IN THE LAND OF BEECHES
Leonard met Constance a few days later at the club, and they dined at
the same table. As for the decision and the rejection, they were ignored
by tacit consent. The situation remained apparently unaltered. In
reality, everything was changed.
“You look thoughtful,” she said presently, after twice making an
observation which failed to catch his attention. “And you are
absent-minded.”
“I beg your pardon, yes. That is, I do feel thoughtful. You would,
perhaps, if you found your family suddenly enlarged in all directions.”
“Have you received unknown cousins from America?”
“I have received a great-aunt, a lesser aunt, and two second cousins.
They are not from America. They are, on the contrary, from the far East
End of this town--even from Ratcliffe or Shadwell, or perhaps Stepney.”
“Oh!” Constance heard with astonishment, and naturally waited for more,
if more was to follow. Perhaps, however, her friend might not wish to
talk of connections with Shadwell.
“The great aunt is charming,” he continued; “the lesser aunt is not so
charming; the second cousins are--are--well, the man is a solicitor who
seems to practice chiefly in a police-court, defending those who are
drunk and disorderly, with all who are pickpockets, hooligans, and
common frauds.”
“A variegated life, I should say, and full of surprises and
unexpectedness.”
“He is something like my family--tall, with sharp features--more perhaps
of the vulture than the eagle in him. But one may be mistaken. His
sister is like her mother, short and round and plump, and--not to
disguise the truth--common-looking. But I should say that she was
capable. She is a Board School teacher. You were saying the other day,
Constance, that it was a pity that I had never been hampered by poor
relations.”
“I consider that you are really a spoiled child of fortune. I reminded
you that you have your position already made; you have your
distinguished University career; you are getting on in the House; you
have no family scandals or misfortunes, or poor relations, or anything.”
“Well, this loss is now supplied by the accession of poor relations
and--other things. Your mention of things omitted reminded Fortune, I
suppose. So she hastened to turn on a supply of everything. I am now
quite like the rest of the world.”
“Do the poor relations want money?”
“Yes, but not from me. The solicitor thinks that there must be great
sums of money accumulated by the Patriarch of whom I have spoken to you.
Cupidity of a sort, but not the desire to borrow, sent him to me. Partly
he wanted to put in his claim informally, and partly he prepared the way
to make me dispute any will that the old man may have made. He is poor,
and therefore he is grasping, I suppose.”
“I believe we all have poor relations,” said Constance. “Mine, however,
do not trouble me much.”
“There has been a Family enlargement in another direction. A certain
uncle of mine, who formerly enacted with much credit the old tragedy of
the Prodigal Son, has come back from Australia.”
“Has he been living on the same diet as the Prodigal?”
“Shucks and bean-pods! He hardly looks as if that had been his diet. He
is well dressed, big, and important. He repeats constantly, and is most
anxious for everybody to know, that he is prosperous. I doubt,
somehow----”
Leonard paused; the expression of doubt is not always wise.
“The return of a middle-aged Prodigal is interesting and unusual. I fear
I must not congratulate you altogether on this unexpected enlargement.”
“Yet you said I ought to have poor relations. However, there is more
behind. What was it you said about disgraces? Well, they’ve come too.”
“Oh!” Constance changed colour. “Disgraces? But, Leonard, I am very
sorry, and I really never supposed----”
“Of course not; it is the merest coincidence. At the same time, like all
coincidences, it is astonishing just after your remarks, which did
really make me very uncomfortable. But I’ve stepped into quite a
remarkable family history, full of surprising events, and all of them
disasters.”
“But you had already a remarkable family history.”
“So I thought--a long history and a creditable history, ending with the
ancient recluse of whom I have told you. We are rather proud of this
old, old man--this singular being who has been a recluse for seventy
years. I have always known about him. One of the very earliest things I
was told was the miraculous existence of this eccentric ancestor. They
told me so much, I suppose, because I am, as a matter of fact, heir to
the estate whenever that happens to fall in. But I was never told--I
suppose because it is a horrible story--why the old man became a
recluse. That I only learned yesterday from this ancient aunt, who is
the only daughter of the still more ancient recluse.”
“Why was it? That is, don’t let me ask about your private affairs.”
“Not at all. There is nothing that might not be proclaimed from the
house-top; there never is. There are no private affairs if we would only
think so. Well, it seems that one day, seventy years ago, the
brother-in-law of this gentleman, then a hearty young fellow of five-or
six-and-twenty, was staying at the Hall. He went out after breakfast,
and was presently found murdered in a wood, and in consequence of
hearing this dreadful thing suddenly, his sister, my ancestor’s wife,
died on the same day. The ancient aunt was born on the day that the
mother died. The blow, which was certainly very terrible, affected my
ancestor with a grief so great that he became at once, what he is now, a
melancholy recluse, taking no longer the least interest in anything. It
is to me very strange that a young man, strong physically and mentally,
should not have shaken off this obsession.”
