THE EARL’S DISCOVERY
The church bells were chiming twelve, midnight, as the earl and the
squire walked along the now almost deserted avenue toward their hotel.
“I had no idea it was so late,” said the earl.
“Nor I,” assented the squire.
“Force!”
“Well?”
“Will you tell me now, as we walk along, why my sister’s first marriage
was kept a secret from me during all these years? Why even my chum in
college, my fellow soldier in camp, never once mentioned the matter to
me?”
“He has explained that in his case it was because no one spoke of it to
him, and it was not his cue to be the first to allude to it.”
“But why? Why was all this mystery about a marriage that was honorable
enough in itself?”
“Because there was a fatal misapprehension. I call it fatal, on account
of the years of untold misery it entailed upon more than one.”
“Explain.”
“You remember, and can now at last appreciate, the dreary loneliness and
isolation of your sister’s childhood and early youth at Weirdwaste?”
“Oh, yes! yes!”
“And the bewildering change that Brighton and a princely lover must have
been to the hitherto solitary recluse of Weirdwaste?”
“Yes, yes!”
“The fear of having to return to that desolation must have been as
strong a motive as love itself in inducing her to fly to Scotland with
her lover.”
“Most probably.”
“She had neither father, nor brother, nor any relative near her; no one
but governesses and servants.”
“Ah! my poor father never meant to be unkind, but it was cruel to leave
her in that isolation.”
“She found it so; and she listened to the pleadings of her lover, whom
her imagination had elevated into a hero, martyr, patriot and
humanitarian, when, in fact, he was only a political refugee, on account
of some hotheaded revolutionary utterances he had given.”
“Yes, I heard of Saviola’s exile while at Brighton; but I never met the
man.”
“I think your friend Anglesea had not met him at the time you were in
Brighton. He first met Saviola at Lord Middlemoor’s, on Brunswick
Terrace.”
“You seem to be well informed on all points of this affair, Force.”
“Pretty well,” said the squire; “but to proceed. Your sister went to
Scotland to marry Saviola, escorted by your friend Anglesea, who, having
done all he could to dissuade the Italian from running away with the
young lady, and having failed, was resolved that the marriage that he
could not prevent should at least be properly and legally solemnized.”
“Yes, he told us that.”
“And he told you also that he was bound to secrecy.”
“He did.”
“Well, now to the point. When the newly married pair parted from
Anglesea, on the day of their marriage, they never saw him again.”
“No?”
“No. You heard Anglesea relate how the old Prince Antonio Saviola
supposed him—Anglesea—to have acted as second to Luigi Saviola on the
occasion of his fatal duel with the Duc de Montmeri, and how
he—Anglesea—had denied all knowledge of the tragedy?”
“Yes, I did hear, and I remembered that Anglesea was at that very time
at college with me.”
“Well, then, Enderby, listen: If the bona-fide Anglesea did not
officiate as Luigi Saviola’s second in that duel, his double, Byrne
Stukely, did.”
“What!”
“Yes, Anglesea’s _bête noir_, evil genius, material counterpart, Byrne
Stukely, did. He personated Anglesea in Paris, on the dueling ground,
and at the death of Saviola, and in the apartments of Saviola’s widow!”
“Ah! what new infamy is this of which you tell me? I shall have to
prosecute that villain if he should escape the law here!” exclaimed the
earl.
“He will not escape the law here; but to proceed——”
“Yes—yes!”
“Stukely received the last dying messages from the lips of Saviola, and
some little time afterward took them to his widow in Geneva. There,
passing himself off for Anglesea—undetected, unsuspected by her, he
delivered his credentials, and won her confidence. But, when he saw the
beautiful young widow, he dared to think of her in a manner that should
have brought down upon him severe chastisement.”
“How? What?” demanded the earl, in an excited voice.
“Calm yourself, Enderby. Be patient, my friend. Here is our hotel. Shall
we go in?”
“No! no! I cannot go indoors now! Let us walk here where the night air
cools my head—unless you are tired, Force?”
“No, I am not tired. We will walk on a little way.”
“Well, go on!”
“With an artful delicacy, with sham sympathy, he approached the subject,
and told Saviola’s widow that she was, in fact, no widow at all; that
her marriage with the late prince was null and void from the first,
because it had been celebrated at Kelton, in Cumberland, England,
instead of at Kilton, in ——shire, Scotland. He manufactured plenty of
false evidence to prove his falsehood to be truth, and then—and then——”
“What? what?”
“He insulted the lady with the offer of his heart and——”
“Hand?”
“Protection!” murmured the squire.
The earl sprang into the air as if he had been shot, but came down upon
his feet. He said nothing. There are some things that will not bear a
single word of comment. This was one.
“She ordered the venomous reptile from her presence, and he crawled
away, but left his poisoned sting behind. The consummate art of his
false evidence had convinced her, as it afterward convinced her father,
and, later on, myself also, that her marriage ceremony with Saviola was
an empty form—null and void. Her father never knew otherwise. She does
not know otherwise to this day. And I knew no better until to-night.”
“You believed my sister, your wife, to have been the victim of a false
first marriage until to-night?”
“Yes, until the moment when Gen. Anglesea produced the certificate, and
told the true story.”
“And yet you married her!”
“Yes, thank Heaven, I was permitted to marry her, and she has been the
light of my life,” said the squire, fervently.
“With this cloud overshadowing her.”
“Enderby, every one of us has something to bear. This secret and its
evil consequences have been our cross. We have had no other. We have
loved each other truly, and we have been happy in our married life,
notwithstanding our cross.”
“Force, you are a noble fellow! But now about her son. Where is he?”
“Well,” said the squire, smiling and hesitating, “he is a very fine
young man, a prisoner of war at present, but he shall be free
to-morrow.”
“Not—Roland Bayard!”
“Yes, Roland Bayard. As fine a young man as breathes.”
“Then, after his mother, he is my heir.”
“Yes, Anglesea has proved his legal right to be called so.”
“Force, does the boy know of his parentage?”
“No. His birth was a mystery to him, as it was to every one except me
and his mother. He believes himself to be the son of Byrne Stukely, and
that is the reason why his tongue has been tied, so that he will not
give the evidence that will clear himself and go near to hang Stukely.”
“I see! I see!”
“But he shall give it to-morrow, and be set at liberty. I shall see to
that. Here we are again at the door of our hotel. Shall we go in? Or
have you anything else to ask me?” questioned the squire.
“No; nothing else to-night. Let us go in.”
The two gentlemen entered the house, got their chamber keys from the
sleepy watchman, and went upstairs.
The public parlors were dark and deserted. The gas burned low in the
halls.
The earl and the squire bade each other good-night and separated, and
went off to their several apartments.
Mr. Force climbed another flight of stairs to seek the little room he
had occupied since his wife’s illness.
He paused at the door of her sick chamber and knocked lightly.
The night nurse answered the summons.
“How is Mrs. Force this evening?” he inquired.
“She is better, sir, and she is sleeping nicely,” replied the woman.
“Thank Heaven! Good-night,” said the squire, as he turned away and
entered his own little room.
He retired to bed, too happy to sleep until near morning, when at length
he sank to rest.