MRS. MELRAY'S STATEMENT.
"My mother died when I was little more than a child, and a year later
I lost my father. After the latter event I went to live at Solchester
with my uncle, Mr. Samuel Champneys, who was also my guardian. When I
first met Evan Wildash I was sixteen years old and had just left
school. He was my senior by four years and had come to Solchester to
fill a vacancy in a land surveyor's office, his home, meanwhile, being
with a maiden aunt whose house was only a few doors away from that of
my uncle. Evan was an especially handsome young man, with large,
black, lustrous eyes, a dark Italian-looking face, and a most
persuasive voice; in short, just the kind of provincial Romeo to take
captive the heart of a romantic school-girl. Small wonder, therefore,
was it that, when he one day whispered in my ear that he loved me, he
took mine captive on the spot. After that we used to met in secret two
or three times a week, and, as if that were not enough, we got into
the way of writing silly little love notes to each other between
times, our post-office being a hollow in an old apple-tree at the
bottom of my uncle's orchard.
"This went on for half a year or more, wholly without my uncle's
knowledge, and never was girl more happy than I. Not for a moment did
I doubt Evan's assurances that in all the world he loved but me; and,
in return, he had all the girlish love I had to bestow. By-and-by
rumours began to reach me of the wild and reckless kind of life he was
leading--of his racing and betting propensities, of his card-playing,
billiard-playing, and I know not what besides; but he was my Bayard in
so far that, in my eyes, he was _sans reproche_, and I would not
listen to aught that was said in his disparagement. At length,
however, the crash came. He was dismissed from his situation, and,
worse than all, dismissed without a character. Even then I would hear
no ill spoken of him.
"It was just about this time that someone, I never discovered who,
opened my uncle's eyes (good simple man!) to the state of affairs
between Evan and myself. Under these circumstances five uncles out of
six would have sent for their niece and have upbraided her and made
things generally unpleasant for her; but he went to work after a
different fashion. Instead of scolding me, he sent for my lover.
"According to Evan, as told to me later, Uncle Samuel spoke to him
something to the following effect: 'You have lost your situation and
you have lost your character--such a one as you had to lose.
Solchester and you must now part company. I am given to understand
that you profess to be in love with my niece. If you are seeking her
for the sake of her small fortune--and it is only a very small
one--I must impress two facts upon you. The first is, that she will
not be of age for three and a half years; the second, that her money
is so tied up that her husband, whoever he may be, will not be able to
touch a penny of it. Now, although I am my niece's guardian, and
although she is legally bound to do my bidding while under age, I have
no wish to quarrel with her on your account. Rather than do that I am
prepared to make you an offer, which, for your own sake, I strongly
advise you to accept. What I have to propose is this: That, on
condition of your breaking off all future relations with my niece, and
of your at once going out to one of the Colonies--I care not which--I
will present you with the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds, the odd
fifty to be given you at once for your passage and outfit, and the two
hundred to be paid you the day after you land at Melbourne, or
Halifax, or at whatever port you may decide upon consigning your
worthless self to.' Evan took a day to consider. On the morrow he told
my uncle that he would accept the proffered sum and go.
"'So that is the price at which you and my uncle appraise me!' I
whimpered, when, with his arm round my waist and my head resting
against his shoulder, he told me what he had agreed upon doing. 'Two
hundred and fifty pounds! Oh, if I had but known before!'
"'Believe me, dearest, it is for the best,' he replied as he softly
fondled my cheek. Then he went on to say that his plan was to go out
to the South African diamond fields, where, according to his account,
fortunes, just then, were being picked up 'every day of the week.' Why
should he be less lucky than others? What was there to hinder _him_,
from picking up a fortune? He had not the slightest doubt that at the
end of two, or, at the most, three years, he should be back in
England, worth who could say how many thousands of pounds. When that
desirable state of affairs should have come to pass, he would marry me
despite the opposition of all the uncles in the universe. Meanwhile,
would I be true to him? Of course I would be true to him, I told him
as I wept quietly on his shoulder.