“It does seem very strange. I myself had an ancestor murdered
somewhere--father of one of my grandmothers. But your case is
different.”
“The aged aunt told me the story. She had a theory about some great
crime having been committed. She suggests that the parent of the recluse
must have been a great unknown, unsuspected criminal--a kind of Gilles
de Retz. There have been misfortunes scattered about--she related a
whole string of calamities--all, she thinks, in consequence of some
crime committed by this worthy, as mild a Christian, I believe, as ever
followed the hounds or drank a bottle of port.”
“She is thinking, of course, of the visitation upon the third and fourth
generation. To which of them do you belong?”
“I am of the fourth according to that theory. It is tempting; it lends
a new distinction to the family. This lady is immensely proud of her
family, and finds consolation for her own misfortunes in the thought
that they are in part atonement for some past wickedness. Strange, is it
not?”
“Of course, if there is no crime there can be no consequences. Have the
misfortunes been very marked?”
“Yes, very marked and unmistakable misfortunes. They cannot be got over
or denied or explained away. Misfortunes, Dooms--what you please.”
“What does your recluse say about them?”
“He says nothing; he never speaks. Constance, will you ride over with me
and see the man and the place? It is only five-and-twenty miles or so.
The roads are dry; the spring is upon us. Come to-morrow. There is a
pretty village, an old church, an eighteenth-century house falling into
ruins, great gardens all run to bramble and thistle, and a park, besides
the recluse himself.”
“The recluse might not like my visit.”
“He will not notice it. Besides, he sleeps all the afternoon. And when
he is awake he sees nobody. His eyes go straight through one like a
Röntgen ray. I believe he sees the bones and nothing else.”
* * * * *
The least frequented of the great highroads running out of London is
assuredly that which passes through Uxbridge, and so right into the
heart of the shire of Buckingham--the home or clearing or settlement of
the Beeches. Few bicycles attempt this road; the ordinary cyclist knows
or cares nothing for the attractions. Yet there is much to see. In one
place you can visit the cottage where Milton finished “Paradise Lost.”
It is still kept just as when the poet lived in it. There are churches
every two or three miles, churches memorable, and even historical, for
the most part, and beautiful. Almost every church in this county has
some famous man associated with it. On the right is the burial-place of
the Russells, with their ancient manor-house, a joy and solace for the
eyes: also, on the right, is another ancient manor-house. On the left is
the quiet and peaceful burial-place of Penn and Elwood, those two
illustrious members of the Society of Friends. Or, also on the left, you
may turn aside to see the church and the road and the house of England’s
patriot John Hampden. The road goes up and the road goes down over long
low hills and through long low valleys. On this side and on that are
woods and coppices and parks, with trees scattered about and country
houses. No shire in England is more studded with country houses than
this of Bucks. At a distance of every six or eight miles there stands a
town. All the towns in Bucks are small; all are picturesque. All have
open market-places and town-halls and ancient inns and old houses. I
know of one where there is an inn of the fourteenth century. I have had
it sketched by a skilful limner, and I call it the Boar’s Head,
Eastcheap, and I should like to see anybody question the authenticity
of the name. If any were so daring, I would add the portrait of Jack
Falstaff himself, sitting in the great chair by the fire.
On a fine clear day in early spring, two cyclists rode through this
country. They were Leonard and his friend Constance. They went by train
as far as Uxbridge, and then they took the road.
At first it was enough to breathe the pure air of the spring; to fly
along the quiet road, while the rooks cawed in the trees, and over the
fields the larks sang. Then they drew nearer and began to talk.
“Is this what you brought me out to see?” asked Constance. “I am well
content if this is all. What a lovely place it is! And what a lovely
air! It is fragrant; the sun brings out the fragrance from the very
fields as well as the woods.”
“This is the quietest and the most beautiful of all the roads near
London. But I am going to show you more. Not all to-day. We must come
again. I will show you Milton’s cottage and Penn’s burial-ground, John
Hampden’s church and tomb, and the old manor-house of Chenies and
Latimer. To-day I am only going to show you our old family house.”
“We will come when the catkins have given place to the leaves and the
hedge-rose is in blossom.”
“And when the Park is worth looking at. Everything, however, at our
place is in a condition of decay. You shall see the house, and the
church, and the village. Then, if you like, we will go on to the
nearest town and get some kind of dinner, and go home by train.”
“That pleases me well.”
They went on in silence for a while.
Leonard took up the parable again about his family.
“We have been in the same place,” he said, “for an immense time. We have
never produced a great man or a distinguished man. If you consider it,
there are not really enough distinguished men to go round the families.
