"DUST TO DUST."
The inquest at the Wharncliffe Arms was conducted in a thoroughly
respectable, unsuspicious manner. No searching questions were asked, no
inferences drawn. To the farmers and tradespeople who constituted that
rustic jury, the case seemed too simple to need any severe
interrogation. A gentleman staying in a country house goes out shooting,
and is so unlucky as to shoot himself instead of the birds whereof he
went in search. He is found with an empty bag, and a charge of swan-shot
through his heart.
"Hard lines," as Jack Vandeleur observed, _sotto voce_, to a
neighbouring squire, while the inquest was pursuing its sleepy course,
"and about the queerest fluke I ever saw on any table."
"Was it a fluke?" muttered little Montagu, lifting himself on tiptoe to
watch the proceedings. He and his companions were standing among a
little crowd at the door of the justice-room. "It looks to me
uncommonly as if Mr. Hamleigh had shot himself. We all know he was
deadly sweet on Mrs. T., although both of them behaved beautifully."
"Men have died--and worms have eaten them--but not for love," quoted
Captain Vandeleur, who had a hearsay knowledge of Shakspeare, though he
had never read a Shakspearian play in his life. "If Hamleigh was so dead
tired of life that he wanted to kill himself he could have done it
comfortably in his own room."
"He might wish to avoid the imputation of suicide."
"Pshaw, how can any man care what comes afterwards? Bury me where four
roads meet, with a stake through my body, or in Westminster Abbey under
a marble monument, and the result is just the same to me."
"That's because you are an out-and-out Bohemian. But Hamleigh was a
dandy in all things. He would be nice about the details of his death."
Mr. Hamleigh's valet was now being questioned as to his master's conduct
and manner on the morning he left Mount Royal. The man replied that his
master's manner had been exactly the same as usual. He was always very
quiet--said no more than was necessary to be said. He was a kind master
but never familiar. "He never made a companion of me," said the man,
"though I'd been with him at home and abroad twelve years; but a better
master never lived. He was always an early riser--there was nothing out
of the way in his getting up at six, and going out at seven. There was
only one thing at all out of the common, and that was his attending to
his gun himself, instead of telling me to get it ready for him."
"Had he many guns with him?"
"Only two. The one he took was an old gun--a favourite."
"Do you know why he took swan-shot to shoot woodcocks?"
"No--unless he made a mistake in the charge. He took the cartridges out
of the case himself, and put them into his pocket. He was an experienced
sportsman, though he was never as fond of sport as the generality of
gentlemen."
"Do you know if he had been troubled in mind of late?"
"No; I don't think he had any trouble on his mind. He was in very bad
health, and knew that he had not long to live; but he seemed quite happy
and contented. Indeed, judging by what I saw of him, I should say that
he was in a more easy, contented frame of mind during the last few
months than he had ever been for the last four years."
This closed the examination. There had been very few witnesses
called--only the medical man, the men who had found the body, the girl
at the farm, who declared that she had given the key to Mr. Hamleigh a
little before eight that morning, that no one else had asked for the key
till the men came from Mount Royal--that, to her knowledge, no one but
the men at work on the farm had gone up the lane that morning. A couple
of farm labourers gave the same testimony--they had been at work in the
topmost field all the morning, and no one had gone to the Kieve that way
except the gentleman that was killed. They had heard a shot--or two
shots--they were not certain which, fired between eight and nine. They
were not very clear as to the hour, and they could not say for certain
whether they heard one or two shots; but they knew that the report was a
very loud one--unusually loud for a sportsman's shot.
Mr. Tregonell, although he was in the room ready to answer any
questions, was not interrogated. The jury went in a wagonette to see the
body, which was still lying at the farm, and returned after a brief
inspection of that peaceful clay--the countenance wearing that beautiful
calm which is said to be characteristic of death from a gun-shot
wound--to give their verdict.
"Death by misadventure."
The body was carried to Mount Royal after dark, and three days later
there was a stately funeral, to which first cousins and second cousins
of the dead came as from the four corners of the earth; for Angus
Hamleigh, dying a bachelor, and leaving a handsome estate behind him,
was a person to be treated with all those last honours which
affectionate kindred can offer to poor humanity.
