Three days after that night of watching there was a double funeral in
the cemetery at Bordighera, and the last Baron Haredale, and the only
heir to his title, were laid to rest under a foreign sky, far away from
the home they had forfeited; for there was no money to spare for funeral
journeys, or for ceremonies at the end of them. Haredale was mortgaged
up to its chimney-tops, and the title died with its direct male heirs.
There had been no time for more than telegrams from the solicitors in
charge of the miserable family affairs; but it was hoped that some
provision would be saved out of the wreck for Lady Haredale and her four
young daughters.
There was much talk and much scandal among all the English colonies
along the Riviera, and the misdeeds of the two last Haredales were
whispered in drawing-rooms and discussed in clubs in all quarters.
Nevertheless, the subjects of the scandal had been the possessor of, and
the heir to, an English peerage, and various gentlemen presented
themselves to follow the funeral; while every one looked with pity on
the four tall girls, so young and so handsome, whose condition was all
the more forlorn, because they could not really regret the loss either
of father or brother.
Miss Haredale wept as much for the fall of her family as for the loss of
her brother and nephew; and the white wreath, which Carrie Carisbrooke
laid on Charles Haredale's coffin, symbolised the kindliest feeling he
had ever inspired. Mr Riddell arrived in time to conduct the funeral,
and, by Lucian's express desire, both his mother and Sylvester left his
side to follow it.
Two of the nearest were absent. Lady Haredale would not go, she shut
herself into her room overpowered by a real passion, of what kind her
daughters could hardly tell,--whether of grief for her husband, nervous
fright at the shock of the two sudden deaths, or of chagrin at her
changed position.
"You see, I always liked my poor dear lord so much better than any one
else, at bottom," she said, with tears, to Amethyst; and then she added,
"He was such a protection, I shall have to be so careful in future."
Lady Clyste had fled from the scene of death the moment the watching of
that awful night was over. She would not stay, she cried, as if
passionately repenting the impulse that had brought her to the spot, and
went away from Monte Carlo back to whence she came, so that the brief
hours of the night when they had watched together seemed to Amethyst
like a vision. They did not know where she lived, or the manner of her
life, and she evidently meant to take no part in theirs.
It was not an occasion when plans and intentions could be put off or
left untouched upon, and when the funeral was over, the four sisters
went out, and sat under the olive trees together and talked over the
future that lay before them,--not without a certain renewal of courage,
for was it not far more in their own hands than it had ever been before?
"I suppose we shall be very poor," said Kattern dolefully.
"But we shall know what we have got," said Una, "and then I suppose we
can manage accordingly."
"I have quite made up my mind," said Tory. "I don't mean to be a poor
swell, with every one afraid of being let in for marrying me. I shall
be a teacher. They let me try to take the little ones at Saint
Etheldred's, and I was no end of a success. You see I always knew what
the worst were up to. They couldn't astonish _me_. I shall go back
there. It won't cost much, and I'll just grind. I should like to go to
college if I could afford it, and by and by I'll get a teachership.
Then I will live in a lodging, and go on the top of omnibuses, and--owe
no man a penny."
"I think Saint Etheldred's is very strict and very dull," said Kattern.
"Yes, they're strict, but they mean well. They have got more patience
than if they weren't so good," said Tory, astutely. "I believe in Miss
Halliday and I'm very interesting to her, I'm such a new type. She'll
enjoy training me."
"Have you any thoughts, Una dear?" said Amethyst, speaking for the first
time.
"They're a long way ahead," said Una, "for myself, but I wish mother
would live at Cleverley. Of course the Hall will be sold, but there's
that nice little house not far from the Rectory; perhaps we could take
that I suppose Carrie will get Aunt Anna to live with her at Ashfield
Mount, and I do hope we shall have a home and not wander about."
"If I'd had such chances as you and Amethyst," said Kattern, "I'd have
had a home fast enough."
"Well, when you've secured one of the Royal Family, we'll settle near
you," said Tory, cynically.
She got up as she spoke and walked on, up the hill, with a rapid
determined step, while Kattern followed her with her dawdling, graceful
tread. Una remained, looking out over the sea; presently she said--
"I have had a letter from Miss Waterhouse; she is so pleased with the
work I have done for her. Perhaps some time she'll let me do a little
more to help her. I shall try and learn now, that's what I should
like."
"Perhaps!" said Amethyst, gently.
