Many years before, the elder Mr Grey, whose real name was that of a
well-known Welsh family, the Gwynneths of Maerdoc, to which he belonged,
had fallen into terrible trouble. He was poor at the time, though with
good prospects, well-intentioned, honourable and affectionate, but
dangerously reckless and impulsive, and in consequence of this, though
from no actual wrong-doing of his own, seriously, considering his
circumstances, in debt. The details of his position need not be entered
into, as they bear little upon his history, beyond saying that they were
shared, more than shared indeed, and had been greatly caused by a friend
of his, the Ernest Fitzmaurice of my narrative. But Ernest was a man of
very different character. He was calculating and unscrupulous, thought
highly of in some quarters even, though not by his own family, as my
father recollected. The two, by an unfortunate coincidence, were
staying in the same house on a visit, when their troubles came to a
crisis. An extraordinary robbery took place--I am not sufficiently "up"
in such matters to give full particulars as to the nature of the bonds
or documents stolen, but they were such as _might_ have been utilised
with safety by the thief. Such, however, was not the case. They were
traced to young Gwynneth, who was arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten
years' penal servitude. The blow fell on his family with appalling
horror. But no one, not even his devoted sisters or his boy brother
Caryll, his nearest relations, felt it more terribly to all appearance
than his friend, Fitzmaurice, at that time the _fiance_ of Jessie
Gwynneth. He exerted himself frantically to have the sentence
mitigated, but to no avail. And the dogged silence maintained by the
prisoner, whose whole nature seemed changed, added enormously to the
weight of evidence against him. What his sisters thought during the
term of his imprisonment never transpired. Afterwards, I have always
suspected, and as far as regards the brother I indeed _know_, that his
family came to believe him entirely innocent.
Things grew easier for them, materially speaking, by a moderate fortune
being left to them shortly before the elder brother's imprisonment
terminated. But he came back to them an utterly crushed, broken, and
aged man, to find the "girls" he had left in little better case than
himself. Only the youngest of the four, Caryll, despite the accident
which had made him a life-long cripple, retained any cheerful or hopeful
hold on life.
Then came the decision of the four to cling together at all costs; to
hide themselves from the world, giving up everything but each other.
Ernest Fitzmaurice had disappeared shortly after his victim's
imprisonment began, carrying with him, as was revealed by his dying
deposition, a comparatively trifling portion of his theft, which he had
had time to realise, and on which, thanks to his skill and adroitness,
was founded the large fortune he eventually made. He was never heard of
again while alive by the Gwynneths.
With Mr Payne's help, Grimsthorpe House was taken for the brothers and
sisters under the name of "Grey," and there for twenty years they had
lived their strange and isolated life, refusing even to alter its tenor
when the second and much more important fortune became theirs. Why, it
may be asked, did the elder brother--Justin was his name--never attempt
to clear himself? I can scarcely say. Mr Payne, in lapse of time, had
become convinced of his client's innocence, and had often, but vainly,
prayed for full confidence. His own opinion was, I think, that Mr
Gwynneth's brain had grown morbid on the point. Not improbably, too,
the poor man's seeing that even this old friend and adviser had not the
most shadowy suspicion of the real culprit, may have helped to seal his
lips.
"Poor Ernest!" Mr Payne used to say sometimes, "if _he_ were still
alive, he would have been back with us to join me in urging you to tell
the whole. But he must be dead--indeed, Gwynneth, I think it broke his
heart."
"What torture it must have been to him to listen to me," the
kind-hearted man added, when he told us this. "No, Caryll was his only
confidant, I feel sure."
"And did you suspect no one else?" I remember asking.
"Yes, a certain man-servant did not escape all suspicion of collusion,"
was the reply. "But he, we knew as a fact, was dead, and the mere
allusion to him was enough to excite Gwynneth painfully. He swore he
would never move a finger to clear himself, unless Providence itself
interposed."
"Which it did," said Clarence. This fragment of conversation took place
some time later, when I was again a guest at Granville Square.
Well, it "ended well," as far as could be so late in the day.
The Gwynneths left Millflowers and went to live at their own beautiful
house. And there, as they deserved, they were respected by all whom
they allowed to know them, loved by the very few whom they admitted to
intimacy. But the iron had entered too deeply into the souls of the
three elder ones for them ever to be "like other people." Caryll and
the younger sister are still living, very old but very peaceful, happy
in making others so.
Publicity, so far as it could serve any good purpose, was given to
Ernest Fitzmaurice's statement. But the more than a quarter of a
century that had passed had almost obliterated the once famous trial
from the world's short memory--better so, perhaps.
One trivial question I remember putting to Clarence that Sunday morning.
"What was the mystery of the `black curtain'?"
He smiled.
"Oh, an arrangement of some gymnastic kind, which it had been hoped
might be of service to poor Caryll's crippled leg."
My next visit to London, though again under my godmother's auspices, had
a definite object--the choosing of my _trousseau_. Clarence has been my
husband for--ah, I must not say how many years! Lady Bretton was not
pleased at first, but she "came round" by degrees, and now--she is
_quite_ an old lady, but a very pretty and alert one--she is more than
proud of the great name he has won for himself, and always ready to say
that her godchild's is one of the happiest marriages she has ever known.
One exception--no, one addition I may make to this. My Isabel became my
sister-in-law, and Jocelyn and she are our life-long and dearest
friends.
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The End.