I often wonder if when, as the Bible tells us, “the secrets of all
hearts shall be revealed,” they will be revealed to our
fellow-creatures as well as to the Almighty Judge of men.
I am not usually given to philosophise, but the above remark was drawn
from me by the receipt of a letter this morning from my niece, Justina
Trevor, announcing the death of her “dear friend,” Mrs. Benson, which
recalled the remembrance of an incident that took place a few months
since, whilst I was staying at Durham Hall, in Derbyshire, the estate
of her late husband, Sir Harry Trevor. I am an old bachelor, though
not so old as I look; yet when I confess that I write “General” before
my name, and have served most of my time in hot climates, it will
readily be believed that no one would take me for a chicken. It was
after an absence of fourteen years that, last November, I arrived in
England, and put up at an hotel near Covent Garden, which had been a
favourite resort of mine during my last stay in London. But I soon
found that I had made a great mistake, for the town was dark, damp,
dirty, deserted, detestable; in fact, no adjective, however long and
however strong, could convey an adequate idea of the impression made
upon me by a review of the great metropolis; and it was with a feeling
of intense relief that I perused a letter from my niece Justina, to
whom I had duly announced my advent, in which she insisted that her
“dear uncle” must spend his first Christmas in England nowhere but at
Durham Hall, with Sir Harry and herself. Now Justina, if not my only,
is certainly my nearest relative, and _I_ knew that _she_ knew that I
was an old fellow on the shady side of sixty-five, with a couple of
pounds or so laid by in the Oriental Bank, and with no one to leave
them to but herself or her children; but I was not going to let that
fact interfere with my prospects of present comfort; and so, ordering
my servant to repack my travelling cases, the next day but one saw us
_en route_ for Derbyshire.
It was evening when I arrived at Durham Hall, but even on a first view
I could not help being struck with the munificent manner in which all
the arrangements of the household seemed to be conducted, and
reflected with shame on the unworthy suspicion I had entertained
respecting those two pounds of mine in the Oriental Bank, which I now
felt would be but as a drop in the ocean to the display of wealth
which surrounded me. The hall was full of guests, assembled to enjoy
the hunting and shooting season, and to spend the coming Christmas,
and amongst them I heard several persons of title mentioned; but my
host and hostess paid as much attention to me as though I had been the
noblest there, and I felt gratified by the reception awarded me.
I found my niece but little altered, considering the number of years
which had elapsed since I had last seen her; her children were a fine,
blooming set of boys and girls, whilst her husband, both in appearance
and manners, far exceeded my expectations. For it so happened that I
had not seen Sir Harry Trevor before, my niece’s marriage having taken
place during my absence from England; but Justina had never ceased to
correspond with me, and from her letters I knew that the union had
been as happy as it was prosperous. But now that I met him I was more
than pleased, and voted his wife a most fortunate woman. Of unusual
height and muscular build, Sir Harry Trevor possessed one of those
fair, frank Saxon faces which look as if their owners had never known
trouble. His bright blue eyes shone with careless mirth and his yellow
beard curled about a mouth ever ready to smile in unison with the
outstretching of his friendly hand.
He was a specimen of a free, manly, and contented Englishman, who had
everything he could desire in this world, and was thankful for it. As
for Justina, she seemed perfectly to adore him; her eyes followed his
figure wherever it moved; she hung upon his words, and refused to stir
from home, even to take a drive or walk, unless he were by her side.
“I must congratulate you upon your husband,” I said to her, as we sat
together on the second day of my visit. “I think he is one of the
finest fellows I ever came across, and seems as good as he is
handsome.”
“Ah, he is, indeed!” she replied, with ready enthusiasm; “and you have
seen the least part of him, uncle. It would be impossible for me to
tell you how good he is in all things. We have been married now for
more than ten years, and during that time I have never had an unkind
word from him, nor do I believe he has ever kept a thought from me. He
is as open as the day, and could not keep a secret if he tried. Dear
fellow!” and something very like a tear twinkled in the wife’s eyes.
“Ay, ay,” I replied, “that’s right. I don’t know much about matrimony,
my dear, but if man and wife never have a secret from one another they
can’t go far wrong. And now perhaps you will enlighten me a little
about these guests of yours, for there is such a number of them that I
feel quite confused.”
Justina passed her hand across her eyes and laughed.
“Yes, that is dear Harry’s whim. He will fill the house at Christmas
from top to basement, and I let him have his way, though all my
visitors are not of my own choosing. With whom shall I commence,
uncle?”
