"REQUIEM AETERNAM..."
Though beloved by their tenantry and dependents the Wagrams were not
exactly popular with the county--as spelt with a capital C. This saw
reason, or thought it did, to regard them as exclusive and eccentric.
To begin with, they seldom entertained, and then not on anything like
the scale it was reckoned they ought. A few shooting parties in the
season, and those mostly men, though such of the latter as owned wives
and daughters brought them; or an occasional gathering, such as we have
seen, mainly of ecclesiastical interest. It was a crying shame,
declared the county, that a splendid place like Hilversea Court should
be thrown away on two solemn old widowers; and it was the duty of one of
them--Wagram at any rate--to marry again. But Wagram showed not the
slightest inclination to do anything of the kind.
Not through lack of opportunity--inducement. He was angled for, more or
less deftly--not always with a mercenary motive; but, though courteous
and considerate to the aspiring fair, by no art or wile could he be
drawn any further--no, not even into the faintest shadow of a
flirtation. It was exasperating, but there was no help for it, so he
had been given up as hopeless. He might have recognised the duty but
for the existence of his son. Hilversea would have its heir after him--
that was sufficient.
He was eccentric, estimated his acquaintances, in that he worked hard at
matters that most people leave to an agent; but this was a duty, he
held--a sacred trust--to look into things personally; the result we have
referred to elsewhere. As for entertaining, well, neither he nor the
old Squire cared much about it. On the other hand, they were careful
that many a day's sport, with gun or rod--but mostly the latter--should
come in the way of not a few who seldom had an opportunity of enjoying
such.
But now of late there had befallen that which caused the county
aforesaid to rub its eyes, and this was the manner in which the Wagrams
seemed to have "taken up" Delia Calmour. It was not surprised that a
brazen, impudent baggage like that should have pushed herself upon them
on the strength of the gnu incident, the marvel was that she should have
succeeded--have succeeded in getting round not only Wagram but the old
Squire as well, and the county resented it. Once when she was at
Hilversea some callers, of course, of her own sex, took an opportunity
of testifying their disapproval by being markedly rude to the girl.
This Wagram had noticed, and had there and then paid her extra attention
by way of protest. And Haldane too--he who thought the whole world was
hardly good enough to have the honour of containing that girl of his,
and yet he allowed her to associate with a daughter of tippling,
disreputable old Calmour! What next, and what next!
But if the Wagrams were eccentric they could afford to be, and that for
a dual reason: in the first place, they were "big" enough; in the next,
they cared literally and absolutely not one straw for the opinion of the
county. If a given line commended itself to their approbation they took
it, completely regardless of what the county or anybody else might
choose to say or think--and this held equally good of father and son--
which was as well, for, as time went by, on this matter it "said"
plenty.
A wafting of it reached Wagram one day, at the mouth of Clytie's
_quondam_ victim--"Vance's eldest fool," as the old Squire had, with
cynical aptitude, defined that much plucked youth.
"Take a tip from me, Wagram," remarked the latter one day. "You're
making a mistake having too much to do with that lot. They're
dangerous, and you'll have to pay up smartly for your fun one of these
days."
The other did not retort that the speaker had reason to be an authority
on the point, nor did he get angry; he only answered:
"I don't like that kind of remark, Vance. I suppose because I'm not in
the habit of taking anybody's `tips' I always take my own line. Sounds
conceited, perhaps, but it's true."
"Oh, I didn't mean anything, Wagram," was the reply, given rather
shamefacedly.
But the time had now come when this reputation for reticence, for
eccentricity, stood Wagram in good stead. If he had become graver, more
aloof than ever under the influence of this new and overwhelming blow,
his surroundings hardly noticed it. In anybody else it would have been
at once remarked on; in him it was a mere development of his former and
normal demeanour. One or two opined that he contemplated entering a
monastery, but the general run gave the matter no further thought; and,
the very vaguest, faintest inkling of the real state of things struck
nobody at all.
There was one, however, whose quick woman's wit had not been slow to
arrive at the fact that something had gone wrong--in some absolutely
not-to-be-guessed-at and unaccountable way, but still gone wrong--and
that was Delia herself. The county need not bother its opaque head any
further as to how and why the Wagrams had "taken her up," for the said
Wagrams seemed to have dropped her with equal capriciousness. And the
girl herself?
No more of these pleasant informal invites to Hilversea when she cycled
over to the chapel services on Sundays or other days. Wagram and the
old Squire were as courteous and kindly in their bearing as ever, but--
there it ended; and, strange to say, remembering her upbringing, or want
of it rather, this daughter of tippling, disreputable old Calmour did
not, even in her heart of hearts, feel hurt or resentful. For, as we
have said, by some quick-witted instinct of her own she realised that
some great trouble, secret and, therefore, infinitely the greater, was
sapping the peace of this house, to the members of which she looked up
with a feeling little short of adoration. She saw this, but nobody else
did as yet.
