NEWS FROM COL. ANGLESEA
“What is it, my dear?” inquired her father, as Odalite, with trembling
fingers, tore off the envelope and opened the paper.
“It—it is—it is postmarked Angleton,” she faltered.
“Angleton! Give it to me!” peremptorily exclaimed Abel Force, reaching
his hand and taking the sheet from his daughter, who yielded it up and
then covered her eyes with her hands, while her father examined the
paper and her mother looked on with breathless interest.
“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed Abel Force, as his eyes were riveted on a
paragraph he had found there.
“What—what is it?” demanded Elfrida Force, in extreme anxiety, while
Odalite uncovered her eyes, and gazed with eager look and lips apart.
“A scoundrel has gone to his account! The earth is rid of an incubus!
Listen! This is the Angleton _Advertiser_ of August 20th, and it
contains a notice of the death of Angus Anglesea.”
“Anglesea—dead!” exclaimed mother and daughter, in a breath, and in
tones that expressed almost every other emotion under the sun, except
sorrow.
“Yes, dead and gone to—his desserts!” exclaimed Abel Force,
triumphantly; but catching himself up short, before he ended in a word
that must never be mentioned, under any circumstances. “Here is a notice
of his death.”
“Read it,” said Mrs. Force, while Odalite looked the eager interest,
which she did not express in words.
Abel Force read this paragraph at the head of the death list:
“DIED.—On Monday, August 10th, at Anglewood Manor, in the forty-fourth
year of his age, after a long and painful illness, which he bore with
heroic patience and fortitude, Col. the Hon. Angus Anglesea.”
“Dead!” muttered Elfrida Force, thoughtfully.
“Dead!” echoed Odalite, gravely.
“Yes! dead and—doomed!” exclaimed Abel Force, catching himself up before
he had used an inadmissible word.
“Then, thank Heaven, I am free! Oh! I hope it was no sin to say that!”
exclaimed Odalite.
Her father stared at her for a moment, and then said:
“My dear, you were always free!”
“I could not feel so while that man lived,” she said.
“Why, what claim could the husband of another woman set up on you?”
demanded Mr. Force, in surprise.
“None whatever,” replied Elfrida Force, answering for her daughter; “but
after all that she has gone through, it is perfectly natural that a
delicate and sensitive girl, like Odalite, should have felt ill at ease
so long as her artful and unscrupulous enemy lived, and should feel a
sense of relief at his departure.”
“I suppose so,” said Abel Force, who was scanning the first page of the
Angleton paper. “And I suppose, also, that none of us exactly share ‘the
profound gloom’ which, according to this sheet, ‘has spread like an
eclipse over all the land, on the death of her illustrious son.’ The
leading article here is on the death of Anglesea, with a brief sketch of
his life and career, and such a high eulogium as should only have been
pronounced upon the memory of some illustrious hero, martyr, Christian,
or philanthropist. But, then, this Angleton paper was, of course, his
own organ, and in his own interests, and in those of his family, or it
would never have committed itself to such fulsome flatteries, even of
the dead, whom it seems lawful to praise and justifiable to overpraise.”
“Read it, Abel,” said Mrs. Force.
“Yes, do, papa, dear,” added Odalite.
Mr. Force read:
“THE GREAT SOLDIER OF INDIA IS NO MORE
“A profound gloom, a vast pall of darkness, like some ‘huge eclipse of
sun and moon,’ has fallen upon the land at the death of her
illustrious son. Col. the Hon. Angus Anglesea died yesterday at his
manor of Anglewood.
“The Hon. Angus Anglesea was born at Anglewood Manor, on November 21,
181—. He entered Eton at the early age of twelve years and Oxford at
seventeen. He graduated with the highest honors, at the age of
twenty-two. He succeeded his father on December 23, 182—. His tastes
led him to a military career, and he entered the army as cornet in the
Honorable East India Company’s service, in his twenty-fifth year. His
distinguished military talents, his heroism and gallantry, his
invaluable services during the Indian campaign, are matters that have
passed into national history; and become so familiar to all that it
would be impertinent to attempt to recapitulate them here.
“Col. Anglesea married, firstly, on October 13, 184—, Lady Mary
Merland, eldest daughter of the sixth Earl of Middlemoor; by whom he
has one son, Alexander, born September 1, 184—, now at Eton. Her
ladyship died August 31, 185—. Col. Anglesea married, secondly,
December 20, 185—, Odalite, eldest daughter of Abel Force, Esq., of
Mondreer, Maryland, United States, by Lady Elfrida Glennon, eldest
daughter of the late Earl of Enderby, who survives him. There is no
issue by the second marriage.”
Abel Force finished reading, dropped the paper and stared at his wife
and daughter, who were also staring at him. All three seemed struck dumb
with astonishment at the audacity of the last paragraph.
“Who is responsible for that?” demanded Mrs. Force, who was the first to
find her voice.
“The reckless braggart who has gone to the devil, I suppose! No one else
could be,” said Abel Force, indignantly.
“You are right. No one but Anglesea could have been the originator of
such a falsehood.”
“And here is no mention made at all of the real second marriage and of
the real widow; whom, by the way, he must have married within a few
weeks after the death of his wife. Yet! let us see! Great Heaven! unless
there is a misprint, there has been an infamous crime committed, and a
heinous wrong done to that Californian widow, whose marriage with Col.