We were sitting on a sofa together during the half hour before dinner,
and one by one the guests, amounting perhaps to fifteen or twenty,
came lounging into the drawing-room.
“Who, then, is that very handsome woman with the scarlet flower in her
hair?”
“Oh, do you call _her_ handsome?” (I could tell at once from the tone
of Justina’s voice that the owner of the scarlet flower was no
favourite of hers.) “That is Lady Amabel Scott, a cousin of Harry’s:
indeed, if she were not, she should never come into _my_ house. Now,
there’s a woman, uncle, whom I can’t bear--a forward, presuming,
flirting creature, with no desire on earth but to attract admiration.
Look how she’s dressed this evening--absurd, for a home party. I
wonder that her husband, Mr. Warden Scott (that is he looking over the
photograph book), can allow her to go on so! It is quite disgraceful.
I consider a flirting married woman one of the most dangerous members
of society.”
“But you can have no reason to fear her attacks,” I said, confidently.
The colour mounted to her face. My niece is not a pretty
woman--indeed, I had already wondered several times what made Trevor
fall in love with her--but this little touch of indignation improved
her.
“_Of course not!_ But Lady Amabel spares no one, and dear Harry is so
good-natured that he refuses to see how conspicuous she makes both him
and herself. I have tried to convince him of it several times, but he
is too kind to think evil of any one, and so I must be as patient as I
can till she goes. Thank Heaven, she does not spend her Christmas with
us! For my part, I can’t understand how one can see any beauty in a
woman with a turned-up nose.”
“Ho, ho!” I thought to myself; “this is where the shoe pinches, is it?
And if a lady will secure an uncommonly good-looking and agreeable man
all to herself, she must expect to see others attempt to share the
prize with her.”
Poor Justina! With as many blessings as one would think heart could
desire, she was not above poisoning her life’s happiness by a touch of
jealousy; and so I pitied her. It is a terrible foe with which to
contend.
“But this is but one off the list,” I continued, wishing to divert her
mind from the contemplation of Sir Harry’s cousin. “Who are those two
dark girls standing together at the side table? and who is that
quiet-looking little lady who has just entered with the tall man in
spectacles?”
“Oh, those--the girls--are the Misses Rushton; they are pretty, are
they not?--were considered quite the belles of last season--and the
old lady on the opposite side of the fireplace is their mother: their
father died some years since.”
“But the gentleman in spectacles? He looks quite a character.”
“Yes, and is considered so, but he is very good and awfully clever.
That is Professor Benson: you must know him and his wife too, the
‘quiet-looking little lady,’ as you called her just now. They are the
greatest friends I have in the world, and it was at their house that I
first met Harry. I am sure you would like Mary Benson, uncle; she is
shy, but has an immense deal in her, and is the kindest creature I
ever knew. You would get on capitally together. I must introduce you
to each other after dinner. And the professor and she are so
attached--quite a model couple, I can assure you.”
“Indeed! But whom have we here?” as the door was thrown open to admit
five gentlemen and two ladies.
“Lord and Lady Mowbray; Colonel Green and his son and daughter;
Captain Mackay and Mr. Cecil St. John,” whispered Lady Trevor, and as
she concluded dinner was announced, and our dialogue ended.
As the only persons in whom my niece had expressed much interest were
Lady Amabel Scott and Mrs. Benson, I took care to observe these two
ladies very narrowly during my leisure moments at the dinner-table,
and came to the conclusion that, so far as I could judge, her estimate
was not far wrong of either of them. Lady Amabel was a decided beauty,
notwithstanding the “turned-up nose” of which her hostess had spoken
so contemptuously: it was also pretty evident that she was a decided
flirt. During my lengthened career of five-and-sixty years, I had
always been credited with having a keen eye for the good points of a
woman or a horse; but seldom had I met with such vivid colouring, such
flashing eyes, and such bright speaking looks as now shone upon me
across the table from the cousin of Sir Harry Trevor. She was a lovely
blonde, in the heyday of her youth and beauty, and she used her power
unsparingly and without reserve. My observation quickened by what
Justina’s flash of jealousy had revealed, I now perceived, or thought
I perceived, that our host was by no means insensible to the
attractions of his fair guest, for, after conducting her in to dinner
and placing her by his side, he devoted every second not demanded by
the rights of hospitality to her amusement. Yet, Lady Amabel seemed
anything but desirous of engrossing his attention; on the contrary,
her arrows of wit flew far and wide, and her bright glances flashed
much in the same manner, some of their beams descending even upon me,
spite of my grey hairs and lack of acquaintanceship. One could easily
perceive that she was a universal favourite; but as Mr. Warden Scott
seemed quite satisfied with the state of affairs, and calmly enjoyed
his dinner, whilst his wife’s admirers, in their fervent admiration,
neglected to eat theirs, I could not see that any one had a right to
complain, and came to the conclusion that my niece, like many another
of her sex, had permitted jealousy to blind her judgment.