He was buried in the little churchyard in the hollow, where Christabel
and he had heard the robin singing and the dull thud of the earth thrown
out of an open grave in the calm autumn sunlight. Now in the autumn his
own grave was dug in the same peaceful spot--in accordance with a note
which his valet, who knew his habits, found in a diary.
"Oct. 11.--If I should die in Cornwall--and there are times when I feel
as if death were nearer than my doctor told me at our last interview--I
should like to be buried in Minster Churchyard. I have outlived all
family associations, and I should like to lie in a spot which is dear to
me for its own sake."
A will had been found in Mr. Hamleigh's despatch box, which receptacle
was opened by his lawyer, who came from London on purpose to take charge
of any papers which his client might have in his possession at the time
of his death. The bulk of his papers were no doubt in his chambers in
the Albany; chambers which he had taken on coming of age; and which he
had occupied at intervals ever since.
Mr. Tregonell showed himself keenly anxious that everything should be
done in a strictly legal manner, and it was by his own hand that the
lawyer was informed of his client's death, and invited to Mount Royal.
Mr. Bryanstone, the solicitor, a thorough man of the world, and an
altogether agreeable person, appeared at the Manor House two days before
the funeral, and, being empowered by Mr. Tregonell to act as he pleased,
sent telegrams far and wide to the dead man's kindred, who came trooping
like carrion crows to the funeral feast.
Angus Hamleigh was buried in the afternoon; a mild, peaceful afternoon
at the end of October, with a yellow light in the western sky, which
deepened and brightened as the funeral train wound across the valley,
climbed the steep street of Boscastle, and then wound slowly downwards
into the green heart of the hill, to the little rustic burial place.
That orb of molten gold was sinking behind the edge of the moor just
when the Vicar read the last words of the funeral service. Golden and
crimson gleams touched the landscape here and there, golden lights still
lingered on the sea, as the mourners, so thoroughly formal and
conventional for the most part--Jack Vandeleur and little Monty amidst
the train with carefully-composed features--went back to their
carriages. And then the shades of evening came slowly down, and spread a
dark pall over hill-side, and hedgerow, and churchyard, where there was
no sound but the monotonous fall of the earth, which the gravedigger was
shovelling into that new grave.
There had been no women at the funeral. Those two who, each after her
own peculiar fashion, had loved the dead man, were shut in their own
rooms, thinking of him, picturing, with too vivid imagery, the lowering
of the coffin in the new-made grave--hearing the solemn monotony of the
clergyman's voice, sounding clear in the clear air--the first shovelful
of earth falling on the coffin-lid--dust to dust; dust to dust.
Lamps were lighted in the drawing-room, where the will was to be read. A
large wood fire burned brightly--pleasant after the lowered atmosphere
of evening. Wines and other refreshments stood on a table near the
hearth; another table stood ready for the lawyer. So far as there could
be, or ought to be, comfort and cheeriness on so sad an occasion,
comfort and cheeriness were here. The cousins--first and second--warmed
themselves before the fire, and discoursed in low murmurs of the time
and the trouble it had cost them to reach this out of the way hole, and
discussed the means of getting away from it. Mr. Tregonell stood on one
side of the hearth, leaning his broad back heavily against the
sculptured chimney piece, and listening moodily to Captain Vandeleur's
muttered discourse. He had insisted upon keeping his henchman with him
during this gloomy period; sending an old servant as far as Plymouth to
see the Miss Vandeleurs into the London train, rather than part with his
familiar friend. Even Mr. Montagu, who had delicately hinted at
departure, was roughly bidden to remain.
"I shall be going away myself in a week or so," said Mr. Tregonell. "I
don't mean to spend the winter at this fag-end of creation. It will be
time enough for you to go when I go."
The friends, enjoying free quarters which were excellent in their way,
and having no better berths in view, freely forgave the bluntness of the
invitation, and stayed. But they commented between themselves in the
seclusion of the smoking room upon the Squire's disinclination to be
left without cheerful company.
"He's infernally nervous, that's what it all means," said little Monty,
who had all that cock-sparrowish pluck which small men are wont to
possess--the calm security of insignificance. "You wouldn't suppose a
great burly fellow like Tregonell, who has travelled all over the world,
would be scared by a death in his house, would you?"
