After twenty years have passed away, it is safe to ask if events have
been all that they promised to be; and one morning in August of 1857,
it was twenty years since Kate Atheling became Lady Exham. She was
sitting at a table writing letters to her two eldest sons, who were with
their tutor in the then little known Hebrides. Lord Exham was busy
with his mail. They were in a splendid room, opening upon a lawn, soft
and green beyond description; and the August sunshine and the August
lilies filled it with warmth and fragrance. Lady Exham was even more
beautiful than on her wedding day. Time had matured without as yet
touching her wonderful loveliness, and motherhood had crowned it with
a tender and bewitching nobility. She had on a gown of lawn and lace,
white as the flowers that hung in clusters from the Worcester vase at
her side. Now and then Piers lifted his head and watched her for a
moment; and then, with the faint, happy smile of a heart full and at
ease, he opened another letter or paper. Suddenly he became a little
excited. "Why, Kate," he said, "here is my speech on the blessings
which Reform has brought to England. I did not expect such a thing."
"Read it to me, Piers."
"It is entirely too long; although I only reviewed some of the notable
works that followed Reform."
"Such as--"
"Well, the abolition of both black and white slavery; the breaking
up of the gigantic monopoly of the East India Company, and the throwing
open of our ports to the merchants of the world; the inauguration of
a system of national education; the reform of our cruel criminal code;
the abolition of the press gang, and of chimney sweeping by little
children, and such brutalities; the postal reform; and the spread of
such good, cheap literature as the _Penny Magazine_ and _Chambers's
Magazine_. My dear Kate, it would require a book to tell all that the
Reform Bill has done for England. Think of the misery of that last two
years' struggle, and look at our happy country to-day."
"Prosperous, but not happy, Piers. How can we be happy when, all over
the land, mothers are weeping because their children are not. If this
awful Sepoy rebellion was only over; then!"
"Yes," answered Piers; "if it was only over! Surely there never was
a war so full of strange, unnatural cruelties. I wonder where Cecil and
Annabel are."
"Wherever they are, I am sure both of them will be in the way of honour
and duty."
There was a pause, and then Piers asked, "To whom are you writing, dear
Kate?"
"To Dick and John. They do not want to return to their studies this
winter; they wish to travel in Italy."
"Nonsense! They must go through college before they travel. Tell them
so."
The Duke had entered as Piers was speaking, and he listened to his
remark. Then, even as he stooped to kiss Kate, he contradicted it. "I
don't think so, Piers," he said decisively. "Let the boys go. Give
them their own way a little. I do not like to see such spirited youths
snubbed for a trifle."
"But this is not a trifle, Father."
"Yes, it is."
"You insisted on my following the usual plan of college first, and
travel afterwards."
"That was before the days of Reform. The boys are my grandsons. I think
I ought to decide on a question of this kind. What do you say, my dear?"
and he turned his kindly face, with its crown of snowy hair, to Kate.
"It is to be as you say, Father," she answered. "Is there any Indian
news?"
"Alas! Alas!" he answered, becoming suddenly very sorrowful, "there
is calamitous news,--the fort in which Colonel North was shut up, has
fallen; and Cecil and Annabel are dead."
"Oh, not massacred! Do not tell us _that_!" cried Kate, covering her
ears with her hands.
"Not quite as bad. A Sepoy who was Cecil's orderly, and much attached
to him, has been permitted to bring us the terrible news, with some
valuable gems and papers which Annabel confided to him. He told me
that Cecil held out wonderfully; but it was impossible to send him help.