We have twice recently made a bid for a distinguished man. My own father
and my grandfather were both promising politicians, but they were both
cut off in early manhood.”
“Both? What a strange thing!”
“Yes. Part of what the ancient aunt calls the family luck. We have had,
in fact, an amazing quantity of bad luck. Listen. It is like the history
of a House driven and scourged by the hand of Fate.”
She listened while he went through the terrible list.
“Why,” she said, “your list of disaster does really suggest the terrible
words ‘unto the third and fourth generation.’ I don’t wonder at your
aunt looking about for a criminal. What could your forefathers have done
to bring about such a succession of misfortunes?”
“Let us get down and rest a little.” They sat down on a stile, and
turned the talk into a more serious vein.
“What have my forefathers done? Nothing. Of that I am quite certain.
They have always been most respectable squires, good fox-hunters, with a
touch of scholarship. They have done nothing. Our misfortunes are all
pure bad luck, and nothing else. Those words, however, do force
themselves on one. I am not superstitious, yet since that venerable
dame---- However, this morning I argued with myself. I said, ‘It would
be such a terrible injustice that innocent children should suffer from
their fathers’ misdeeds, that it cannot be so.’”
“I don’t know,” said Constance. “I am not so sure.”
“You, too, among the superstitious? I also, however, was brought up with
that theory----”
“I suppose you went to church?”
“Yes, we went to church. And now I remember that my mother, for the
reason which I have only just learned, believed that we were ourselves
expiating the sins of our forefathers. It is very easy for me to go back
to the language and ideas of my childhood, so much so that this morning
I made a little search after a certain passage which I had well-nigh
forgotten.”
“What was that?”
“It is directed against that very theory. It expresses exactly the
opposite opinion. The passage is in the Prophet Ezekiel. Do you remember
it?”
“No. I have never read that Prophet, and I have never considered the
subject.”
“It is a very fine passage. Ezekiel is one of the finest writers
possible. He ought to be read more and studied more.”
“Tell me the sense of the passage.”
“I can give you the very words. Listen.” He stood up and took off his
hat, and declaimed the words with much force:
“‘What mean ye that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel,
saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are
set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not use this
proverb any more. Behold, all souls are Mine: as the soul of the father,
so also the soul of the son is Mine. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. But if a man be just, he shall surely live.”
“These are very noble words, Constance;” indeed, Leonard spoke them with
much solemnity. “The verbal interpretation of the Prophets no longer
occupies our minds. Still, they are very noble words. I have never
believed myself to be superstitious or to believe in heredity of
misfortune; still, after learning for the first time the long string of
disasters that have fallen upon my people, I became possessed with a
kind of terror, as if the Hand of Fate was pressing upon us all.”
“They are very noble words,” Constance repeated. “It seems as if the
speaker was thinking of a distinction between consequences--certain
consequences--of every man’s life as regards his children and----”
“What consequences--from father to son?”
“Why, you have only to look around you. We live in conditions made for
us by our forefathers. My people behaved well and prospered: they saved
money and bought lands: they lived, in the old phrase, God-fearing
lives. Therefore I am sound in mind and body, and I am tolerably
wealthy.”
“Oh! that, of course. But I was not thinking of consequences like
these.”
“You must think of them. A man loses his fortune and position. Down go
children and grandchildren. The edifice of generations may have to be
built up again from the very foundations. Is it nothing to inherit a
name which has been smirched? If a man commits a bad action, are not his
children disgraced with him?”
“Of course; but only by that act. They are not persecuted by the hand of
Fate.”
“Who can trace the consequences of a single act? Who can follow it up in
all the lines of consequence?”
“Yes; but the third and fourth generation....”
“Who can say when those consequences will cease?”
“‘As I live, saith the Lord.’ It is a solemn assurance--a form of words,
perhaps--only a form of words--yet, if so, the audacity of it! ‘As I
live’--the Lord Himself takes the oath--‘if a man be just, he shall
surely live.’”
“A man may be kept down by poverty and shut out from the world by his
father’s shame. Yet he may still be just. It is the distinction that the
Prophet would draw. What misfortune has fallen upon your House which
affects the soul of a man? Death? Poverty? The wrong-doing of certain
members?”
Leonard shook his head. “Yes, I understand what you mean. I confess that
I had been shaken by the revelations of that old lady. They seemed to
explain so much.”
“Perhaps they explained the whole--yet not as she meant them to
explain.”
“Now I understand so many things that were dark--my mother’s sadness and
the melancholy eyes which rested upon me from childhood. She was looking
for the hand of Fate: she expected disaster: she kept me in ignorance:
yet she was haunted by the thought that for the third and fourth
generation the sins--the unknown sins--of the fathers would be visited
upon the children. When I learned these things”--he repeated himself,
because his mind was so full of the thought--“I felt the same
expectation, the same terror, the same sense of helplessness, as if
wherever I turned, whatever I attempted, the Hand which struck down my
father, my grandfather, and that old man would fall upon me.”