I felt still more convinced of this when I turned to the contemplation
of the other lady to whom she had directed my attention--the
professor’s wife, who was her dearest friend, and through whose means
she had first met Sir Harry Trevor. There was certainly nothing to
excite the evil passions of either man or woman in Mrs. Benson. Small
and insignificant in figure, she was not even pleasing in countenance;
indeed, I voted her altogether uninteresting, until she suddenly
raised two large brown eyes, soft as a spaniel’s and shy as a deer’s,
and regarded me. She dropped them again instantly, but as she did so I
observed that her lashes were long and dark, and looked the longer and
darker for resting on perfectly pallid cheeks. _Au reste_, Mrs. Benson
had not a feature that would repay the trouble of looking at twice,
and the plain, dark dress she wore still farther detracted from her
appearance. But she looked a good, quiet, harmless little thing, who,
if she really possessed the sense Lady Trevor attributed to her, might
prove a very valuable and worthy friend. But she was certainly not the
style of woman to cause any one a heartache, or to make a wife rue the
day she met her.
And indeed, when, dinner being over, we joined the ladies in the
drawing-room, and I saw her surrounded by my grand-nephews and nieces,
who seemed by one accord to have singled her out for persecution, I
thought she looked much more like a governess or some one in a
dependent situation than the most welcome guest at Durham Hall. Sir
Harry seemed pleased with her notice of his children, for he took a
seat by her side and entered into conversation with her, the first
time that I had seen him pay his wife’s friend so open a compliment.
Now I watched eagerly for the “great deal” that by Justina’s account
was “in her;” but I was disappointed, for she seemed disinclined for a
_tête-à-tête_, and after a few futile attempts to draw her out, I
was not surprised to see her host quit his position and wander after
Lady Amabel Scott into the back drawing-room, whither my niece’s eyes
followed him in a restless and uneasy manner.
“I promised to introduce you to Mrs. Benson, uncle,” she exclaimed, as
she perceived that I was watching her, and willy-nilly, I was taken
forcible possession of, and soon found myself occupying the chair left
vacant by Sir Harry.
“We can so very seldom persuade Mary to stay with us; and when she
does come, her visits are so brief that we are obliged to make a great
deal of them whilst they last,” was part of Justina’s introduction
speech; and on that hint I commenced to speak of the charms of the
country and my wonder that Mrs. Benson did not oftener take occasion
to enjoy them. But barely an answer, far less an idea, could I extract
from my niece’s valued friend. Mrs. Benson’s brown eyes were not once
raised to meet mine, and the replies which I forced from her lips came
in monosyllables. I tried another theme, but with no better success;
and had just decided that she was as stupid as she looked, when, to my
great relief, the professor arrived with a message from Lady Trevor,
and bore his wife off into another room.
Several days passed without bringing forth much incident. The
gentlemen spent most of their time in the shooting-covers or
hunting-field, and did not meet the ladies until evening re-assembled
them in the drawing-room; on which occasions I used to get as far as I
could from Lady Trevor and the professor’s wife, and in consequence
generally found myself in the vicinity of Sir Harry and Lady Amabel.
Yet, free and intimate as seemed their intercourse with one another,
and narrowly as, in Justina’s interest, I watched them, I could
perceive nothing in their conduct which was not justified by their
relationship, and treated it as a matter of the smallest consequence,
until one afternoon about a fortnight after my arrival at Durham Hall.
With the exception of Sir Harry himself, who had business to transact
with his bailiff, we had all been out shooting, and as, after a hard
day’s work, I was toiling up to my bedroom to dress for dinner, I had
occasion to pass the study appropriated to the master of the house,
and with a sudden desire to give him an account of our sport,
incontinently turned the handle of the door. As I did so I heard an
exclamation and the rustle of a woman’s dress, which were sufficient
to make me halt upon the threshold of the half-opened door, and ask if
I might enter.
“Come in, by all means,” exclaimed Sir Harry. He was lying back
indolently in his arm-chair beside a table strewn with books and
papers,--a little flushed, perhaps, but otherwise himself, and, to my
astonishment, quite alone. Yet I was positive that I had heard the
unmistakable sound of a woman’s dress sweeping the carpet.