"And I shall try and be good with mother," said Una. "You see, _she_
was a young girl once, and perhaps things began to go wrong with her
then." It was a strange thought to come into a daughter's mind, but it
represented a real impulse in Una's heart, to have patience with the
mother who had never had any motherly care for her. Amethyst could make
no plans. The terrible night at Monte Carlo had worn her out mind and
body, and yet her nerves were quiet and her spirit at rest.
Presently she saw Sylvester coming up the hill, and went quickly forward
to meet him.
"Have you come to fetch me?" she said.
"Yes,--if you can bear to come. My father is ready, and Lucy is getting
so weak. Will it be too much for you to come to-day?"
"There can be no better day," said Amethyst, as she walked away with
him. Sylvester looked very tired and sad. He did not speak till they
came near the house, then he looked round at her and said huskily--
"The dear boy has not much more to suffer."
Amethyst silently put her hand in his, and so let him lead her in.
If she had lately seen, in its worst form, the terror of death, what she
saw now was indeed "Death as a friend."
The quiet room, full of flowers and subdued light, the preparations for
the Holy Feast; Lucian's fair face, white and peaceful.
He looked at Amethyst and smiled, while Mrs Leigh kissed her and drew
her to her side, and at once the service was begun. It was an hour of
which Amethyst never spoke, but which she never forgot to her life's
end.
When it was over, he made a little sign, and she went up to him, and
took his hand, then he smiled again and said--
"Good-bye;" and then--"Say the verse _now_, Amethyst--`amethysts
unpriced.'"
And then back upon Amethyst came the memory of the boy lover, whom she
had reproved for connecting her name with the hymn of the heavenly city,
and told him with girlish propriety, that he ought not to think about
her in church.
It thrilled her with a depth of meaning now, and choked her voice, but
she managed to repeat it--
"Thine ageless walls are bonded
With amethysts unpriced,
And the saints build up the fabric,
And the corner-stone is Christ."
"It's true," said Lucian. "Now I understand. Good-bye, Amethyst, give
me a kiss."
She kissed him, and this time no flush of pain crossed his face, he
smiled once more, so that she saw him, for the last time, smiling and
watching her.
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That happy smile was never again driven away by cruel pain. The agony
with which it had been feared life might end, never came. Lucian kissed
his mother, then fell asleep with the peaceful look still on his face,
and with his head on Sylvester's arm, and so passed away where there is
no more pain, into a peace never to be broken.
"Keep innocency and do the thing that is right, and that shall bring a
man peace at the last," said Mr Riddell; and in due time, the words
were cut on the white marble beneath which he rested, in the cemetery at
Bordighera.
This had been his own choice, he having, with characteristic directness,
told his mother that he should like it best, and that she could put very
handsome brasses in the churches at Toppings and Cleverley.
Lucian was at peace, and there was much repose for those who had been
watching him, in the sense that all his suffering was ended.
There were loving interviews with Mrs Leigh, and much talk over
Lucian's last hours, almost, on the mother's side, as if there had been
no breach of the betrothal. Mrs Leigh gave Amethyst back the
photograph of Lucian as she had first known him, with its perfect
outlines, like a Greek masque, and firm, unvarying expression, and
another, much more beautiful in Amethyst's eyes, taken during his last
illness, with all the forms sharpened and chiselled away, the lines of
pain round eyes and mouth, but with the look that made it like the
picture of Lucian's soul instead of his body.
Amethyst took them as treasures indeed, but she was the comforter, not
the comforted, in the intercourse with Lucian's mother, for the
admiration of him was sweeter to her than the loss was sad.
Then came a great surprise, the bequest from Lucian of 5,000 pounds, "as
a token that if I could, I would have given her all I possess."
The codicil to his will was dated after he had given her back her ring,
and Mrs Leigh told her that he had often thought of it, but had not
ventured to do it till she had once more given him the right, and that
he had said that he wished her to have her life in her own hands.
Then she knew that he had fully understood her difficulties, and what a
difference independence might make to her. One thing that she had
dreaded was saved her.
Carrie Carisbrooke wrote so clear a history to her uncle of the
appearance of Lady Clyste at Monte Carlo, that he made no attempt to see
Amethyst again; but wrote that he would meet his niece on business
matters when she returned to England, and Amethyst was saved from an
interview, of which she could only think with a shudder of horror.
Lucian was buried on a still, bright day, when the spring seemed to have
made a great advance, and the air was warm and sweet. Amethyst went out
on the hill afterwards and sat down in her favourite place among the
olive woods, and presently Sylvester came and joined her. He was pale
and anxious, though his eyes were bright and eager.