Their food and ammunition were gone; and the troops, who were mainly
Sepoys, were ready to open the gates to the first band of rebels that
approached. One morning, just at daybreak, Cecil knew the hour had
come. Annabel was asleep; but he awakened her. She had been expecting the
call for many days; and, when Cecil spoke, she knew it was death. But
she rose smiling, and answered, 'I am ready, Love.' He held her close
to his breast, and they comforted and strengthened one another until
the tramp of the brutes entering the court was heard. Then Annabel
closed her eyes, and Cecil sent a merciful bullet through the brave
heart that had shared with him, for twenty-five years, every trial and
danger. Her last words were, 'Come quickly, Cecil,' and he followed
her in an instant. The man says he hid their bodies, and they were not
mutilated. But the fort was blown up and burned; and, in this case, the
fiery solution was the best."
"And her children?" whispered Kate.
"The boys are at Rugby. The little girl died some weeks ago."
The Duke was much affected. He had loved Annabel truly, and her tragic
death powerfully moved him. "The Duchess," he said, "had wept herself
ill; and he had promised her to return quickly." But as he went away,
he turned to charge Piers and Kate not to disappoint his grandsons.
"They are such good boys," he added; "and it is not a great matter
to let them go to Italy, if they want to--only send Stanhope with them."
No further objection was then made. Kate had learned that it is folly
to oppose things yet far away, and which are subject to a thousand
unforeseen influences. When the time for decision came, Dick and John
might have changed their wishes. So she only smiled a present assent,
and then let her thoughts fly to the lonely fort where Cecil and Annabel
had suffered and conquered the last great enemy. For a few minutes,
Piers was occupied in the same manner; and when he spoke, it was in the
soft, reminiscent voice which memory--especially sad memory--uses.
"It is strange, Kate," he said, "but I remember Annabel predicting
this end for herself. We were sitting in the white-and-gold parlour
in the London House, where I had found her playing with the cat in a
very merry mood. Suddenly she imagined the cat had scratched her, and
she spread out her little brown hand, and looked for the wound. There
was none visible; but she pointed to a certain spot at the base of her
finger, and said, '>Look, Piers. There is the sign of my doom,--my
death-token. I shall perish in fire and blood.' Then she laughed and
quickly changed the subject, and I did not think it worth pursuing.
Yet it was in her mind, for a few minutes afterwards, she opened her
hand again, held it to the light, and added, 'An old Hindoo priest
told me this. He said our death-warrant was written on our palms, and we
brought it into life with us.'"
"You should have contradicted that, Piers."
"I did. I told her, our death-warrant was in the Hand of Him with whom
alone are the issues of life and death."
"She was haunted by the prophecy," said Kate. "She often spoke of it.
Oh, Piers, how merciful is the veil that hides our days to come!"
"I feel wretched. Let us go to Atheling; it will do us good."
"It is very warm yet, Piers."
"Never mind, I want to see the children. The house is too still. They
have been at Atheling for three days."
"We promised them a week. Harold will expect the week; and Edith and
Maude will rebel at any shorter time."
"At any rate let us go and see them."
"Shall we ride there?"
"Let us rather take a carriage. One of the three may possibly be willing
to come back with us."
Near the gates of Atheling they met the Squire and his grandson Harold.
They had been fishing. "The dew was on the grass when we went away;
and Harold has been into the water after the trout. We are both a bit
wet," said the Squire; "but our baskets are full." And then Harold
leaped into the carriage beside his father and mother, and proudly
exhibited his speckled beauties.
Mrs. Atheling had heard their approach, and she was at the open door
to meet them. Very little change had taken place in her. Her face was
a trifle older, but it was finer and tenderer; and her smile was as
sweet and ready, and her manner as gracious--though perhaps a shade
quieter than in the days when we first met her. Her granddaughter Edith,
a girl of eight years, stood at her side; and Maude, a charming babe of
four, clung to her black-silk apron, and half-hid her pretty face in its
sombre folds. To her mother, Kate was still Kate; and to Kate, mother was
still mother. They went into the house together, little Maude making
a link between them, and Edith holding her mother's hand. But, in the
slight confusion following their arrival, the children all disappeared.