Involuntarily I glanced around the room; but there was no egress.
Sir Harry caught my look of inquiry, and seemed annoyed. “What are you
staring at, Wilmer?” he demanded, in the curtest tone I had yet heard
from him.
“May I not glance round your den?” I replied courteously. “I have not
had the honour of seeing it before.”
Then I entered into a few details with him concerning the day’s sport
we had enjoyed; but I took care to be brief, for I saw that my
presence there displeased him, and I could not get the rustle of that
dress out of my mind. As I concluded, and with some remark upon the
lateness of the hour, turned to leave the room, a cough sounded from
behind a large Indian screen which stood in one corner. It was the
faintest, most subdued of coughs, but sufficiently tangible to be
sworn to; and as it fell upon my ear I could not help a change of
countenance.
“All right!” said my host, with affected nonchalance, as he rose and
almost backed me to the door. “We’ll have a talk over all this after
dinner, Wilmer; sorry I wasn’t with you; but, as you say, it’s late.
_Au revoir!_” and simultaneously the study door closed upon me.
I was very much startled and very much shocked. I had not a doubt that
I was correct in my surmise that Sir Harry had some visitor in his
room whom he had thought it necessary to conceal from me; and though
Hope suggested that it might have been his wife, Common Sense rose up
to refute so absurd an idea. Added to which, I had not traversed
twenty yards after leaving him before I met Justina attired in her
walking things, and just returning from a stroll round the garden.
“Is it very late, uncle?” she demanded, with a smile, as we
encountered one another. “I have been out with the children. Have you
seen Mary or Lady Amabel? I am afraid they will think I have neglected
them shamefully this afternoon.”
I answered her questions indifferently, thinking the while that she
had no occasion to blame herself for not having paid sufficient
attention to Lady Amabel Scott, for that it was she whom I had
surprised _tête-à-tête_ with Sir Harry Trevor, I had not a shadow
of doubt.
Well, I was not the one to judge them, nor to bring them to judgment;
but I thought very hard things of Sir Harry’s cousin during the
dressing hour, and pitied my poor niece, who must some day inevitably
learn that it was a true instinct which had made her shrink from her
beautiful guest. And during the evening which followed my discovery, I
turned with disgust from the lightning glances which darted from Lady
Amabel’s blue eyes, and the arch smile which helped to make them so
seductive. I could no longer think her beauty harmless: the red curves
of her mouth were cruel serpents in my mind; poisoned arrows flew from
her lips; there was no innocence left in look, or word, or action; and
I found myself turning with a sensation of relief to gaze at the
Quakerlike attire, the downcast eyes, and modest appearance of the
professor’s wife, whilst I inwardly blamed myself for having ever been
so foolish as to be gulled into believing that the flaunting beauty of
Lady Amabel Scott was superior to Mrs. Benson’s quiet graces.
I did not have much to say to Sir Harry Trevor during that evening:
indignation for his deception towards Justina made me disinclined to
speak to him, whilst he, for his part, seemed anxious to avoid me. For
a few days more all went on as usual: my host’s affability soon
returned, and every one, my niece included, appeared so smiling and
contented, that I almost began to think I must have been mistaken, and
that there could have been no real motive for concealing Lady Amabel
in Sir Harry’s room, except perhaps her own girlish love of fun. I
tried to think the best I could of both of them; and a day came but
too soon when I was thankful that I had so tried.
It was about a week after the little incident related above that Sir
Harry Trevor was shooting over his preserves, accompanied by his
guests. We had had a capital day’s sport and an excellent luncheon--at
which latter some of the ladies had condescended to join us--and were
beating the last cover preparatory to a return to Durham Hall, when
the report of a fire-arm was quickly followed by the news that Sir
Harry Trevor had been wounded.
I was separated from him by a couple of fields when I first heard of
the accident, but it did not take me long to reach his side, when I
perceived, to my horror, that he was fast bleeding to death, having
been shot through the lungs by the discharge of his own gun whilst
getting through the hedge. I had seen men die from gunshot wounds
received under various circumstances, and I felt sure that Sir Harry’s
hours were numbered; yet, of course, all that was possible was done at
once, and five minutes had not elapsed before messengers were flying
in all directions--one for the doctor, another for the carriage, a
third for cordials to support the sinking man; whilst I entreated Mr.
Warden Scott and several others to walk back to the Hall as though
nothing particular had happened, and try to prevent the immediate
circulation of the full extent of the bad news. Meanwhile, I remained
by the wounded man, who evidently suspected, by the sinking within
him, that he was dying.