"I have brought this to show you," he said gravely, taking out a little
Russia-leather pocket-book, worn and shabby.
"It was Lucy's," he said, sitting down by her side. "He kept it as long
as he could, and then one day, he pushed it into my hand, and told me to
look at it--afterwards."
The pocket-book contained old dates as to the starting of trains and
steamers, records of the slaughter of tigers and elephants, little notes
of matters to be attended to on the estate at Toppings. In the pocket
was a little old photograph of Amethyst, and a note asking him to come
over and play tennis, dated in the second week of her acquaintance with
him, and never returned with the "love letters" written afterwards.
Sylvester showed her these relics in silence, then he turned to the
blank pages at the end of the book on which was written in faint broken
characters, very different from the small distinct writing of the
earlier entries--
"Dear Syl,--I want to thank you for nursing me, and for `Iris.' It
showed me how to love her. Don't _wait_ to take care of her. She
wants you now. It is all quite right, and makes me happy.
"Your old friend,--
"Lucy."
Sylvester watched her read with trembling intentness, then he sank on
his knee by her side.
"Oh, Amethyst!" he said, "you know--you always have known. You
understand--you know these words almost break my heart, and yet fill it
with happiness. Oh, my dearest, we have known this long time. Will you
let him give you to me _now_?"
"No," said Amethyst, "for--for he knew that I did not belong to him.
But I will give myself, and--and oh, help me to be worthy of the love he
gave me."
"Help you? Oh, my love, is it possible that you love me? I have hoped
it--half believed it--but now it seems beyond belief."
"Oh," said Amethyst with full conviction, "I never could have given all
my love to any one else in the world! I can be good with you!"
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"There is one thing I must tell you," said Sylvester, when at last they
were sitting side by side and talking more quietly; "you know I have
never had enough work to fill up my life. Whatever other men have made
of my position, I have taken it easy. Now, through friends at Oxford, I
have been asked to undertake the head-mastership of a new public school,
which is going to be started in the Midlands. It will be a great
concern, and will have to be organised, and begun from the very
beginning. I used to talk over the first idea of it with some of the
men interested; and that, and my degree, have, I suppose, led them to
think of me. It would be hard anxious work, and out of society; but it
is a great opening, and--is it utterly throwing you away, to think of
taking you there?"
"Oh," cried Amethyst, eagerly, "I should like it. I like work; I would
help you all I can. Last year I had quite made up my mind that I would
take to teaching myself. I think it would be delightful to begin and
see everything grow and prosper. Nothing can be too different from what
I have known lately."
Her eyes shone and her lips smiled. Her strong young spirits sprang up
once more, and she looked ready indeed for the stir of life.
"There comes my father--" said Sylvester. "Father; she will!"
Mr Riddell took Amethyst in his arms and kissed her tenderly, then
dropped a kiss on his son's brow, and pressed his hand.
"So," he said with a smile, "Iris is won. Now, my children, look for
the Heavenly vision together. They were very pretty verses, Syl, with
some genuine stuff in them, and I have read them over several times with
much pleasure."
"They have been honoured above their desert," said Sylvester, speaking
low, and thinking of Lucian's words.
There is little more to say. The plan sketched out in the four sisters'
conversation took shape. Lady Haredale lived at Cleverley, and
marvellously accommodated herself to the life there expected of her.
Mrs Leigh and her daughters came back to Ashfield Mount; for Carrie
Carisbrooke's fortune did not come intact out of her uncle's hands, and
she preferred to settle herself with Miss Haredale at Silverfold.
Tory went to school and began her career of independence. Kattern
became the star of the Cleverley country, and some people thought her
"more pleasing than the beauty, if not so handsome." If she has
chances, she will probably be able to use them.
And Una waited. No one's story is all told at eighteen, no one's trials
are over so early. But she will always be one of those who stretch out
helping hands to others, whether she remains solitary, or whether her
heart awakens to new hopes. Her life will never be without struggle,
but the battle each time will be fought on higher and higher ground.
And Amethyst and Sylvester went into a world of great, numerous, and
wholesome interests, in which they took their parts nobly, and were more
and more helpmeets to each other, as Amethyst's story ran on to its
close.
The Haredale amethysts disappeared for ever in the crash of the family
fortunes. But Lucian's ring was the symbol of a memory that will guard
Amethyst till she becomes indeed a jewel in that Heavenly City, to which
he is gone before.
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The End.