AFTER FOUR YEARS.
Four years have passed since Sir Ronald took Lady Hermione home to
Aldenmere. May blossoms are falling now, and the white acacia is all
in bloom. England holds no fairer picture than Aldenmere in its spring
dress. The golden laburnums droop their long tresses, the purple lilacs
are all in flower, the tufted limes send forth sweetest odors, and
birds sing joyously in the green trees.
A long French window that opens onto the lawn is thrown back, and the
sound of laughing voices mingles with the birds’ songs. Looking into
that room, you would hardly recognize the gentleman seated near the
open window--Sir Ronald Alden has so greatly changed. No shadow now
lingers on his face, his eyes are unclouded, nothing but laughter and
love lingers in their depths; the weird, haggard expression that had
distorted his handsome, patrician features has left no trace. He had
been singing some childish trifle to the little ones at his knee--the
music of children’s voices was no longer mute at Aldenmere--and he
was enjoying the perplexed wonder and admiration in each little face.
Sir Ronald was neither vain nor singular in believing that two more
beautiful children had rarely been seen. The eldest--the son and
heir--Harry, the future lord of Aldenmere, a princely boy, with the
dark Alden face, was perhaps nearest to his father’s heart; then came
the little girl, baby Clare, who had Lady Hermione’s bright, tender
face and fair hair. “Little children all his own,” as Sir Ronald was
never weary of thinking. He who had been so desolate and lonely, so
loveless and joyless, was crowned now by this most precious gift.
Little children who worshiped him, who hung on his least word, who
thought him the cleverest and most mighty of men; little ones whom he
could train to carry on the honors of his house, to uphold the glories
of his race, those glories that in his hand had so nearly fallen away.
As they laughed and sung around him, he was hardly less happy than
they. Only the keenest observer could have told that every now and then
there went from the depths of his heart a most bitter sigh, or that the
words of a prayer were on his lips, words that will never die until the
blue heavens shrivel up as grass. “Lord have mercy on me!” One thing
Lady Hermione noticed; it was that there was nothing her husband seemed
so solicitous over as curbing and correcting Harry’s temper. The little
heir of Aldenmere was a princely boy, his only fault being what was
commonly known in the house as the “Alden temper.” He showed signs of
that before he could either walk or talk.
“He must be corrected,” said Sir Ronald, when he saw how self-willed
even such a baby could be; but Lady Alden had smiled and said:
“It is only the Alden spirit, Ronald; surely you will not blame him for
that?”
Sir Ronald’s face had flushed darkly; for the first and only time in
his life he spoke harshly to his worshiped wife.
“He had better die,” he said, “than grow up with that temper
unchecked.”
Then, seeing his wife’s grieved, shocked look, he said:
“Whether the annals of our race speak truthfully or not I cannot tell,
but I know this, Hermione, there has never yet been an Alden to whom
this temper or spirit has not brought unutterable woe. Let us shield
our boy from this curse of his race.”
And she, like the good, tender, submissive wife that she was, knelt
down by his side and clasped her white arms around his neck.
“Have I vexed you, dear?” she asked. “I know you are right, and I will
try to cure little Harry.”
“Less woman than angel,” he called her in his own thoughts, and he
was not far wrong. The sweet and gentle submission, the tender and
reverent homage she paid to him, were the crown of her pure and perfect
womanhood. He looked at her sometimes wondering that so peerless a
creature could have learned to love him. On this May morning, while
the pink and white hawthorn shone in the hedges, and the mavis sang in
the trees, he was inwardly wondering at his own bliss. Then, where the
sunbeams fell upon her, sat his beautiful and beloved wife, bright,
winsome, and happy, the pride and ornament of his home. The four years
that had passed since he brought her home, a bride, seemed each one to
have added fresh beauty to her, and near her sat the friend who of late
years had been to him as a brother, Kenelm Eyrle. But Kenelm does not
look bright this morning; his eyes are heavy as with long watching,
and in his face were the old lines of sorrow, distinctly marked. “Now,
papa,” cried little Harry, “sing one more song, about the queen in the
garden--you know,” and Sir Ronald trolled off, in a rich, hearty voice,
the famous old nursery song; it was but the prologue to a tragedy,
after all.
“Sin’ to me,” lisped little Clare, and Lady Alden laughed at the
peculiar English. Yet, pretty as the children’s prattle was, no smile
came to the face of their guest. “You look very grave, Kenelm,” said
Sir Ronald, at last; “are you not well this morning?”
“Yes, I am well,” was the half-indifferent reply, “in body, but not in
mind.”
“A mind diseased knows no cure,” said Lady Alden. “What has distressed
you, Mr. Eyrle?”
“A dream. I stand six foot high in my boots, and have nerves strong as
steel; yet a dream has shaken me; my whole soul has trembled at it.”
Perhaps, had Lady Alden, “whose chief book was her husband’s look,”
seen the expression of Sir Ronald’s face, she would not have prolonged
the conversation; as it was, she turned her bright, beautiful face
eagerly to him.
“A dream!” she said. “I am such a believer in dreams, Mr. Eyrle--tell
me yours.”
“It is not fit for a bright May morning,” he said; “it is full of
horror.”
“And you are brooding over it until you are making yourself quite ill,”
said Lady Alden. “Now, Mr. Eyrle, be advised; never nurse a sorrow;
tell Sir Ronald, if you do not trust me, what has distressed you. He
will explain your dream away.”
Neither Lady Hermione, intent on comforting, nor Kenelm, wrapped in
gloomy thoughts, noticed how Sir Ronald had drawn the little ones to
him, as though to seek hope and shelter.
“Ronald, you have greater powers of persuasion than have fallen to my
lot,” said Lady Alden. “Try to cheer Mr. Eyrle.”
Kenelm raised his eyes. She saw that they were heavy with unshed tears.
“I am like Banquo’s ghost,” he said. “I only bring gloom to you. My
dream was of my lost love, Lady Alden, and you are right in thinking
it haunts me. I ought to beg your pardon for speaking of gloomy
subjects that must be distasteful to you, but it seems a strange thing
that whenever I sleep or visit here, I dream of Clarice.”
Lady Hermione’s face grew even more beautiful in its softened
tenderness and compassion.
“It is not strange,” she replied, gently, “you loved her so dearly, and
Aldenmere is filled with memories of her. Tell us your dream.”
“I dreamed,” he replied, “that she came to the door of my room, opened
it, and stood there, just as I saw her last, her white dress covered
with flowers. She called me by my name, ‘Kenelm--Kenelm Eyrle!’ The
dream was so weird, Lady Alden, I thought, at first, she was really
there. Then I remembered she was dead, and my heart began to beat
strangely. ‘Kenelm,’ she said, ‘you are sleeping quietly here at
Aldenmere, and I lie in my grave unavenged!’ I cried out to her that
my life was spent in the vain effort to trace her murderers and bring
them to justice. ‘Yet you sleep!’ she said, sadly, and the next moment
she had disappeared. Lady Alden, all the description that ever I could
give would never tell you how those words touched me. I have heard
the saddest notes from an æolian harp, but they were not so sad as
the voice which said to me: ‘Yet you sleep!’ Oh, Lady Alden, pardon
me; I cannot bear even to remember it,” and, abruptly enough, Kenelm
Eyrle rose and quitted the breakfast-room, leaving Sir Ronald and Lady
Hermione looking anxiously at each other.