“Wilmer!” he gasped, “old fellow, have I settled my hash?”
“I trust not, Sir Harry,” I commenced; but I suppose that my eyes
contradicted my words.
“Don’t say any more,” he replied, with difficulty. “My head a little
higher--thanks. I feel it will soon be over.”
And so he lay for a few moments, supported on my knee, with his fast
glazing eyes turned upward to the December sky, and his breath coming
in short, quick jerks.
The men who had remained with me seemed as though they could not
endure the sight of his sufferings; one or two gazed at him speechless
and almost as pale as himself; but the majority had turned away to
hide their feelings.
“Wilmer,” he whispered presently, but in a much fainter voice than
before, “it’s coming fast now;” and then, to my surprise, just as I
thought he was about to draw his last breath, he suddenly broke into
speech that was almost a sob--“Oh, if I could only have seen her
again! I wouldn’t mind it half so much if I could but have seen Pet
again! Call her, Wilmer; in God’s name, call her!--call Pet to
me--only once again--only once! Pet! Pet! Pet!” And with that name
upon his lips, each time uttered in a shorter and fainter voice, and
with a wild look of entreaty in his eyes, Sir Harry Trevor let his
head drop back heavily upon my knees and died.
When the doctor and the carriage arrived, the only thing left for us
to do was to convey the corpse of its master back to Durham Hall.
For the first few hours I was too much shocked by the suddenness of
the blow which had descended on us to have leisure to think of
anything else. In one moment the house of feasting had been turned
into the house of mourning; and frightened guests were looking into
each other’s faces, and wondering what would be the correct thing for
them to do. Of my poor niece I saw nothing. The medical man had
undertaken to break the news of her bereavement to her, and I confess
that I was sufficiently cowardly to shrink from encountering the
sorrow which I could do nothing to mitigate.
As I passed along the silent corridors (lately so full of mirth and
revelry) that evening, I met servants and travelling-cases at every
turn, by which I concluded, and rightly, that the Christmas guests
were about at once to take their departure; and on rising in the
morning, I found that, with the exception of Lady Amabel and Mr.
Warden Scott, who, as relatives of the deceased, intended to remain
until after the funeral, and the professor and Mrs. Benson, on whose
delicate frame the shock of Sir Harry’s death was said to have had
such an effect as to render her unfit for travelling, Durham Hall was
clear.
Lady Amabel had wept herself almost dry: her eyes were swollen, her
features disfigured, her whole appearance changed from the violence of
her grief, and every ten minutes she was ready to burst out afresh.
We had not been together half-an-hour on the following morning before
she was sobbing by my side, entreating me to give her every particular
of “poor dear Harry’s” death, and to say if there was anything she
could do for Justina or the children; and notwithstanding the
repugnance with which her conduct had inspired me, I could not repulse
her then. However she had sinned, the crime and its occasion were both
past--Sir Harry was laid out ready for his burial, and she was
grieving for him.
I am an old man, long past such follies myself, and I hope I am a
virtuous man; but all my virtue could not prevent my pitying Lady
Amabel in her distress, and affording her such comfort as was
possible. And so (a little curiosity still mingling with my
compassion) I related to her in detail, whilst I narrowly watched her
features, the last words which had been spoken by her cousin. But if
she guessed for whom that dying entreaty had been urged, she did not
betray herself.
“Poor fellow!” was her only remark as she wiped her streaming
eyes--“poor dear Harry! Used he to call Justina ‘Pet?’ I never heard
him do so.”
Whereupon I decided that Lady Amabel was too politic to be very
miserable, and that my pity had been wasted on her.
Of Mrs. Benson I saw nothing, but the professor talked about attending
the funeral, and therefore I concluded that my niece had invited them,
being such intimate friends, to remain for that ceremony.
On the afternoon of the same day I was told that Justina desired to
speak to me. I sought the room where she was sitting, with folded
hands and darkened windows, with nervous reluctance; but I need not
have dreaded a scene, for her grief was too great for outward show,
and I found her in a state which appeared to me unnaturally calm.
“Uncle,” she said, after a moment’s pause, during which we had
silently shaken hands, “will you take these keys and go down
into--into--his study for me, and bring up the desks and papers which
you will find in the escritoire? I do not like to send a servant.”
I took the keys which she extended to me, and, not able to trust
myself to answer, kissed her forehead and left the room again. As I
turned the handle of the study door I shuddered, the action so vividly
recalled to me the first and last occasion upon which I had done so.