"Death is awful, let it come when it will," answered Jack Vandeleur,
dubiously. "I've seen plenty of hard-hitting in the hill-country, but
I'd go a long way to avoid seeing a strange dog die, let alone a dog I
was fond of."
"Tregonell couldn't have been very fond of Hamleigh, that's certain,"
said Monty.
"They seemed good friends."
"Seemed; yes. But do you suppose Tregonell ever forgot that Mr. Hamleigh
and his wife had once been engaged to be married? It isn't in human
nature to forget that kind of thing. And he made believe that he asked
Hamleigh here to give one of your sisters a chance of getting a rich
husband," said Monty, rolling up a cigarette, as he sat adroitly
balanced on the arm of a large chair, and shaking his head gently, with
lowered eyelids, and a cynical smile curling his thin lips. "That was a
little _too_ thin. He asked Hamleigh here because he was savagely
jealous, and suspected his motive for turning up in this part of the
country, and wanted to see how he and Mrs. Tregonell would carry on."
"Whatever he wanted, I'm sure he saw no harm in either of them," said
Captain Vandeleur. "I'm as quick as any man at twigging that kind of
thing, and I'll swear that it was all fair and above board with those
two; they behaved beautifully."
"So they did, poor things," answered Monty, in his little purring way.
"And yet Tregonell wasn't happy."
"He'd have been better pleased if Hamleigh had proposed to my sister, as
he ought to have done," said Vandeleur, trying to look indignant at the
memory of Dopsy's wrongs.
"Now drop that, old Van," said Monty, laughing softly and pleasantly, as
he lit his cigarette, and began to smoke, dreamily, daintily, like a man
for whom smoking is a fine art. "Sink your sister. As I said before,
that's too thin. Dopsy is a dear little girl--one of the five or six and
twenty nice girls whom I passionately adore; but she was never anywhere
within range of Hamleigh. First and foremost she isn't his style, and
secondly he has never got over the loss of Mrs. Tregonell. He behaved
beautifully while he was here; but he was just as much in love with her
as he was four years ago, when I used to meet them at dances--a regular
pair of Arcadian lovers; Daphne and Chloe, and that kind of thing. She
only wanted a crook to make the picture perfect."
* * * * *
And now Mr. Bryanstone had hummed and hawed a little, and had put on a
pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, and cousins near and distant ceased
their conversational undertones, and seated themselves conveniently to
listen.
The will was brief. "To Percy Ritherdon, Commander in Her Majesty's
Navy, my first cousin and old schoolfellow, in memory of his dear
mother's kindness to one who had no mother, I bequeath ten thousand
pounds, and my sapphire ring, which has been an heirloom, and which I
hope he will leave to any son of his whom he may call after me.
"To my servant, John Danby, five hundred pounds in consols.
"To my housekeeper in the Albany, two hundred and fifty.
"To James Bryanstone, my very kind friend and solicitor of Lincoln's
Inn, my collection of gold and silver snuff-boxes, and Roman intaglios.
"All the rest of my estate, real and personal, to be vested in trustees,
of whom the above-mentioned James Bryanstone shall be one, and the Rev.
John Carlyon, of Trevena, Cornwall, the other, for the sole use and
benefit of Leonard George Tregonell, now an infant, who shall, with his
father and mother's consent, assume the name of Hamleigh after that of
Tregonell upon coming of age, and I hope that his father and mother
will accept this legacy for their son in the spirit of pure friendship
for them, and attachment to the boy by which it is dictated, and that
they will suffer their son so to perpetuate the name of one who will die
childless."
There was an awful silence--perfect collapse on the part of the cousins,
the one kinsman selected for benefaction being now with his ship in the
Mediterranean.
And then Leonard Tregonell rose from his seat by the fire, and came
close up to the table at which Mr. Bryanstone was sitting.
"Am I at liberty to reject that legacy on my son's part?" he asked.
"Certainly not. The money is left in trust. Your son can do what he
likes when he comes of age. But why should you wish to decline such a
legacy--left in such friendly terms? Mr. Hamleigh was your friend."
"He was my mother's friend--for me only a recent acquaintance. It seems
to me that there is a sort of indirect insult in such a bequest, as if I
were unable to provide for my boy--as if I were likely to run through
everything, and make him a pauper before he comes of age."