“It was natural.”
“So that these words came to me like a direct message from the old
Hebrew Prophet. Our ancestors went for consolation and instruction to
those pages. They held that every doubt and every difficulty were met
and solved by these writers. Perhaps we shall go back to the ancient
faith. And yet----” He looked round; it was a new world that he saw,
with new ideas. “Not in my time,” he said. “We are a scientific age.
When the reign of Science is ended, we may begin again the reign of
Faith.” He spoke as one in doubt and uncertainty.
“Receive the words, Leonard, as a direct message.”
“At least, I interpreted the words into an order to look at events from
another point of view. And I have taken all the misfortunes in turn.
They have nothing whatever to do with heredity. Your illustration about
a man losing his money, and so bringing poverty upon his children, does
not apply. My great-grandfather has his head turned by a great trouble.
His son commits suicide. Why? Nobody knows. The young sailor is drowned.
Why? Because he is a sailor. The daughter marries beneath her station.
Why? Because she was motherless and fatherless and neglected. My own
father died young. Why? Because fever carried him off.”
“Leonard”--Constance laid her hand upon his arm--“do not argue the case
any more. Leave it. A thing like this may easily become morbid. It may
occupy your thoughts too much.”
“Let me forget it, by all means. At present, I confess, the question is
always with me.”
“It explains something in your manner yesterday and to-day. You are
always serious, but now you are absent-minded. You have begun to think
too much about these troubles.”
He smiled. “I am serious, I suppose, from the way in which I was brought
up. We lived in Cornwall, right in the country, close to the seashore,
with no houses near us, until I went to school. It was a very quiet
household: my grandmother and my mother were both in widows’ weeds.
There was very little talking, and no laughing or mirth of any kind,
within the house, and always, as I now understand, the memory of that
misfortune and the dread of new misfortunes were upon these unhappy
ladies. They did not tell me anything, but I felt the sadness of the
house. I suppose it made me a quiet boy--without much inclination to the
light heart that possessed most of my fellows.”
“I am glad you have told me,” she replied. “These things explain a good
deal in you. For now I understand you better.”
They mounted their cycles, and resumed the journey in silence for some
miles.
“Look!” he cried. “There is our old place.”
He pointed across a park. At the end of it stood a house of red brick,
with red tiles and stacks of red chimneys--a house of two stories only.
In front was a carriage-drive, but no garden or enclosure at all. The
house rose straight out of the park itself.
“You see only the back of the house,” said Leonard. “The gardens are all
in the front: but everything is grown over; nothing has been done to the
place for seventy years. I wonder it has stood so long.” They turned off
the road into the drive. “The old man, when the double shock fell upon
him, dropped into a state of apathy from which he has never rallied. We
must go round by the servant’s entrance. The front doors are never
opened.”
The great hall with the marble floor made echoes rolling and rumbling
about the house above as they walked across it. There were arms on the
walls and armour, but all rusted and decaying in the damp air. There
were two or three pictures on the walls, but the colour had peeled off
and the pictures had become ghosts and groups of ghosts in black frames.
“The recluse lives in the library,” said Leonard. “Let us look first at
the other rooms.” He opened a door. This was the dining-room. Nothing
had been touched. There stood the great dining-hall. Against the walls
were arranged a row of leather chairs. There was the sideboard; the
mahogany was not affected by the long waiting, except that it had lost
its lustre. The leather on the chairs was decaying and falling off. The
carpet was moth-eaten and in threads. The paper on the wall, the
old-fashioned red velvet paper, was hanging down in folds. The
old-fashioned high brass fender was black with neglected age. On the
walls the pictures were in better preservation than those in the hall,
but they were hopelessly injured by the damp. The curtains were falling
away from the rings. “Think of the festive dinners that have been given
in this room,” said Leonard. “Think of the talk and the laughter and the
happiness! And suddenly, unexpectedly, the whole comes to an end, and
there has been silence and emptiness for seventy years.”
He closed the door and opened another. This was in times gone by the
drawing-room. It was a noble room--long, high, well proportioned. A harp
stood in one corner, its strings either broken or loose. A piano with
the music still upon it stood open; it had been open for seventy years.
The keys were covered with dust and the wires with rust. The music which
had last been played was still in its place. Old-fashioned sofas and
couches stood about. The mantel-shelf was ornamented with strange things
in china. There were occasional tables in the old fashion of yellow and
white and gold. The paper was peeling off like that of the dining-room.