The afternoon was now far advanced, and dusk was approaching: the
blinds of the study windows also were pulled down, which caused the
room to appear almost in darkness. As I groped my way toward the
escritoire I stumbled over some article lying across my path,
something which lay extended on the hearth-rug, and which even by that
feeble light I could discern was a prostrated body.
With my mind full of murderous accidents, I rushed to the window and
drew up the blind, when to my astonishment I found that the person
over whom I had nearly fallen was no other than poor little Mrs.
Benson, who was lying in a dead faint before the arm-chair. Fainting
women not being half so much in my line as wounded men, I felt quite
uncertain in this case how to act, and without considering how the
professor’s wife had come to be in the study or for what reason, my
first impulse was to ring for assistance. But a second thought, which
came I know not how or whence, made me lift the fragile, senseless
body in my arms and carry it outside the study door into the passage
before I called for help, which then I did lustily, and female
servants came and bore the poor “quiet-looking little lady” away to
her own apartments and the care of her husband, leaving me free to
execute the errand upon which I had been sent. Still, as I collected
the desk and papers required by my niece, I could not help reflecting
on the circumstance I have related as being a strange one, and could
only account for it in my own mind by the probable fact that Mrs.
Benson had required some book from the late Sir Harry’s shelves, and,
miscalculating her strength, had left her bedroom with the design of
fetching it, and failed before she could accomplish her purpose. I
heard several comments made on the occurrence, during the melancholy
meal which we now called “dinner,” by her husband and Lady Amabel
Scott, and they both agreed with me as to the probable reason of it;
and as soon as the cloth was removed the professor left us to spend
the evening with his wife, who was considered sufficiently ill to
require medical attendance.
We were a rather silent trio in the drawing-room--Lady Amabel, Mr.
Scott, and I--for ordinary occupations seemed forbidden, and every
topic harped back to the miserable accident which had left the hall
without a master. The servants with lengthened faces, as though
attending a funeral, had dumbly proffered us tea and coffee, and we
had drunk them without considering whether we required them, so
welcome seemed anything to do; and I was seriously considering whether
it would appear discourteous in me to leave the hall and return on the
day of the funeral, when a circumstance occurred which proved more
than sufficiently exciting for all of us.
I had taken the desk, papers, and keys, and delivered them into my
niece’s hands, and I had ventured at the same time to ask whether it
would not be a comfort to her to see Mrs. Benson or some other friend,
instead of sitting in utter loneliness and gloom. But Justina had
visibly shrunk from the proposal; more than that, she had begged me
not to renew it. “I sent for you, uncle,” she said, “because I needed
help, but don’t let any one make it a precedent for trying to see me.
I _couldn’t_ speak to any one: it would drive me mad. Leave me alone:
my only relief is in solitude and prayer.”
And so I had left her, feeling that doubtless she was right, and
communicating her wishes on the subject to Lady Amabel Scott, who had
several times expressed a desire to gain admittance to her widowed
cousin.
Judge, then, of our surprise, equal and unmitigated, when, as we sat
in the drawing-room that evening, the door silently opened and Justina
stood before us! If she had been the ghost of Sir Harry himself risen
from the dead, she could hardly have given us a greater start.
“Justina!” I exclaimed, but as she advanced toward us with her eyes
riveted on Lady Amabel, I saw that something more than usual was the
matter, and drew backward. Justina’s countenance was deadly pale; her
dark hair, unbound from the night before, flowed over the white
dressing-gown which she had worn all day; and stern and rigid she
walked into the midst of our little circle, holding a packet of
letters in her hand.
“Amabel Scott,” she hissed rather than said as she fixed a look of
perfect hatred on the beautiful face of her dead husband’s cousin, “I
have detected you. You made me miserable whilst he was alive--you know
it--with your bold looks and your forward manners and your shameless,
open attentions; but it is my turn now, and before your husband I will
tell you that--”
“Hush, hush, Justina!” I exclaimed, fearful what revelation might not
be coming next. “You are forgetting yourself; this is no time for such
explanations. Remember what lies upstairs.”
“Let her go on,” interposed Lady Amabel Scott, with wide-open,
astonished eyes; “I am not afraid. I wish to hear of what she accuses
me.”
She had risen from her seat as soon as she understood the purport of
the widow’s speech, and crossed over to her husband’s side; and
knowing what I did of her, I was yet glad to see that Warden Scott
threw his arm about her for encouragement and support. She may have
been thoughtless and faulty, but she was so young, and _he_ was gone.
Besides, no man can stand by calmly and see one woman pitted against
another.
