THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
“Great events from little causes spring.”
Kenelm Eyrle preferred walking through the woods home; he wanted
leisure to think. The sunshine and the songs of the birds disturbed
him. He went into the deep heart of the woods, where the light came
filtered through the thick-leaved boughs of tall trees; where the shade
was cool, sweet and fragrant, he lay down among the ferns and bracken
to think.
It seemed to him terrible that in this free and beautiful land an
innocent woman could be so cruelly tortured.
“There must be something terribly wrong,” he thought. “A woman is
entirely at the mercy of her husband. He may bring what false charges
he will against her. The divorce courts must be a curse, not a
blessing. They have abolished the Hindoo suttee, but this seems to me a
thousand times worse. That woman has suffered greater torture than any
earthly fire could inflict. There is something wrong.”
He looked overhead. The tall branches were waving in the sweet western
wind; all nature was fair, serene and calm. The story he had heard ran
strangely through his mind.
“How much women suffer!” he thought. “Privations, cruelty, scandal,
shame, unmerited disgrace.” And then his thoughts wandered to Clarice,
who had died in the fair springtime of her youth and fair loveliness.
He sprang from the ground with a cry of self-reproach.
“Here I am, lying in the shade, thinking of the wrongs of others, while
she, my darling, is unavenged.”
He said to himself that he would go and see the place where the most
barbarous murder had been done. Of all the dreams that haunted him, the
most frequent was that on the borders of the lake where she had been
found, she came to meet him. He walked rapidly to the spot.
“I have not forgotten you, my darling,” he cried, “although my thoughts
and interests had gone for a time to another. All women are dear and
sacred to me for your sweet sake.”
He stood for a while, the west wind whispering round him, and in
imagination he went through it all again--the finding of the fair, dead
body, his agony of grief when he heard the news. He remembered how he
had rushed madly to Aldenmere. The white, haggard face of Sir Ronald
rose before him with its haunting sorrow, its unutterable anguish. He
remembered how beautiful she looked in death with flowers all round
her. He remembered taking the rose from her and kissing her white lips.
He remembered his own words: “I kiss these white lips again, love, and
on them I swear to know no rest, no pleasure, no repose, until I have
brought the man who murdered you to answer for his crime!”
What of this oath he had taken?
“I have done my best to keep it, yet I have failed.” His heart grew hot
and heavy, as it always did when he thought of her. Fierce anger rose
in him; mighty wrath against the one who had taken that sweet, fair
young life.
“What has made me think so much of her to-day?” he asked himself. “It
is as though she had spoken to me. I pray Heaven to speed the time when
I shall fulfill my vow!”
He little dreamed how fatally near that time was. He turned away from
this haunted spot, where his feet so often roamed, thinking he would
go to Aldenmere and inquire how Hermione was. As he walked through the
fragrant woodland glades his anger increased. He never felt her death
so keenly as on these warm, sunshiny days, when all nature seemed to be
rejoicing. It was doubly hard then to think of her lying in the cold,
dark and silent grave; doubly hard then to remember that the sun would
shine, the flowers bloom, the birds sing no more for her.
As he drew near the hall a groom was just hastening from it, who, on
seeing him, stopped short.
“I was just going to The Towers, Mr. Eyrle. My lady would be pleased to
see you at once, if you can come.”
“I am on my way now,” he replied. “Lady Alden is well, I hope?”
“She is well, but she wished me to say she is very anxious over Peter
Gaspin. She wants to see you about some papers.”
Mr. Eyrle walked on, thinking of Lady Pelham; of fair, dead Clarice;
of the beautiful and noble Lady Hermione, until he reached Aldenmere.
He met the two little children on the lawn. They sprang to meet him,
asking the usual question, “When is papa coming?” He took little Harry
in his arms. In after years every detail of the scene was as vivid to
him as though it had happened yesterday.
“I want to see my own papa,” said baby Maude. “You are very nice, but
you are not so nice as he is.”
