me from the very
first."
"I don't blame you, Ned," said Frank. "You are as innocent of any
intention of harm to me as the unborn babe, but I love her too well to
stay in the old country. I am off. I don't want her ever to know. You
will promise me, won't you, that you will never tell her why I have
skulked off and dropped my responsibilities on to your shoulders?
Promise me that, at least, will you not?"
Edward Wynford promised his brother, and the brother went away.
In the former generation father and son had agreed to break off the
entail, and although there was no intention of carrying this action into
effect, and Frank, as eldest son, inherited the great estates of Wynford
Castle, yet at his father's death he was in the position of one who
could leave the estates to any one he pleased.
During his last interview with his brother he said to him distinctly:
"Remember, if Lady Frances has a son I wish him to be, after yourself,
the next heir to the property."
"But if she has not a son?" said Edward.
"In that case I have nothing to say. It is most unlikely that I shall
marry. The property will come to you in the ordinary way, and as the
entail is out off, you can leave it to whom you please."
"Do not forget that at present you can leave the estate and the Castle
to whomever you please, even to an utter stranger," said Edward, with a
slight smile.
To this remark Frank made no answer. The next day the brothers parted--as
it turned out, for life. Edward married Lady Frances, and they went to
live at Wynford Castle. Edward heard once from Frank during the voyage,
and then not at all, until he received a letter which must have been
written a couple of months before his brother's death. It was forwarded
to him in a strange hand, and was full of extraordinary and painful
tidings. Frank Wynford had died suddenly of acute fever, but before his
death he had arranged all his affairs. His letter ran as follows:
"My dear Edward,--If I live you will never get this letter; if I die
it reaches you all in good time. When last we parted I told you I
should never marry. So much for man's proposals. When I got to
Tasmania I went on a ranch, and now I am the husband of the farmer's
daughter. Her name is Isabel. She is a handsome woman, and the
mother of a daughter. Why I married her I can not tell you, except
that I can honestly say it was not with any sense of affection. But
she is my wife, and the mother of a little baby girl. Edward, when I
last heard from you, you told me that you also had a daughter. If a
son follows all in due course, what I have to say will not much
signify; but if you have no son I should wish the estates eventually
to come to my little girl. I do not believe in a woman's
administration of large and important estates like mine, but what I
say to myself now is, as well my girl as your girl. Therefore,
Edward, my dear brother, I leave all my estates to you for your
lifetime, and at your death all the property which came to me by my
father's will goes to my little girl, to be hers when you are no
longer there. I want you to receive my daughter, and to ask your
wife to bring her up. I want her to have all the advantages that a
home with Lady Frances must confer on her. I want my child and your
child to be friends. I do no injustice to your daughter, Edward,
when I make my will, for she inherits money on her mother's side. I
will acquaint my wife with particulars of this letter, and in case I
catch the fever which is raging here now she will know how to act.
My lawyer in Hobart Town will forward this, and see that my will is
carried into effect. There is a provision in it for the maintenance
of my daughter until she joins you at Castle Wynford. Whenever that
event takes place she is your care. I have only one thing to add.
The child might go to you at once (I have a premonition that I am
about to die very soon), and thus never know that she had an
Australian mother, but the difficulty lies in the fact that the
mother loves the child and will scarcely be induced to part with
her. You must not receive my poor wife unless indeed a radical
change takes place in her; and although I have begged of her to give
up the child, I doubt if she will do it. I cannot add any more, for
time presses. My will is legal in every respect, and there will be
no difficulty in carrying it into effect."
This strange letter was discovered by Frank Wynford's widow a month
after his death. It was sealed and directed to his brother in England.
She longed to read it, but restrained herself. She sent it on to her
husband's lawyer in Hobart Town, and in due course it arrived at Castle
Wynford, causing a great deal of consternation and distress both in the
minds of the Squire and Lady Frances.
Edward immediately went out to Tasmania. He saw the little baby who was
all that was left of his brother, and he also saw that brother's wife.