“Of what do you accuse me?” demanded Lady Amabel, with heightened
colour.
“Of what do I accuse you?” almost screamed Justina. “Of perfidy, of
treachery, toward him,” pointing to Mr. Warden Scott, “and toward me.
I accuse you of attempting to win my dear husband’s affections from
me--which you never did, thank God!--and of rendering this home as
desolate as it was happy. But you failed--you failed!”
“Where are your proofs?” said the other woman, quietly.
“_There!_” exclaimed my niece, as she threw some four or five letters
down upon the table--“there! I brought them for your husband to
peruse. _He_ kept them; generous and good as he was, _he_ would have
spared you an open exposure, but I have no such feelings in the
matter. Are you to go from this house into another to pursue the same
course of action, and perhaps with better success? No, not if I can
prevent it!”
Her jealousy, rage, and grief seemed to have overpowered her; Justina
was almost beside herself. I entreated her to retire, but it was of no
avail. “Not till Warden Scott tells me what he thinks of his wife
writing those letters with a view to seducing the affections of a
married man,” she persisted.
Mr. Scott turned the letters over carelessly.
“They are not from my wife,” he quietly replied.
“Do _you_ dare to say so?” exclaimed Justina to Lady Amabel.
“Certainly. I never wrote one of them. I have never written a letter
to Harry since he was married. I have never had any occasion to do
so.”
The widow turned towards me with an ashen-grey face, which it was
pitiful to behold.
“Whose are they, then?” she whispered, hoarsely.
“I do not know, my dear,” I replied; “surely it matters little now.
You will be ill if you excite yourself in this manner. Let me conduct
you back to your room;” but before I could do so she had fallen in a
fit at my feet. Of course, all then was hurry and confusion, and when
I returned to the drawing-room I found Lady Amabel crying in her
husband’s arms.
“Oh, Warden dear,” she was saying, “I shall never forgive myself. This
all comes of my wretched flirting. It’s no good your shaking your
head; you know I flirt, and so does every one else; but I never meant
anything by it, darling, and I thought all the world knew how much I
loved you.”
“Don’t be a goose!” replied her husband, as he put her gently away
from him; “but if you think I’m going to let you remain in this house
after what that d----’d woman---- Oh, here is General Wilmer! Well,
General, after the very unpleasant manner in which your niece has been
entertaining us, you will not be surprised to hear that I shall take
my wife away from Durham Hall to-night. When Lady Trevor comes to her
senses you will perhaps kindly explain to her the reason of our
departure, for nothing under such an insult should have prevented my
paying my last respects to the memory of a man who never behaved
otherwise than as a gentleman to either of us.”
I apologised for Justina as best I was able, represented that her mind
must really have become unhinged by her late trouble, and that she
would probably be very sorry for what she had said by-and-by; but I
was not surprised that my arguments had no avail in inducing Mr. Scott
to permit his wife to remain at Durham Hall, and in a few hours they
had left the house. When they were gone I took up the letters, which
still lay upon the table, and examined them. They were addressed to
Sir Harry, written evidently in a woman’s hand, and teemed with
expressions of the warmest affection. I was not surprised that the
perusal of them had excited poor Justina’s wrathful jealousy. Turning
to the signatures, I found that they all concluded with the same
words, “Your loving and faithful Pet.” In a moment my mind had flown
back to the dying speech of poor Sir Harry, and had absolved Lady
Amabel Scott from all my former suspicions. She was not the woman who
had penned these letters; she had not been in the last thoughts of her
cousin. Who, then, had been? That was a mystery on which Death had set
his seal, perhaps for ever. Before I retired to rest that night I
inquired for my poor niece, and heard that she had Mrs. Benson with
her. I was glad of that: the women were fond of one another, and
Justina, I felt, would pour all her griefs into the sympathising ear
of the professor’s wife, and derive comfort from weeping over them
afresh with her. But after I had got into bed I remembered that I had
left the letters lying on the drawing-room table, where they would be
liable to be inspected by the servants, and blow the breath of the
family scandal far and wide. It was much past midnight, for I had sat
up late, and all the household, if not asleep, had retired to their
own apartments; and so, wrapping a dressing-gown about me, and
thrusting my feet into slippers, I lighted my candle, and descended
noiselessly to the lower apartments. But when I reached the
drawing-room the letters were gone: neither on the table nor the
ottoman nor the floor were they to be seen; and so, vexed at my own
carelessness, but concluding that the servants, when extinguishing the
lights, had perceived and put the papers away in some place of safety,
I prepared to return to my own room.