"Well, he went. One letter he wrote me after landing at Cape Town,
which reached me through the good offices of his aunt, Miss Pinchin,
who was privy to our engagement and willing to further it to the best
of her ability. After that there was a long, long silence, and
finally, about a couple of years after his departure from England came
the news of his death from fever.
"I cried, but not a great deal, when the news was told me. The fact
was that by the time Evan had been gone three or four months I began
to find, much to my surprise and hardly less to my mortification, that
his image was slowly, but surely, fading and losing its vividness of
outline in my memory--that I no longer thought of him by day and
dreamt of him by night, as I had been wont to do, and that his
unaccountable silence troubled me less and less as time went on. Love,
or that which I had dignified with the name of love, had taken no real
root in my heart. A few natural tears I shed when the news was told
me; and a sense of what might have been, but never could be now, came
over me and smote me as with a lash. But I quickly dried my eyes.
Three days before I had promised to become the wife of James Melray.
"My uncle had died some time before, after having appointed Mr. Melray
my guardian for the remaining term of my minority. He placed me under
the care of a certain Mrs. Simpson, and there, from time to time, he
used to come and see me. Before a year was out he one day took my
breath away by making me an offer of marriage. I asked for a couple of
days to consider my answer, at the end of which time I accepted his
offer. Before doing so, however, I gave him clearly to understand that
I entertained no warmer feeling for him than one of simple liking and
esteem. He was quite content, he told me, to take me on those terms.
Affection, he did not doubt, would follow in due course. There seemed
to me no need for mentioning the name of Evan Wildash. The episode in
connection with him was a thing of the past. He was dead, and
therewith the promise I had given him had no longer any binding force.
"Mr. Melray and I were married. I did my best to make my husband
happy, and, through all the dark days which have followed, the
consciousness that I succeeded in doing so has been the greatest
consolation left me. He prophesied rightly when he said that, being
rooted in esteem, affection would not fail to grow. It did grow, as he
knew, and he was happy in the knowledge.
"One afternoon, about a week prior to that fatal September day, having
finished my shopping in the town, instead of going direct home, I was
tempted by the fineness of the weather to go round by the Ladies'
Walk, that fine old avenue of elms which stretches for nearly a mile
along the left bank of the river, and is the only park, so to call it,
of which Merehampton can boast.
"I had been strolling slowly along for some minutes, immersed in
thought, when I was startled by a man who came suddenly out from
behind the trunk of one of the big old trees, and stepping in front of
me blocked the way. A second look was needed before I knew him again.
It was Evan Wildash; but oh, how changed! With his sallow, sunken
cheeks, his restless, furtive eyes, his long, unkempt hair, and his
shabby, ill-fitting clothes, he looked like a vile copy of his former
self. I fell back with a cry as my eyes met his. 'So, traitress, you
have not forgotten me!' he exclaimed through his set teeth, as he
followed me up with clenched hands and raised shoulders.
"What answer I made I don't recollect, nor does it matter; but
apparently it had the effect of soothing him in some measure. 'Let us
sit,' he said,' I have much to tell you, many questions to ask.'
Accordingly we seated ourselves on one of the public benches. At that
hour of the afternoon the walk was nearly deserted; its whole length
did not hold more than half-a-dozen people.
"What passed between us may be briefly summarised.
"After that one letter written from the Cape, he had gone 'up country'
to the diamond fields. There he was presently smitten by sunstroke,
and months passed before he was able to crawl outside the
hospital-tent. So reduced was he in strength that manual labour of any
kind was out of the question, and in order to keep himself from
starving he was glad to accept a berth in a store; and there he had
stayed till he had saved enough money to pay his passage home.
"'But when you got better, why did you not write,' I asked. 'I did
write, again and yet again,' he replied. 'After that first letter not
a line from you ever reached me,' I said. 'What conclusion could I
come to save that you had forgotten me?' 'If that is so, then has
there been treachery at work,' he replied, with a contraction of his
ebon brows. 'That is a thing to be ferreted out, and I charge myself
with the task. Meet me, three days from now, at the same time and
place.'