The sunshine streamed into the room through windows which had not been
cleaned for seventy years. The moths were dancing merrily as if they
rejoiced in solitude. On one table, beside the fireplace, were lying,
as they had been left, the work-basket with some fancy work in it; the
open letter-case, a half-finished letter, an inkstand, with three or
four quill pens: on a chair beside the table lay an open volume; it had
been open for seventy years.
Constance came in stepping noiselessly, as in a place where silence was
sacred. She spoke in whispers; the silence fell upon her soul; it filled
her with strange terrors and apprehensions. She looked around her.
“You come here often, Leonard?”
“No. I have opened the door once, and only once. Then I was seized with
a strange sense of--I know not what; it made me ashamed. But it seemed
as if the room was full of ghosts.”
“I think it is. The whole house is full of ghosts. I felt their breath
upon my cheek as soon as we came into the place. They will not mind us,
Leonard, nor would they hurt you if they could. Let us walk round the
room.” She looked at the music. “It is Gluck’s ‘Orpheo’; the song,
‘Orpheo and Euridice.’ She must have been singing it the day before--the
day before----” Her eyes turned to the work-table. “Here she was sitting
at work the day before--the day before---- Look at the dainty work--a
child’s frock.” She took up the open book; it was Paschal’s “Pensées.”
“She was reading this the day before--the day before----” Her eyes
filled with tears. “The music--no common music; the book--a book only
for a soul uplifted above the common level; the dainty, beautiful
work--Leonard, it seems to reveal the woman and the household. Nothing
base or common was in that woman’s heart--or in the management of her
house; they are slight indications, but they are sure. It seems as if I
knew her already, though I never heard of her until to-day. Oh, what a
loss for that man!--what a Tragedy! what a terrible Tragedy it was!” Her
eyes fell upon the letter; she took it up. “See!” she said. “The letter
was begun, but never finished. Is it not sacrilege to let it fall into
other hands? Take it, Leonard.”
“We may read it after all these years,” Leonard said, shaking the dust
of seventy years from it. “There can be nothing in it that she would
wish not to be written there.” He read it slowly. It was written in
pointed and sloping Italian hand--a pretty hand belonging to the time
when women were more separated from men in all their ways. Now we all
write alike. “‘My dearest....’ I cannot make out the name. The rest is
easy. ‘Algernon and Langley have gone off to the study to talk business.
It is this affair of the Mill which is still unsettled. I am a little
anxious about Algernon: he has been strangely distrait for this last two
or three days; perhaps he is anxious about me: there need be no anxiety.
I am quite well and strong. This morning he got up very early, and I
heard him walking about in his study below. This is not his way at all.
However, should a wife repine because her Lord is anxious about her?
Algernon is very determined about that Mill; but I fear that Langley
will not give way. You know how firm he can be behind that pleasant
smile of his.’ That is all, Constance. She wrote no more.”
“It was written, then, the day before--the day before---- Keep the
letter, Leonard. You have no other letter of hers--perhaps nothing at
all belonging to the poor lady. I wonder who Langley was? I had a
forefather, too, whose Christian name was Langley. It is not a common
name.”
“The Christian name of my unfortunate grandfather who committed suicide
was also Langley. It is a coincidence. No doubt he was named after the
person mentioned in this letter. Not by any means a common name, as you
say. As for this letter, I will keep it. There is nothing in my
possession that I can connect with this unfortunate ancestress.”
“Where are her jewels and things?”
“Perhaps where she left them, perhaps sent to the bank. I have never
heard of anything belonging to her.”
Constance walked about the room looking at everything; the dust lay
thick, but it was not the black dust of the town--a light brown dust
that could be blown away or swept away easily. She swept the strings of
the harp, which responded with the discords of seventy years’ neglect.
She touched the keys of the piano, and started at the harsh and grating
response. She looked at the chairs and the tables with their curly
legs, and the queer things in china that stood upon the mantel shelf.
“Why,” she said, “the place should be kept just as it is, a museum of
George the Fourth fashion in furniture. Here is a guitar. Did that lady
play the guitar as well as the harp and the piano? The pictures are all
water-colours. The glass has partly preserved them, but some damp has
got in; they are all injured. I should like to get them all copied for
studies of the time and its taste. They are good pictures, too. This one
looks like a water-colour copy of a Constable. Was he living then? And
this is a portrait.” She started. “Good heavens! what is this?”
“This? It is evidently a portrait,” said Leonard. “Why, Constance----”
For she was looking into it with every sign of interest and curiosity.
“How in the world did this picture come here?” Leonard looked at it.
“I cannot tell you,” he said; “it is only my second visit to this room.
It is a young man. A pleasing and amiable face; the short hair curled by
the barber’s art, I suppose. The face is familiar; I don’t know why----”
“Leonard, it is the face of my own great-grandfather. How did it come
here? I have a copy, or the original, in my own possession. How did it
come here? Was he a friend of your people?”