The bedrooms at Durham Hall were situated on either side of a
corridor, and fearful of rousing the family or being caught in
deshabille, I trod on tiptoe, shading my candle with my hand. It was
owing to this circumstance, I suppose, that I had reached the centre
of the corridor without causing the least suspicion of my presence;
but as I passed by the apartment where the remains of my unfortunate
host lay ready for burial, the door suddenly opened and a light
appeared upon the threshold. I halted, expecting to see emerge the
figure of my widowed niece, but lifting my eyes, to my astonishment I
encountered the shrinking, almost terrified, gaze of the professor’s
wife. Robed in her night-dress, pallid as the corpse which lay within,
her large frightened eyes apparently the only living things about her,
she stood staring at me as though she had been entranced. Her brown
hair floated over her shoulders, her feet were bare; one hand held a
lighted candle, the other grasped the packet of letters of which I had
been in search. So we stood for a moment regarding one another--I
taking in these small but important details; she looking as though she
implored my mercy and forbearance. And then I drew back with the
gesture of respect due to her sex, and, clad in her white dress, she
swept past me like a startled spirit and disappeared.
I gained my own room, but it was not to sleep. A thousand incidents,
insignificant in themselves, but powerful when welded into one, sprang
up in my mind to convince me that Justina and I and everybody had been
on a wrong tack, and that in the professor’s wife, the “quiet-looking
little lady” with her Quaker-like robes, downcast eyes and modest
appearance, in the “best friend” that my niece had ever possessed, I
had discovered the writer of those letters, the concealed visitor in
Sir Harry’s room, the “Pet” whose name had been the last sound heard
to issue from his dying lips. For many hours I lay awake pondering
over the best course for me to pursue. I could not bear the thought of
undeceiving my poor niece, whose heart had already suffered so much;
besides, it seemed like sacrilege to drag to light the secrets of the
dead. At the same time I felt that Mrs. Benson should receive some
hint that her presence in Durham Hall, at that juncture, if desired,
was no longer desirable. And the next day, finding she was not likely
to accord me an interview, I made the reception of the missing letters
a pretext for demanding one. She came to her room door holding them in
her hand, and the marks of trouble were so distinct in her face that I
had to summon all my courage to go through the task which I considered
my duty.
“You found these in the drawing-room last night?” I said, as I
received them from her.
“I did,” she answered, but her voice trembled and her lips were very
white. She seemed to know by instinct what was coming.
“And you went to find them because they are your own?” She made no
answer. “Mrs. Benson, I know your secret, but I will respect it on one
condition--that you leave the Hall as soon as possible. You must be
aware that this is no place for you.”
“I never wished to come,” she answered, weeping.
“I can believe it, but for the sake of your friend, of your husband,
of yourself, quit it as soon as possible. Here are your letters--you
had better burn them. I only wished to ascertain that they were
yours.”
“General Wilmer”--she commenced gaspingly, and then she turned away
and could say no more.
“Do you wish to speak to me?” I asked her gently.
“No--nothing; it is useless,” she answered with a tearless, despairing
grief which was far more shocking to behold than either Justina’s or
Lady Amabel’s. “He is gone, and there is nothing left; but thank you
for your forbearance, and good-bye.”
So we parted, and to this day, excepting that she is released from all
that could annoy or worry her, I have learned nothing more. How long
they loved, how much or in what degree of guilt or innocence, I
neither know nor have cared to guess at; it is sufficient for me that
it was so, and that while Justina was accusing the beautiful Lady
Amabel Scott of attempting to win her husband’s heart from her, it had
been given away long before to the woman whom she termed her dearest
friend--to the woman who had apparently no beauty, or wit, or
accomplishments with which to steal away a man’s love from its
rightful owner, but who nevertheless was his “loving and faithful
Pet,” and the last thought upon his dying lips.
Professor and Mrs. Benson never returned to Durham Hall. It was not
long afterwards that I heard from my niece that his wife’s failing
health had compelled the professor to go abroad; and to-day she writes
me news from Nice that Mrs. Benson is dead. Poor Pet! I wonder if
those scared brown eyes have lost their frightened look in heaven?
I believe that Justina has made an ample apology for her rudeness to
Lady Amabel and Mr. Warden Scott. I know I represented that it was her
duty to do so, and that she promised it should be done. As for
herself, she is gradually recovering from the effects of her
bereavement, and finding comfort in the society of her sons and
daughters; and perhaps, amongst the surprises which I have already
spoken of as likely to await us in another sphere, they will not be
least which prove how very soon we have been forgotten by those we
left in the world behind us.