"On that understanding we parted. There had been little or no
tenderness in his manner towards me, but only, as it were, the gloomy
humour of a man who found himself despoiled by another of something
which he had believed to be his own, but on which, in his heart, he
had set no particular store. On my part, I felt towards him nothing
but a sort of repulsion mixed with pity--pity for the so evidently
forlorn condition of one whom ill-fortune had so remorselessly dogged.
As for his good looks they were gone as completely as if they had
never existed. I wondered at and half despised myself when I called to
mind that there had been a time when I looked up to this man as the
hero of my dreams.
"I met him three days later as I had promised. He had averred that
there had been treachery at work, and I was curious to learn the
result of his inquiry. What he had to tell was something of a shock to
me. The letters he had written after his recovery from his illness had
all, like the one written after landing, which duly reached me, been
sent under cover to his aunt, Miss Pinchin. But by the time the second
letter came to hand I was engaged to be married. Miss Pinchin, in the
exercise of her discretion, instead of forwarding that and the
subsequent ones direct to me, had put them into fresh envelopes and
addressed them to Mr. Melray. Whether he had opened and read them, or
whether, having had some hint from the spinster as to the probable
nature of their contents, he had burnt them unread, is a point as to
which I am as ignorant to-day as I was then. At any rate, not one of
them ever reached the person for whom they were intended, and, for the
time being, a dull fire of resentment was kindled in my heart.
"For all that, I was by no means prepared to look at the affair from
the point of view of Evan Wildash. In brief he pressed me to elope
with him. 'You loved me--that you cannot deny,' ran his plea. 'When I
was compelled to leave you, you gave me your promise to remain true to
me; and that you would have kept it I fully believe, had not the
report of my death been spread about, and had you not found yourself,
after your uncle's decease, alone in the world. Even then, but for my
aunt's treachery, it would not have been too late for you to have
saved yourself from marrying a man whom you can henceforth regard with
nothing but loathing and contempt. Although you have failed me, I have
been true to you. To-day you are infinitely dearer to me than you were
four years ago. You belong to me. You are mine and mine only. We will
fly together to some land beyond the seas. I have means at command and
you shall not want. Come, then--now--at once! In twelve hours we shall
be far beyond pursuit.'
"Such and such like were the persuasions and arguments made use of by
him. But I had no longer any love for him (if, indeed, I had ever had
any)--no, not the least bit! Rather was I frightened of him. His
restless manner, his strange jerky movements, a peculiar twitching of
one corner of his mouth, and an indescribable something which flashed
out at me every now and again from the sombre depths of his eyes, made
me timorous of him and involuntarily caused me to shrink from too
close a proximity to him. It seemed to me then--as, with still more
reason, it seems clear to me now--that he had never thoroughly
recovered from the effects of his sunstroke, and that, to a certain
extent, he could hardly be held accountable for what he might either
say or do.
"I will not weary you with the details of all that passed between us.
I was afraid to take too indignant a tone with him, lest my doing so
should provoke an explosion of passion on his part, which might end in
a way disastrous to one or both of us. There was, however, no lack of
firmness in the way in which I gave him to understand that between
himself and me all was at an end for ever, and that that must be our
last interview. He pleaded and urged me to reconsider my
determination, but to no purpose. Finally, finding that I had only
half-an-hour left in which to get home and change my dress before
dinner, I was compelled to leave him somewhat abruptly. 'Shake hands
before I go, and let us part as friends,' I said.
"He stared at my extended hand for a moment or two with bent brows.
Then, with a strange harsh laugh which seemed to me to have an echo of
insanity in it, he said: 'Part as friends--you and I? Never! We are
lovers, not friends. You are mine and I am yours. Not even death shall
have power to divide us.' Then, pulling his hat over his brows and
turning quickly on his heel, he flung me a parting look over his
shoulder. 'It is _au revoir_, and not farewell,' he exclaimed with a
wave of his hand, and so strode swiftly away through the gloaming."