“I know nothing at all about it. By the rolled collar and the curly
hair and the little whiskers I should say that the original must have
been a contemporary of my ancestor the Recluse. Stop! there is a name on
the frame. Can you read it?” He brushed away the dust. “‘Langley Holme,
1825,’ Langley Holme! What is it, Constance?”
“Oh, Leonard, Langley Holme--Langley Holme--he was my great-grandfather.
And he was murdered; I remember to have heard of it--he was murdered.
Then, it was here, and he was that old man’s brother-in-law,
and--and--your Tragedy is mine as well.”
“Why, Constance, are you not jumping to a conclusion? How do you know
that the murder in Campaigne Park was that of Langley Holme?”
“I don’t know it; I am only certain of it. Besides, that letter.
Algernon and Langley were in the study. The letter tells us. Oh, I have
no doubt--no doubt at all. This is his portrait; he was here the day
before--the day before the terrible Tragedy. It must have been none
other--it could have been none other. Leonard, this is very strange. You
confide your story to me, you bring me out to see the spot where it
happened and the house of the Recluse, and I find that your story is
mine. Oh, to light upon it here and with you! It is strange, it is
wonderful! Your story is mine as well,” she repeated, looking into his
face; “we have a common tragedy.”
“We are not certain yet; there may be another explanation.”
“There can be no other. We will hunt up the contemporary papers; we
shall find an account of the murder somewhere. A gentleman is not
murdered even so far back as 1826 without a report in the papers. But I
am quite--quite certain. This is my great-grandfather, Langley Holme,
and his death was the first of all your many troubles.”
“This was the first of the hereditary misfortunes.”
“The more important and the most far-reaching. Perhaps we could trace
them all to this one calamity.”
Leonard was looking into the portrait.
“I said it was a familiar face, Constance; it is your own. The
resemblance is startling. You have his eyes, the same shape of face, the
same mouth. It is at least your ancestor. And as for the rest, since it
is certain that he met with an early and a violent end, I would rather
believe that it was here and in this Park, because it makes my Tragedy,
as you say, your own. We have a common history; it needs no further
proof. There could not have been two murders of two gentlemen, both
friends of this House, in the same year. You are right: this is the man
whose death caused all the trouble.”
They looked at the portrait in silence for awhile. The thought of the
sudden end of this gallant youth, rejoicing in the strength and hope of
early manhood, awed them.
“We may picture the scene,” said Constance--“the news brought suddenly
by some country lad breathless and panting; the old man then young,
with all his future before him; a smiling future, a happy life; his wife
hearing it; the house made terrible by her shriek; the sudden shock; the
heavy blow; bereavement of all the man loved best; the death of his wife
for whom he was so anxious; the awful death of the man he loved. Oh,
Leonard, can you bear to think of it?”
“Yes; but other young men have received blows as terrible, and have yet
survived, and at least gone about their work as before. Is it in nature
for a man to grieve for seventy years?”
“I do not think that it was grief, or that it was ever grief, that he
felt or still feels. His brain received a violent blow, from which it
has never recovered.”
“But he can transact business in his own way--by brief written
instructions.”
“We are not physicians, to explain the working of a disordered brain. We
can, however, understand that such a shock may have produced all the
effect of a blow from a hammer or a club. His brain is not destroyed:
but it is benumbed. I believe that he felt no sorrow, but only a dead
weight of oppression--the sense of suffering without pain--the
consciousness of gloom which never lifts. Is not the story capable of
such effects?”
“Perhaps. There is, however, one thing which we have forgotten,
Constance. It is that we are cousins. This discovery makes us cousins.”
She took his proffered hand under the eyes of her ancestor, who looked
kindly upon them from his dusty and faded frame. “We are cousins--not
first or second cousins--but still--cousins--which is something. You
have found another relation. I hope, sir, that you will not be ashamed
of her, or connect her with your family misfortunes. This tragedy
belongs to both of us. Come, Leonard, let us leave this room. It is
haunted. I hear again the shrieks of the woman, and I see the white face
of the man--the young man in his bereavement. Come.”
She drew him from the room, and closed the door softly.
Leonard led the way up the broad oaken staircase, which no neglect could
injure, and no flight of time. On the first floor there were doors
leading to various rooms. They opened one: it was a room filled with
things belonging to children: there were toys and dolls: there were
dresses and boots and hats: there was a children’s carriage, the
predecessor of the perambulator and the cart: there were nursery-cots:
there were slates and pencils and colour-boxes. It looked like a place
which had not been deserted: children had lived in it and had grown out
of it: all the old playthings were left in when the children left it.
