“Welcome, proud lady.”
Half an hour has passed. Two miserable men are wandering in the
darkness up the miles of road from Camelton to Endelstow.
“Has she broken her heart?” said Henry Knight. “Can it be that I have
killed her? I was bitter with her, Stephen, and she has died! And may
God have NO mercy upon me!”
“How can you have killed her more than I?”
“Why, I went away from her—stole away almost—and didn’t tell her I
should not come again; and at that last meeting I did not kiss her
once, but let her miserably go. I have been a fool—a fool! I wish the
most abject confession of it before crowds of my countrymen could in
any way make amends to my darling for the intense cruelty I have shown
her!”
“YOUR darling!” said Stephen, with a sort of laugh. “Any man can say
that, I suppose; any man can. I know this, she was MY darling before
she was yours; and after too. If anybody has a right to call her his
own, it is I.”
“You talk like a man in the dark; which is what you are. Did she ever
do anything for you? Risk her name, for instance, for you?”
Yes, she did,” said Stephen emphatically.
“Not entirely. Did she ever live for you—prove she could not live
without you—laugh and weep for you?”
“Yes.”
“Never! Did she ever risk her life for you—no! My darling did for me.”
“Then it was in kindness only. When did she risk her life for you?”
“To save mine on the cliff yonder. The poor child was with me looking
at the approach of the Puffin steamboat, and I slipped down. We both
had a narrow escape. I wish we had died there!”
“Ah, but wait,” Stephen pleaded with wet eyes. “She went on that cliff
to see me arrive home: she had promised it. She told me she would
months before. And would she have gone there if she had not cared for
me at all?”
“You have an idea that Elfride died for you, no doubt,” said Knight,
with a mournful sarcasm too nerveless to support itself.
“Never mind. If we find that—that she died yours, I’ll say no more
ever.”
“And if we find she died yours, I’ll say no more.”
“Very well—so it shall be.”
The dark clouds into which the sun had sunk had begun to drop rain in
an increasing volume.
“Can we wait somewhere here till this shower is over?” said Stephen
desultorily.
“As you will. But it is not worth while. We’ll hear the particulars,
and return. Don’t let people know who we are. I am not much now.”
They had reached a point at which the road branched into two—just
outside the west village, one fork of the diverging routes passing into
the latter place, the other stretching on to East Endelstow. Having
come some of the distance by the footpath, they now found that the
hearse was only a little in advance of them.
“I fancy it has turned off to East Endelstow. Can you see?”
“I cannot. You must be mistaken.”
Knight and Stephen entered the village. A bar of fiery light lay across
the road, proceeding from the half-open door of a smithy, in which
bellows were heard blowing and a hammer ringing. The rain had
increased, and they mechanically turned for shelter towards the warm
and cosy scene.
Close at their heels came another man, without over-coat or umbrella,
and with a parcel under his arm.
“A wet evening,” he said to the two friends, and passed by them. They
stood in the outer penthouse, but the man went in to the fire.
The smith ceased his blowing, and began talking to the man who had
entered.
“I have walked all the way from Camelton,” said the latter. “Was
obliged to come to-night, you know.”
He held the parcel, which was a flat one, towards the firelight, to
learn if the rain had penetrated it. Resting it edgewise on the forge,
he supported it perpendicularly with one hand, wiping his face with the
handkerchief he held in the other.
“I suppose you know what I’ve got here?” he observed to the smith.
“No, I don’t,” said the smith, pausing again on his bellows.
“As the rain’s not over, I’ll show you,” said the bearer.
He laid the thin and broad package, which had acute angles in different
directions, flat upon the anvil, and the smith blew up the fire to give
him more light. First, after untying the package, a sheet of brown
paper was removed: this was laid flat. Then he unfolded a piece of
baize: this also he spread flat on the paper. The third covering was a
wrapper of tissue paper, which was spread out in its turn. The
enclosure was revealed, and he held it up for the smith’s inspection.
“Oh—I see!” said the smith, kindling with a chastened interest, and
drawing close. “Poor young lady—ah, terrible melancholy thing—so soon
too!”
Knight and Stephen turned their heads and looked.
“And what’s that?” continued the smith.
“That’s the coronet—beautifully finished, isn’t it? Ah, that cost some
money!”
“’Tis as fine a bit of metal work as ever I see—that ’tis.”
“It came from the same people as the coffin, you know, but was not
ready soon enough to be sent round to the house in London yesterday.
I’ve got to fix it on this very night.”
The carefully-packed articles were a coffin-plate and coronet.
Knight and Stephen came forward. The undertaker’s man, on seeing them
look for the inscription, civilly turned it round towards them, and
each read, almost at one moment, by the ruddy light of the coals:
E L F R I D E,
Wife of Spenser Hugo Luxellian,
Fifteenth Baron Luxellian:
Died February 10, 18—.