The coarse, loud-voiced woman received him with almost abuse. What was
to be done? The mother refused to part with the child, and Edward
Wynford, for his own wife's sake and his own baby daughter's sake, could
not urge her to come to Castle Wynford.
"I do not care twopence," she remarked, "whether the child has grand
relations or not. I loved her father, and I love her. She is my child,
and so she has got to put up with me. As long as I live she stays with
me here. I am accustomed to ranch life, and she will get accustomed to
it too. I will not spare money on her, for there is plenty, and she will
be a very rich woman some day. But while I live she stays with me; the
only way out of it is, that you ask me to your fine place in England.
Even if you do, I don't think I should be bothered to go to you, but you
might have the civility to ask me."
Squire Wynford went away, however, without giving this invitation. He
spoke to his wife on the subject. In that conversation he was careful to
adhere to his brother's wish not to reveal to her that that brother's
deep affection for herself had been the cause of his banishment. Lady
Frances was an intensely just and upright woman. She had gone through a
very bad quarter of an hour when she was told that her little girl was
to be supplanted by the strange child of an objectionable mother, but
she quickly recovered herself.
"I will not allow jealousy to enter into my life," she said; and she
even went the length of writing herself to Mrs. Wynford in Tasmania, and
invited her with the baby to come and stay at Wynford Castle. Mrs.
Wynford in Tasmania, however, much to the relief of the good folks at
home, declined the invitation.
"I have no taste for English grandeur," she said. "I was brought up in a
wild state, and I would rather stay as I was reared. The child is well;
you can have her when she is grown up or when I am dead."
Years passed after this letter and there was no communication between
little Evelyn Wynford, in the wilds of Tasmania, and her rich and
stately relatives at Castle Wynford. Lady Frances fervently hoped that
God would give her a son, but this hope was not to be realized. Audrey
was her only child, and soon it seemed almost like a dim, forgotten fact
that the real heiress was in Tasmania, and that Audrey had no more to do
in the future with the stately home of her ancestors than she would have
had had she possessed a brother. But when she was sixteen there suddenly
came a change. Mrs. Wynford died suddenly. There was now no reason why
Evelyn should not come home, and accordingly, untutored, uncared for, a
passionate child with a curious, wilful strain in her, she arrived on
New Year's Day at Castle Wynford.
Evelyn Wynford's nature was very complex. She loved very few people, but
those she did love she loved forever. No change, no absence, no
circumstances could alter her regard. In her ranch life and during her
baby days she had clung to her mother. Mrs. Wynford was fierce and
passionate and wilful. Little Evelyn admired her, whatever she did. She
trotted round the farm after her; she learnt to ride almost as soon as
she could walk, and she followed her mother barebacked on the wildest
horses on the ranch. She was fearless and stubborn, and gave way to
terrible fits of passion, but with her mother she was gentle as a lamb.
Mrs. Wynford was fond of the child in the careless, selfish, and yet
fierce way which belonged to her nature. Mrs. Wynford's sole idea of
affection was that her child should be with her morning, noon, and
night; that for no education, for no advantages, should she be parted
from her mother for a moment. Night after night the two slept in each
other's arms; day after day they were together. The farmer's daughter
was a very strong woman, and as her father died a year or two after her
husband, she managed the ranch herself, keeping everything in order, and
not allowing the slightest insubordination on the part of her servants.
Little Evelyn, too, learnt her mother's masterful ways. She could
reprimand; she could insist upon obedience; she could shake her tiny
fists in the faces of those who dared to oppose her; and when she was
disporting herself so Mrs. Wynford stood by and laughed.
"Hullo!" she used to cry. "See the spirit in the young un. She takes
after me. A nice time her English relatives will have with her! But she
will never go to them--never while I live."
Although Mrs. Wynford had long ago made up her mind that Evelyn was to
have none of the immediate advantages of her birth and future prospects,
she was fond of talking to the child about the grandeur which lay before
her.