“After the blow,” said Leonard, “life went on somehow in the House. The
Recluse lived by himself in his bedroom and the library: the dining-room
and the drawing-room were locked up: his wife’s room--the room where she
died--was locked up: the boys went away: the girl ran away with her
young man, Mr. Galley; then the whole place was deserted.” He shut the
door and unlocked another. “It was her room,” he whispered.
Constance looked into the room. It was occupied by a great four-poster
bed with steps on either side in order that the occupant might ascend to
the feather-bed with the dignity due to her position. One cannot imagine
a gentlewoman of 1820, or thereabouts, reduced to the indignity of
climbing into a high bed. Therefore the steps were placed in position.
We have lost this point of difference which once distinguished the
“Quality” from the lower sort: the former walked up these steps with
dignity into bed: the latter flopped or climbed: everybody now seeks the
nightly repose by the latter methods. The room contained a great amount
of mahogany: the doors were open, and showed dresses hanging up as they
had waited for seventy years to be taken down and worn: fashions had
come and gone: they remained waiting. There was a chest of drawers with
cunningly-wrought boxes upon it: silver patch-boxes: snuff-boxes in
silver and in silver gilt: a small collection of old-world curiosities,
which had belonged to the last occupant’s forefather. There was a
dressing-table, where all the toilet tools and instruments were lying as
they had been left. Constance went into the room on tiptoe, glancing at
the great bed, which stood like a funeral hearse of the fourteenth
century, with its plumes and heavy carvings, as if she half expected to
find a tenant. Beside the looking-glass stood open, just as it had been
left, the lady’s jewel-box. Constance took out the contents, and looked
at them with admiring eyes. There were rings and charms, necklaces of
pearl, diamond brooches, bracelets, sprays, watches--everything that a
rich gentlewoman would like to have. She put them all back, but she did
not close the box; she left everything as she found it, and crept away.
“These things belonged to Langley’s sister,” she whispered; “and she was
one of my people--mine.”
They shut the door and descended the stairs. Again they stood together
in the great empty hall, where their footsteps echoed up the broad
staircase and in the roof above, and their words were repeated by
mocking voices, even when they whispered, from wall to answering wall,
and from the ceilings of the upper place.
“Tell me all you know about your ancestor,” said Leonard.
“Indeed, it is very little. He is my ancestor on my mother’s side, and
again on her mother’s side. He left one child, a daughter, who was my
grandmother: and her daughter married my father. There is but a
legend--I know no more--except that the young man--the lively young man
whose portrait I have--whose portrait is in that room--was found done to
death in a wood. That is all I have heard. I do not know who the
murderer was, nor what happened, nor anything. It all seemed so long
ago--a thing that belonged to the past. But, then, if we could
understand, the past belongs to us. There was another woman who suffered
as well as the poor lady of this house. Oh, Leonard, what a tragedy! And
only the other day we were talking glibly about family scandals!”
“Yes; a good deal of the sunshine has disappeared. My life, you see, was
not, as you thought, to be one long succession of fortune’s gifts.”
“It was seventy years ago, however. The thing must not make us unhappy.
We, at least, if not that old man, can look upon an event of so long ago
with equanimity.”
“Yes, yes. But I must ferret out the whole story. I feel as if I know so
little. I am most strangely interested and moved. How was the man
killed? Why? Who did it? Where can I look for the details?”
“When you have found what you want, Leonard, you can tell me. For my own
part, I may leave the investigation to you. Besides, it was so long ago.
Why should we revive the griefs of seventy years ago?”
“I really do not know, except that I am, as I said, strangely attracted
by this story. Come, now, I want you to see the man himself who married
your ancestor’s sister. Her portrait is somewhere among those in the
drawing-room, but it is too far gone to be recognised. Pity--pity! We
have lost all our family portraits. Come, we will step lightly, not to
wake him.”
He led her across the hall again, and opened very softly the library
door. Asleep in an armchair by the fire was the most splendid old man
Constance had ever seen. He was of gigantic stature; his long legs were
outstretched, his massive head lay back upon the chair--a noble head
with fine and abundant white hair and broad shoulders and deep chest. He
was sleeping like a child, breathing as softly and as peacefully. In
that restful countenance there was no suggestion of madness or a
disordered brain.
Constance stepped lightly into the room and bent over him. His lips
parted.
He murmured something in his sleep. He woke with a start. He sat up and
opened his eyes, and gazed upon her face with a look of terror and
amazement.
She stepped aside. The old man closed his eyes again, and his head fell
back. Leonard touched her arm, and they left the room. At the door
Constance turned to look at him. He was asleep again.
“He murmured something in his sleep. He was disturbed. He looked
terrified.”
“It was your presence, Constance, that in some way suggested the memory
of his dead friend. Perhaps your face reminded him of his dead friend.