Harry cried out: “Mr. Eyrle, I have written a letter to papa! Mamma
says it will travel over blue seas and tall mountains to get to him. I
wish I could go inside my own letter.”
Kenelm laughed. “Do you want to see papa so much, then?”
“Yes,” replied the boy, gravely. “There is no one in the wide world I
love so much as I love him. When he comes home I shall ride with him;
mamma says so. Mr. Eyrle,” continued the boy, “could you ever hurt any
one you loved?”
“No,” replied Kenelm; “never!”
“So I said. Nurse punished Maude this morning, and then she said we
were sometimes obliged to hurt those we loved. I do not think so. If
you like any one, would you hurt them, even if it were right, you know?”
“I can hardly tell,” he replied, with a smile. “I think not, Harry,
unless I were compelled.”
“It is a question that involves a great many others, Harry,” said Lady
Hermione, who had just joined the little group unperceived. She held
out her hand to Mr. Eyrle.
“I am very glad to see you,” she said. “I am anxious over this matter.
I would not for the world be unjust, nor would I do anything likely to
vex Sir Ronald.”
“How does the matter stand?” asked Kenelm, taking the baby Maude, in
his arms.
“In this way: You know that pretty little farm, ‘The Willows?’ Peter
Gaspin lives at it. His lease expires next month, and he declares that
Sir Ronald faithfully promised to renew it. On the other hand, John
Conyers, who lived once in Sir Ronald’s service, declares that his
master signed a written engagement, promising that he, and no one else,
should have the farm. How am I to reconcile these claims?”
“What does baby Maude say?” asked Kenelm, laughing at the golden-haired
child. “The only plan is to divide the farm and give half to each.”
“You are jesting,” said Lady Hermione.
“Yes, I am jesting. It is Maude’s fault. See how she laughs! Seriously
speaking, Lady Alden, it is a difficult matter, and one likely to lead
to a lawsuit.”
“That is the very thing I am anxious to avoid,” she said, eagerly. “Sir
Ronald would be so greatly annoyed. I would take any trouble to prevent
it.”
“Then the only other plan is to search among Ronald’s papers and
documents to see if you can find the written agreement of which John
Conyers speaks, or the renewal of the lease. That seems to me the
simplest plan.”
“So it is; but, Kenelm, looking through those papers will be a long
task; there is such an accumulation of them. Will you help me?”
“With the greatest of pleasure. But, Lady Alden, before we begin to
work, I must ask your hospitality. I have been from home all day, and
have taken nothing.”
She rang the bell and ordered dinner to be laid for Mr. Eyrle. Then
they went out with the children until it should be ready.
He remembers, and will so remember until he dies, the pretty scene--the
fair, young children among the flowers. When they were tired, baby
Maude came to her mother, who raised her in her arms and laid the
golden head on her gentle breast. Harry climbed the seat, and clasped
his arms around his mother’s neck. The sun shone on her fair, stately
head, with its coronal of fair hair, on her sweet, tender face, on the
blue dress and white lace.
“You form quite a picture,” said Kenelm, with a smile. “I should like
to make a sketch of you, Lady Alden, just as you sit. I would send it
to Ronald.”
She made no reply, and, looking at her, he saw that she was very pale
and had tears in her eyes.
“Lady Alden,” he said, “you are surely not grieving over the business
affair of Gaspin’s?”
“No,” she replied; “but I am not myself to-day. I have a dreadful
nervous depression that I cannot shake off.”
“Have you been overtiring yourself?” he asked.
“No; I have had such unpleasant dreams of Ronald--all of Ronald. I
dreamed last night that I saw him, but could not reach him because of a
deep, black stream that flowed between us; and as I looked the stream
deepened and darkened, while he cried out to me that we were parted,
and he should never see me again.”
“But you do not believe in dreams?” he said, cheerfully.
“No, I do not believe in them; but this one has haunted me, and has
made me nervous and sad all day long.”