Delia had carried out the intention we heard her express to Wagram on
the occasion of one of those visits which had constituted the bright
days of her life. She had placed herself under the instruction of the
old priest in Bassingham whose German nationality had first aroused her
insular disapproval, and had been received into the Catholic Church; but
in the result she had learned that a love of beautiful music and
imposing and picturesque ceremonies was not the be-all and end-all of
the matter by a long way; wherefore the change had put the coping-stone
to the refining process which had been going on unconsciously within
her, and the former undisciplined and inconsequent daughter of rackety,
happy-go-lucky Siege House had become a self-contained and
self-disciplined woman. As to this something of a test was put upon her
when one day, on one of the rare occasions now when she had an
opportunity of talking confidentially with Wagram, the latter remarked:
"Talking of `duties,' Miss Calmour, I wonder if you will resent what I
am going to say? It seems ungracious after the great help you have
given us here from time to time--musically, I mean. Well, then, you
have a beautiful voice and great musical talent. Now, don't you think
you ought to turn that to account nearer home? The mission at
Bassingham is a poor one. With your talents, if you threw yourself into
helping to improve its choir, and musical arrangements generally, what a
difference that might work in rendering it more attractive to outside
people as well as to those within. Of course, music like many other
accessories, is a mere spiritual luxury, not an essential, but it is
often a powerful factor in the first instance, in attracting those
without, and therefore, like any lawful agency in that direction, by no
means to be despised. How if this is a talent entrusted to you to be
turned to account? But there--I have no constituted right to set myself
up as your adviser, and I suppose you are only setting me down as a
solemn old bore intent on preaching you a sermon," he concluded, with a
smile--a sad one, she decided to herself, as his somewhat rare smiles
were in these days.
The natural human in Delia was represented by a feeling of blank dismay.
Those rides over to Hilversea, and her part in the musical arrangements
of its exquisite chapel, had been to her as something to live for. And
now even this was to be denied her. But the self-discipline had become
an accomplished fact.
"I am setting you down as nothing of the sort, Mr Wagram," she answered
steadily, "nor do I know anybody in this world more competent to advise
me or anyone else. Yes; you are right; I will follow your advice. But
I may come up to Hilversea, and help occasionally when I am not wanted
in Bassingham, mayn't I?"
"My dear child, of course; we are only too glad. You know, I was not
putting it to you in your own personal interest. In such a matter
nothing personal comes in, or ought to. But there--I seem to be
preaching again."
The step Delia had taken involved upon her far less of a trial from
those among whom she moved than she had expected. Old Calmour had been
nasty and jeering on the subject, and in his cups had been wont to make
exceedingly objectionable remarks and vulgar insinuations; but such to
the girl were as mere pin-pricks now. Moreover, Clytie had on every
occasion quelled, not to say flattened, him with all her serene but
effective decisiveness; and the egregious Bob was in a state of complete
subjection, as we have shown. To Clytie herself the whole thing was a
matter of entire satisfaction, for she regarded it as a step, and a very
important one, in the direction of furthering her own darling scheme;
which scheme, by the way, did not seem to progress with the rapidity she
would have wished.
"You must force the pace Delia," she said. "The thing's hanging a
little more than I like. You've got a first-rate cut in, and you ought
to be able to capture the trick. Force the pace a little more; you're
not making the most of your opportunities."
"You're wasting a deal of capacity for intrigue, Clytie," was the
answer. "There's nothing `hanging,' no pace to force, and no trick to
capture, as I've told you before."
The other looked at her, shook her pretty head, and--being at times
inclined towards vulgarity--winked.
And then upon Hilversea and its surroundings and dependents fell another
bolt--swift, sudden, consternating. The old Squire was dead.
He had passed away in his sleep, peacefully and painlessly, for the
expression of his fine old face was absolutely placid and almost
smiling; and from Wagram downwards the bolt shot hard and grievous
through many a heart. Not only of those belonging to the immediate
neighbourhood did this hold, for in the crowd which thronged the
approaches to the chapel what time the solemn High Mass of _Requiem_--
sung by the dead man's lifelong friend, Monsignor Culham--was
proceeding, not a few strange faces might have been discerned; faces of
those whom Grantley Wagram and his son had benefited--in some instances
even to the saving of life, where, but for such benefit, the means of
preserving life by affording the requisite conditions would have been
lacking.
Very different, too, to the _cortege_ which we saw issue from these
doors a few months back is this which now comes forth to lay the dead
man in his last resting-place in the little consecrated graveyard
beneath the east window of the chapel, but no less solemn. The glow and
splendour of light and colour, the mellow flooding of the summer
sunshine are no longer here, and the gurgling song of full-throated
thrushes is hushed. Instead, the frost and stillness of a winter noon,
and an occasional sob as the coffin is lowered into the grave, while the
chant of the _Benedictus_ rolls forth mournful and grand upon the crisp
air, so still that the lights borne on each side of the great crucifix
burn with scarce a flicker, and the celebrant, vested in a black and
silver cope of some richness, sprinkles--for the last time with holy
water the remains of Grantley Wagram, now laid to his final rest.
"Requiem aeternam dona, ei Domine,
Et lux perpetua luceat ei.
"Anima ejus, et animae omnium
fidelium defunctorum per misericordiam
Dei requiescant in pace."
The words find echo in many a heart as the sad solemnity ends. The
crowd melts away, the mourners withdraw--all save one, who stands
motionless, with bowed head, looking down into the closing grave--and
that one the dead man's son.