Think, however, what a shock it must have been to disturb the balance of
such a strong man as that. Why, he was in the full strength of his early
manhood. And he never recovered--all these seventy years. He has never
spoken all these years, except once in my hearing--it was in his sleep.
What did he say? ‘That will end it.’ Strange words.”
The tears were standing in the girl’s eyes.
“The pity of it, Leonard--the pity of it!”
“Come into the gardens. They were formerly, in the last century--when a
certain ancestor was a scientific gardener--show gardens.”
They were now entirely ruined by seventy years of neglect. The lawns
were covered with coarse rank grass; the walks were hidden; brambles
grew over the flower-beds; the neglect was simply mournful. They passed
through into the kitchen-garden, over the strawberry-beds and the
asparagus-beds, and everywhere spread the brambles with the thistle and
the shepherd’s-purse and all the common weeds; in the orchard most of
the trees were dead, and under the dead boughs there flourished a rank
undergrowth.
“I have never before,” said Constance, “realized what would happen if we
suffered a garden to go wild.”
“This would happen--as you see. I believe no one has so much as walked
in the garden except ourselves for seventy years. In the eyes of the
village, I know, the whole place is supposed to be haunted day and
night. Even the chance of apples would not tempt the village children
into the garden. Come, Constance, let us go into the village and see the
church.”
It was a pretty village, consisting of one long street, with an inn, a
small shop, and post-office, a blacksmith’s, and one or two other
trades. In the middle of the street a narrow lane led to the churchyard
and the church. The latter, much too big for the village, was an early
English cruciform structure, with later additions and improvements.
The church was open, for it was Saturday afternoon. The chancel was full
of monuments of dead and gone Campaignes. Among them was a tablet, “To
the Memory of Langley Holme, born at Great Missenden, June, 1798, found
murdered in a wood in this parish, May 18, 1826. Married February 1,
1824, to Eleanor, daughter of the late Marmaduke Flight, of Little
Beauchamp, in this county; left one child, Constance, born January 1,
1825.”
“Yes,” said Constance, “one can realise it: the death of wife and friend
at once, and in this dreadful manner.”
In the churchyard an old man was occupied with some work among the
graves. He looked up and straightened himself slowly, as one with
stiffened joints.
“Mornin’, sir,” he said. “Mornin’, miss. I hope I see you well. Beg your
pardon, sir, but you be a Campaigne for sure. All the Campaignes are
alike--tall men they are, and good to look upon. But you’re not so tall,
nor yet so strong built, as the Squire. Been to see the old gentleman,
sir? Ay, he do last on, he do. It’s wonderful. Close on ninety-five he
is. Everybody in the village knows his birthday. Why, he’s a show. On
Sundays, in summer, after church, they go to the garden wall and look
over it, to see him marching up and down the terrace. He never sees
them, nor wouldn’t if they were to walk beside him.”
“You all know him, then?”
“I mind him seventy years ago. I was a little chap then. You wouldn’t
think I was ever a little chap, would you? Seventy years ago I was
eight--I’m seventy-eight now. You wouldn’t think I was seventy-eight,
would you?” A very garrulous old man, this.
“I gave evidence, I did, at the inquest after the murder. They couldn’t
do nohow without me, though I was but eight years old.”
“You? Why, what had you to do with the murder?”
“I was scaring birds on the hillside above the wood. I see the
Squire--he was a fine big figure of a man--and the other gentleman
crossing the road and coming over the stile into the field. Then they
went as far as the wood together. The Squire he turned back, but the
other gentleman he went on. They found him afterwards in the wood with
his head smashed. Then I see John Dunning go in--same man as they
charged with the murder. And he came running out--scared-like with what
he’d seen. Oh! I see it all, and I told them so, kissing the Bible on
it.”
“I have heard that a man was tried for the crime.”
“He was tried, but he got off. Everybody knows he never done it. But
they never found out who done it.”
“That is all you know about it?”
“That is all, sir. Many a hundred times I’ve told that story. Thank you,
sir. Mornin’, miss. You’ll have a handsome partner, miss, and he’ll have
a proper missus.”
“So,” said Leonard, as they walked away, “the murder is still
remembered, and will be, I suppose, so long as anyone lives who can talk
about it. It is strange, is it not, that all these discoveries should
fall together; that I should learn the truth about my own people, and
only a day or two afterwards that you should learn the truth about your
own ancestors? We are cousins, Constance, and a common tragedy unites
us.”
They mounted their wheels and rode away in silence. But the joy had gone
out of the day. The evening fell. The wind in the trees became a dirge;
their hearts were full of violence and blood and death; in their ears
rang the cries of a bereaved woman, and the groans of a man gone mad
with trouble.