They read it, and read it, and read it again—Stephen and Knight—as if
animated by one soul. Then Stephen put his hand upon Knight’s arm, and
they retired from the yellow glow, further, further, till the chill
darkness enclosed them round, and the quiet sky asserted its presence
overhead as a dim grey sheet of blank monotony.
“Where shall we go?” said Stephen.
“I don’t know.”
A long silence ensued....“Elfride married!” said Stephen then in a thin
whisper, as if he feared to let the assertion loose on the world.
“False,” whispered Knight.
“And dead. Denied us both. I hate ‘false’—I hate it!”
Knight made no answer.
Nothing was heard by them now save the slow measurement of time by
their beating pulses, the soft touch of the dribbling rain upon their
clothes, and the low purr of the blacksmith’s bellows hard by.
“Shall we follow Elfie any further?” Stephen said.
“No: let us leave her alone. She is beyond our love, and let her be
beyond our reproach. Since we don’t know half the reasons that made her
do as she did, Stephen, how can we say, even now, that she was not pure
and true in heart?” Knight’s voice had now become mild and gentle as a
child’s. He went on: “Can we call her ambitious? No. Circumstance has,
as usual, overpowered her purposes—fragile and delicate as she—liable
to be overthrown in a moment by the coarse elements of accident. I know
that’s it,—don’t you?”
“It may be—it must be. Let us go on.”
They began to bend their steps towards Castle Boterel, whither they had
sent their bags from Camelton. They wandered on in silence for many
minutes. Stephen then paused, and lightly put his hand within Knight’s
arm.
“I wonder how she came to die,” he said in a broken whisper. “Shall we
return and learn a little more?”
They turned back again, and entering Endelstow a second time, came to a
door which was standing open. It was that of an inn called the Welcome
Home, and the house appeared to have been recently repaired and
entirely modernized. The name too was not that of the same landlord as
formerly, but Martin Cannister’s.
Knight and Smith entered. The inn was quite silent, and they followed
the passage till they reached the kitchen, where a huge fire was
burning, which roared up the chimney, and sent over the floor, ceiling,
and newly-whitened walls a glare so intense as to make the candle quite
a secondary light. A woman in a white apron and black gown was standing
there alone behind a cleanly-scrubbed deal table. Stephen first, and
Knight afterwards, recognized her as Unity, who had been parlour-maid
at the vicarage and young lady’s-maid at the Crags.
“Unity,” said Stephen softly, “don’t you know me?”
She looked inquiringly a moment, and her face cleared up.
“Mr. Smith—ay, that it is!” she said. “And that’s Mr. Knight. I beg you
to sit down. Perhaps you know that since I saw you last I have married
Martin Cannister.”
“How long have you been married?”
“About five months. We were married the same day that my dear Miss
Elfie became Lady Luxellian.” Tears appeared in Unity’s eyes, and
filled them, and fell down her cheek, in spite of efforts to the
contrary.
The pain of the two men in resolutely controlling themselves when thus
exampled to admit relief of the same kind was distressing. They both
turned their backs and walked a few steps away.
Then Unity said, “Will you go into the parlour, gentlemen?”
“Let us stay here with her,” Knight whispered, and turning said, “No;
we will sit here. We want to rest and dry ourselves here for a time, if
you please.”
That evening the sorrowing friends sat with their hostess beside the
large fire, Knight in the recess formed by the chimney breast, where he
was in shade. And by showing a little confidence they won hers, and she
told them what they had stayed to hear—the latter history of poor
Elfride.
“One day—after you, Mr. Knight, left us for the last time—she was
missed from the Crags, and her father went after her, and brought her
home ill. Where she went to, I never knew—but she was very unwell for
weeks afterwards. And she said to me that she didn’t care what became
of her, and she wished she could die. When she was better, I said she
would live to be married yet, and she said then, ‘Yes; I’ll do anything
for the benefit of my family, so as to turn my useless life to some
practical account.’ Well, it began like this about Lord Luxellian
courting her. The first Lady Luxellian had died, and he was in great
trouble because the little girls were left motherless. After a while
they used to come and see her in their little black frocks, for they
liked her as well or better than their own mother—-that’s true. They
used to call her ‘little mamma.’ These children made her a shade
livelier, but she was not the girl she had been—I could see that—and
she grew thinner a good deal. Well, my lord got to ask the Swancourts
oftener and oftener to dinner—nobody else of his acquaintance—and at
last the vicar’s family were backwards and forwards at all hours of the
day. Well, people say that the little girls asked their father to let
Miss Elfride come and live with them, and that he said perhaps he would
if they were good children. However, the time went on, and one day I
said, ‘Miss Elfride, you don’t look so well as you used to; and though
nobody else seems to notice it I do.’ She laughed a little, and said,
‘I shall live to be married yet, as you told me.’