"Believe me there is no such implication," said the lawyer, smiling
blandly at the look of trouble and anger in the other man's face. "Did
you never hear before of money being left to a man who already has
plenty? That is the general bent of all legacies. In this world it is
the poor who are sent empty away," murmured Mr. Bryanstone, with a sly
glance under his spectacles at the seven blank faces of the seven
cousins. "I consider that Mr. Hamleigh--who was my very dear friend--has
paid you the highest compliment in his power, and that you have every
reason to honour his memory."
"And legally I have no power to refuse his property?"
"Certainly not. The estate is not left to you--you have no power to
touch a sixpence of it."
"And the will is dated?"
"Just three weeks ago."
"Within the first week of this visit here. He must have taken an
inordinate fancy to my boy."
Mr. Bryanstone smiled to himself softly with lowered eyelids, as he
folded up the will--a holograph will upon a single sheet of Bath
post--witnessed by two of the Mount Royal servants. The family solicitor
knew all about Angus Hamleigh's engagement to Miss Courtenay--had even
received instructions for drawing the marriage settlement--but he was
too much a man of the world to refer to that fact.
"Was not Mr. Hamleigh's father engaged to your mother?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Then don't you think that respect for your mother may have had some
influence with Mr. Hamleigh when he made your son his heir?"
"I am not going to speculate about his motives. I only wish he had left
his money to an asylum for idiots--or to his cousins"--with a glance at
the somewhat vacuous countenances of the dead man's kindred, "or that I
were at liberty to decline his gift--which I should do, flatly."
"This sounds as if you were prejudiced against my lamented friend. I
thought you liked him."
"So I did," stammered Leonard, "but not well enough to give him the
right to patronise me with his d--d legacy."
"Mr. Tregonell," said the lawyer, frowning, "I have to remind you that
my late client has left you, individually, nothing--and I must add, that
your language and manner are most unbefitting this melancholy occasion."
Leonard grumbled an inaudible reply, and walked back to the fireplace.
The whole of this conversation had been carried on in undertones--so
that the cousins who had gathered in a group upon the hearthrug, and who
were for the most part absorbed in pensive reflections upon the futility
of earthly hopes, heard very little of it. They belonged to that species
of well-dressed nonentities, more or less impecunious, which sometimes
constitute the outer fringe upon a good old family. To each of them it
seemed a hard thing that Angus Hamleigh had not remembered him
individually, choosing him out of the ruck of cousinship as a meet
object for bounty.
"He ought to have left me an odd thousand," murmured a beardless
subaltern; "he knew how badly I wanted it, for I borrowed a pony of him
the last time he asked me to breakfast; and a man of good family must be
very hard up when he comes to borrowing ponies."
"I dare say you would have not demurred to making it a monkey, if Mr.
Hamleigh had proposed it," said his interlocutor.
"Of course not: and if he had been generous he would have given me
something handsome, instead of being so confoundedly literal as to write
his cheque for exactly the amount I asked for. A man of his means and
age ought to have had more feeling for a young fellow in his first
season. And now I am out of pocket for my expenses to this infernal
hole."
Thus, and with other wailings of an approximate character, did Angus
Hamleigh's kindred make their lamentation: and then they all began to
arrange among themselves for getting away as early as possible next
morning--and for travelling together, with a distant idea of a little
"Nap" to beguile the weariness of the way between Plymouth and
Paddington. There was room enough for them all at Mount Royal, and Mr.
Tregonell was not a man to permit any guests, howsoever assembled, to
leave his house for the shelter of an inn; so the cousins stayed, dined
heavily, smoked as furiously as those furnace chimneys which are
supposed not to smoke, all the evening, and thought they were passing
virtuous for refraining from the relaxation of pool, or
shell-out--opining that the click of the balls might have an unholy
sound so soon after a funeral. Debarred from this amusement, they
discussed the career and character of the dead man, and were all agreed,
in the friendliest spirit, that there had been very little in him, and
that he had made a poor thing of his life, and obtained a most
inadequate amount of pleasure out of his money.
Mount Royal was clear of them all by eleven o'clock next morning. Mr.