Anglesea was registered to have taken place on August 1, 185—, full six
weeks before the death of Anglesea’s wife, which took place on August
25th! And in that case—yes, in that case the diabolical villain had the
legal right, if not the moral right, to marry our daughter! Great
Heaven! how imperfect are the laws of our highest civilization, when men
have the legal right to do that which is morally wrong!”
“Oh! oh! I will never acknowledge the validity of that marriage
ceremony! I will never call myself that man’s widow, or wear a thread of
mourning for him!” exclaimed Odalite, who could be very brave now that
her mother’s great enemy was dead, and her mother forever safe from his
malignity.
“You need not, my dear. Nor need the poor Californian woman ever suspect
that any darker wrong than the robbery of her money has been done her.
Why, either, should we be so excited over this discovery? It is no new
villainy that has come to light. It is simply that he really wronged the
Californian widow instead of you. The man is dead. Let us not harbor
malice against the dead. He can harm us no more,” said Abel, in his wish
to soothe the excited feelings of his wife and daughter. But ah! he knew
nothing of the greater cause those two unhappy ladies had had for their
detestation of their deadly enemy.
But now he was gone forever, and they were delivered from his
deviltries. It was
“The thrill of a great deliverance”
that so deeply moved them both. All felt it, even Mr. Force, who soon
arose and went out for a walk to reflect coolly over the news of the
morning.
Elfrida and Odalite went into the house and tried to occupy themselves
with the question of luncheon and other household matters, but they
could not interest themselves in any work; they could think of nothing
but of the blessed truth that a great burden had been lifted from their
hearts, a great darkness had passed away from their minds.
Late in the afternoon Wynnette, Elva and Rosemary came in from school.
Odalite told them that Col. Anglesea was dead, and showed them the paper
containing the notice of his death and the sketch of his life.
At first the children received the news in silent incredulity, to be
succeeded by the reverential awe with which the young and happy hear of
death and the grave.
Wynnette was the first to recover herself.
“Oh! Odalite, I am glad, for your sake, that you are freed from the
incubus of that man’s life. I hope it is no sin to say this, for I
cannot help feeling so,” she said.
“I hope the poor sinner truly repented of his iniquity and found grace
even at the eleventh hour,” breathed the pitiful little Elva.
“I don’t know,” sighed quaint little Rosemary, folding her mites of
hands with sad solemnity. “I don’t know. It is an awful risk for any
one, more particularly for a man like Col. Anglesea.”
“‘The vilest sinner may return,’ you know,” pleaded Elva.
“Yes, he may, but he don’t often do it,” said Wynnette, putting in her
word.
“Let me read the notice of his death and the sketch of his life,”
suggested Odalite, for she had only shown them the paper containing
these articles.
“Yes, do, Odalite,” said Wynnette.
Odalite read the brief notice, and then she turned to the sketch and
said:
“This is longer, and I need not read the whole of it, you know.”
“No. Just pick out the plums from the pudding. I never read the whole of
anything. Life is too short,” said Wynnette.
The other two girls seemed to agree with her, and so Odalite began and
read the highly inflated eulogium on Col. Anglesea’s character and
career.
The three younger ones listened with eyes and mouths open with
astonishment.
“Why, they seem to think he was a good, wise, brave man!” gasped little
Elva.
“That’s because they knew nothing about him,” exclaimed Wynnette.
“Isn’t there something in the Bible about a man being a good man among
his own people, but turning into a very bad man when he gets into a
strange city where the people don’t know who he is?” inquired Rosemary,
very gravely.
“I believe there is, in the Old Testament somewhere, but I don’t know
where,” answered Elva.
“That was the way with Anglesea, I suspect. He was a hypocrite in his
own country; but as soon as he came abroad he cut loose and kicked up
his heels—I mean he threw off all the restraints of honor and
conscience,” explained Wynnette.
Odalite resumed her task, and read of Anglesea’s birth, his entrance
into Eton, and afterward at Oxford, his succession to his estates, his
entrance into the army, his marriage to Lady Mary Merland, the birth of
his son, and the death of his wife.
There she stopped. She did not see fit to read the paragraph relating to
herself; and to prevent her sisters from seeing it, she rolled up the
paper and put it into her pocket.
They did not suspect that there had been any mention made of his
attempted marriage to Odalite, far less that it had been recorded there
as an accomplished fact; but they wondered why his marriage to the lady
of ‘Wild Cats’ had not been mentioned.
“And is there not a word said about his Californian nuptials?” demanded
Wynnette.
“No, not a word,” replied Odalite.
“Ah! you see, he wasn’t proud of that second wife! She wasn’t an earl’s
daughter!”
“I wonder how Mrs. Anglesea will take the news of her husband’s death,
when she hears of it,” mused Elva.
“Ah!” breathed Wynnette.
Their talk was interrupted by the entrance of their father, who had just
come in from his long walk.
“Oh, papa!” exclaimed Wynnette, “we have just heard the news! Oh! won’t
Le be glad when he hears it?”
“My dear children,” said Mr. Force, very solemnly and also a little
inconsistently, “we should never rejoice at any good that may come to us
through the death or misfortune of a fellow creature.”
“But, oh, papa! in this case we can’t help it.”
“There’s the dinner bell,” said Abel Force, irrelevantly.