“‘Shall you, miss? I am glad to hear that,’ I said.
“‘Whom do you think I am going to be married to?’ she said again.
“‘Mr. Knight, I suppose,’ said I.
“‘Oh!’ she cried, and turned off so white, and afore I could get to her
she had sunk down like a heap of clothes, and fainted away. Well, then,
she came to herself after a time, and said, ‘Unity, now we’ll go on
with our conversation.’
“‘Better not to-day, miss,’ I said.
“‘Yes, we will,’ she said. ‘Whom do you think I am going to be married
to?’
“‘I don’t know,’ I said this time.
“‘Guess,’ she said.
“‘’Tisn’t my lord, is it?’ says I.
“‘Yes, ’tis,’ says she, in a sick wild way.
“‘But he don’t come courting much,’ I said.
‘“Ah! you don’t know,’ she said, and told me ’twas going to be in
October. After that she freshened up a bit—whether ’twas with the
thought of getting away from home or not, I don’t know. For, perhaps, I
may as well speak plainly, and tell you that her home was no home to
her now. Her father was bitter to her and harsh upon her; and though
Mrs. Swancourt was well enough in her way, ’twas a sort of cold
politeness that was not worth much, and the little thing had a worrying
time of it altogether. About a month before the wedding, she and my
lord and the two children used to ride about together upon horseback,
and a very pretty sight they were; and if you’ll believe me, I never
saw him once with her unless the children were with her too—which made
the courting so strange-looking. Ay, and my lord is so handsome, you
know, so that at last I think she rather liked him; and I have seen her
smile and blush a bit at things he said. He wanted her the more because
the children did, for everybody could see that she would be a most
tender mother to them, and friend and playmate too. And my lord is not
only handsome, but a splendid courter, and up to all the ways o’t. So
he made her the beautifullest presents; ah, one I can mind—a lovely
bracelet, with diamonds and emeralds. Oh, how red her face came when
she saw it! The old roses came back to her cheeks for a minute or two
then. I helped dress her the day we both were married—it was the last
service I did her, poor child! When she was ready, I ran upstairs and
slipped on my own wedding gown, and away they went, and away went
Martin and I; and no sooner had my lord and my lady been married than
the parson married us. It was a very quiet pair of weddings—hardly
anybody knew it. Well, hope will hold its own in a young heart, if so
be it can; and my lady freshened up a bit, for my lord was SO handsome
and kind.”
“How came she to die—and away from home?” murmured Knight.
“Don’t you see, sir, she fell off again afore they’d been married long,
and my lord took her abroad for change of scene. They were coming home,
and had got as far as London, when she was taken very ill and couldn’t
be moved, and there she died.”
“Was he very fond of her?”
“What, my lord? Oh, he was!”
“VERY fond of her?”
“VERY, beyond everything. Not suddenly, but by slow degrees. ’Twas her
nature to win people more when they knew her well. He’d have died for
her, I believe. Poor my lord, he’s heart-broken now!”
“The funeral is to-morrow?”
“Yes; my husband is now at the vault with the masons, opening the steps
and cleaning down the walls.”
The next day two men walked up the familiar valley from Castle Boterel
to East Endelstow Church. And when the funeral was over, and every one
had left the lawn-like churchyard, the pair went softly down the steps
of the Luxellian vault, and under the low-groined arches they had
beheld once before, lit up then as now. In the new niche of the crypt
lay a rather new coffin, which had lost some of its lustre, and a newer
coffin still, bright and untarnished in the slightest degree.
Beside the latter was the dark form of a man, kneeling on the damp
floor, his body flung across the coffin, his hands clasped, and his
whole frame seemingly given up in utter abandonment to grief. He was
still young—younger, perhaps, than Knight—and even now showed how
graceful was his figure and symmetrical his build. He murmured a prayer
half aloud, and was quite unconscious that two others were standing
within a few yards of him.
Knight and Stephen had advanced to where they once stood beside Elfride
on the day all three had met there, before she had herself gone down
into silence like her ancestors, and shut her bright blue eyes for
ever. Not until then did they see the kneeling figure in the dim light.
Knight instantly recognized the mourner as Lord Luxellian, the bereaved
husband of Elfride.
They felt themselves to be intruders. Knight pressed Stephen back, and
they silently withdrew as they had entered.
“Come away,” he said, in a broken voice. “We have no right to be there.
Another stands before us—nearer to her than we!”
And side by side they both retraced their steps down the grey still
valley to Castle Boterel.