"If I die, Eve," she said, "you will have to go across the sea in a big
ship to England. You would have a rough time of it, perhaps, on board,
but you won't mind that, my beauty."
"I am not a beauty, mother," answered Evelyn. "You know I am not. You
know I am a very plain girl."
"Hark to the child!" shrieked Mrs. Wynford. "It is as good as a play to
hear her. If you are not beautiful in body, my darling, you are
beautiful in your spirit. Yes, you have inherited from your proud
English father lots of gold and a lovely castle, and all your relations
will have to eat humble-pie to you; but you have got your spirit from
me, Eve--don't forget that."
"Tell me about the Castle, mother, and about my father," said Evelyn,
nestling up close to her parent, as they sat by the roaring fire in the
winter evenings.
Mrs. Wynford knew very little, and what she did know she exaggerated.
She gave Evelyn vivid pictures, however, in each and all of which the
principal figure was Evelyn herself--Evelyn claiming her rights,
mastering her relations, letting her unknown cousin know that she,
Evelyn, was the heiress, and that the cousin was nobody. Only one person
in the group of Evelyn's future relations did Mrs. Wynford counsel her
to be civil to.
"The worst of it all is this, Eve," she said--"while your uncle lives you
do not own a pennypiece of the estate; and he may hold out for many a
long day, so you had best be agreeable to him. Besides, he is like your
father. Your father was a very handsome man and a very fine man, and I
loved him, child. I took a fancy to him from the day he arrived at the
ranch, and when he asked me to marry him I thought myself in rare good
luck. But he died soon after you were born. Had he lived I'd have been
the lady of the Castle, but I'd not go there without him, and you shall
never go while I live."
"I don't want to, mother. You are more to me than twenty castles," said
the enthusiastic little girl.
Mrs. Wynford had one friend whom Evelyn tolerated and presently loved.
That friend was a woman, partly of French extraction, who had come to
stay at the ranch once during a severe illness of its owner. Her name
was Jasper--Amelia Jasper; but she was known on the ranch by the title of
Jasper alone. She was not a lady in any sense of the word, and did not
pretend that she was one; but she was possessed of a certain strange
fascination which she could exercise at will over those with whom she
came in contact, and she made herself so useful to Mrs. Wynford and so
necessary to Evelyn that she was never allowed to leave the ranch again.
She soon obtained a great power over the curious, uneducated woman who
was Evelyn's mother; and when at last Mrs. Wynford found that she was
smitten with an incurable disease, and that at any moment death would
come to fetch her, she asked her dear friend Jasper to take the child to
England.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Jasper. "I'll take Evelyn to England,
and stay with her there."
Mrs. Wynford laughed.
"You are clever enough, Jasper," she said; "but what a figure of fun you
would look in the grand sort of imperial residence that my dear late
husband has described to me! You are not a lady, you know, although you
are smart and clever enough to beat half the ladies out of existence."
"I shall know how to manage," said Jasper. "I, too, have heard of the
ways of English grandees. I'll be Evelyn's maid. She cannot do without a
maid, can she? I'll take Evelyn back, and I will stay with her as her
maid."
Mrs. Wynford hailed this idea as a splendid one, and she even wrote a
very badly spelt letter to Lady Frances, which Jasper was to convey and
deliver herself, if possible, to her proud ladyship, as the widow called
her sister-in-law. In this letter Mrs. Wynford demanded that Jasper was
to stay with Evelyn as long as Evelyn wished for her, and she finally
added:
"I dare you, Lady Frances, fine lady as you are, to part the child from
her maid."
When Mrs. Wynford died Evelyn gave way to the most terrible grief. She
refused to eat; she refused to leave her mother's dead body. She
shrieked herself into hysterics on the day of the funeral, and then the
poor little girl was prostrated with nervous fever. Finally, she became
so unwell that it was impossible for her to travel to England for some
months. And so it happened that nearly a year elapsed between the death
of the mother and the arrival of the child at Castle Wynford.