Montagu went away with them, and only Captain Vandeleur remained to bear
Leonard company in a house which now seemed given over to gloom.
Christabel kept her room, with Jessie Bridgeman in constant attendance
upon her. She had not seen her husband since her return from the Kieve,
and Jessie had told him in a few resolute words that it would not be
well for them to meet.
"She is very ill," said Jessie, standing on the threshold of the room,
while Leonard remained in the corridor outside. "Dr. Hayle has seen her,
and he says she must have perfect quiet--no one is to worry her--no one
is to talk to her--the shock she has suffered in this dreadful business
has shattered her nerves."
"Why can't you say in plain words that she is grieving for the only man
she ever loved," asked Leonard.
"I am not going to say that which is not true; and which you, better
than any one else, know is not true. It is not Angus Hamleigh's death,
but the manner of his death, which she feels. Take that to your heart,
Mr. Tregonell."
"You are a viper!" said Leonard, "and you always were a viper. Tell my
wife--when she is well enough to hear reason--that I am not going to be
sat upon by her, or her toady; and that as she is going to spend her
winter dissolved in tears for Mr. Hamleigh's death, I shall spend mine
in South America, with Jack Vandeleur."
Three days later his arrangements were all made for leaving Cornwall.
Captain Vandeleur was very glad to go with him, upon what he, Jack,
pleasantly called "reciprocal terms," Mr. Tregonell paying all expenses
as a set-off against his friend's cheerful society. There was no false
pride about Poker Vandeleur; no narrow-minded dislike to being paid for.
He was so thoroughly assured as to the perfect equitableness of the
transaction.
On the morning he left Mount Royal, Mr. Tregonell went into the nursery
to bid his son good-bye. He contrived, by some mild artifice, to send
the nurse on an errand; and while she was away, strained the child to
his breast, and hugged and kissed him with a rough fervour which he had
never before shown. The boy quavered a little, and his lip drooped under
that rough caress--and then the clear blue eyes looked up and saw that
this vehemence meant love, and the chubby arms clung closely round the
father's neck.
"Poor little beggar!" muttered Leonard, his eyes clouded with tears. "I
wonder whether I shall ever see him again. He might die--or I--there is
no telling. Hard lines to leave him for six months on end--but"--with a
suppressed shudder--"I should go mad if I stayed here."
The nurse came back, and Leonard put the child on his rocking-horse,
which he had left reluctantly at the father's entrance, and left the
nursery without another word. In the corridor he lingered for some
minutes--now staring absently at the family portraits--now looking at
the door of his wife's room. He had been occupying a bachelor room at
the other end of the house since her illness.
Should he force an entrance to that closed chamber--defy Jessie
Bridgeman, and take leave of his wife?--the wife whom, after the bent of
his own nature, he had passionately loved. What could he say to her?
Very little, in his present mood. What would she say to him? There was
the rub. From that pale face--from those uplifted eyes--almost as
innocent as the eyes that had looked at him just now--he shrank in
absolute fear.
At the last moment, after he had put on his overcoat, and when the
dog-cart stood waiting for him at the door, he sat down and scribbled a
few hasty lines of farewell.
"I am told you are too ill to see me, but cannot go without one word of
good-bye. If I thought you cared a rap for me, I should stay; but I
believe you have set yourself against me because of this man's death,
and that you will get well all the sooner for my being far away. Perhaps
six months hence, when I come back again--if I don't get killed out
yonder, which is always on the cards--you may have learnt to feel more
kindly towards me. God knows I have loved you as well as ever man loved
woman--too well for my own happiness. Good-bye. Take care of the boy;
and don't let that little viper, Jessie Bridgeman, poison your mind
against me."
"Leonard! are you coming to-day or to-morrow?" cried Jack Vandeleur's
stentorian voice from the hall. "We shall lose the train at Launceston,
if you don't look sharp."
Thus summoned, Leonard thrust his letter into an envelope, directed it
to his wife, and gave it to Daniel, who was hovering about to do due
honour to his master's departure--the master for whose infantine sports
he had made his middle-aged back as the back of a horse, and
perambulated the passages on all-fours, twenty years ago--the master who
seemed but too likely to bring his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave,
judging by the pace at which he now appeared to be travelling along the
road to ruin.