"They were helping Bradley to make tarts," said Mrs. Atheling, "when
I called them, and they have gone back to their pastry and jam. Let them
alone. Dear me! I remember how proud I was when I first cut pastry
round the patty pans with my thumb," and Mrs. Atheling looked at Kate,
who smiled and nodded at her own similar memory.
They were soon seated in the large parlour, where all the windows were
open, and a faint little breeze stirring the cherry leaves round them.
Then the Squire began to talk of the Indian news; and Piers told, with
a pitiful pathos, the last tragic act in Cecil's and Annabel's love
and life. And when he had finished the narration, greatly to every
one's amazement, the Squire rose to his feet, and, lifting his eyes
heavenward, said solemnly,--
"I give hearty thanks for their death, so noble and so worthy of their
faith and their race. I give hearty thanks because God, knowing their
hearts and their love, committed unto them the dismissing of their own
souls from the wanton cruelty of incarnate devils. I give hearty thanks
for Love triumphant over Death, and for that faith in our immortality
which could command an immediate re-union, 'Come quickly, Cecil!'
"There is nothing to cry about," he added, as he resumed his seat.
"Death must come to all of us. It came mercifully to these two. It did
not separate them; they went together. Somewhere in God's Universe they
are now, without doubt, doing His Will together. Let us give thanks for
them."
After a little while, Kate and her mother went away. They had many things
to talk over about which masculine opinions were not necessary, nor
even desirable. And the Squire and Piers had, in a certain way, a similar
confidence. Indeed the Squire told Piers many things he would not have
told any one else,--little wrongs and worries not worth complaining
about to his wife, and perhaps about which he was not very certain of
her sympathy. But with Piers, these crept into his conversation, and were
talked away, or at least considerably lessened, by his son-in-law's
patient interest.
This morning their conversation had an unconscious tone of gratified
prophecy in it. "Edgar is in a lot of trouble," he said; "but then
he seems to enjoy it. His hands gathered in the mill-yard yesterday
and gave him what they call, 'a bit of their mind.' And their 'mind'
isn't what you and I would call a civil one. Luke Staley, a big dyer
from Oldham, got beyond bearing, and told Edgar, if he didn't do
thus and so, he would be made to. And Edgar can be very provoking. He
didn't tell me what he said; but I have no doubt it was a few of the
strongest words he could pick out. And Luke Staley, not having quite such
a big private stock as Edgar, doubled his fist, to make the shortage
good, almost in Edgar's face; and there would have, maybe, been a few
blows, if Edgar had not taken very strong measures at once,--that is,
Piers, he knocked the fellow down as flat as a pancake. And then all
was so still that, Edgar said, the very leaves rustling seemed noisy; and
he told them in his masterful way, they could have five minutes to get
back to their looms. And if they were not back in five minutes, he
promised them he would dump the fires and lock the gates, and they
could go about their business."
"And they went to their looms, of course?"
"To be sure they did. More than that, Luke Staley picked himself up,
and went civilly to Edgar and said, 'That was a good knock-down. I'm
beat this time, Master;' and he offered his hand, blue and black with
dyes, and Edgar took it. My word! how his grandfather Belward would have
enjoyed that scene. I am sorry he is not alive this day. He missed a
deal by dying before Reform. Edgar and he together could keep a thousand
men at their looms--and set the price, too."
"What did the men want?"
"A bit of Reform, of course,--more wage and less work. I am not much
put out of the way now, Piers, with the mill. I get a lot of pleasure
out of it, one road or another. Did I ever tell you about the Excursion
Edgar gave them last week?"
"I have not heard anything about it."
"Well, you see, Edgar sent all his hands and their wives and sweethearts
to the seaside, and gave them a good dinner; and they had a band of
music to play for them, and a little steamer to give them a sail; and
they came home at midnight, singing and in high good humour. Edgar
thought he had pleased them. Not a bit of it! Two nights after they
held a meeting in that Mechanics Hall Mrs. Atheling built for them. What
for? To talk over the jaunt, and try and find out, '_What Master
Atheling was up to_.' You see they were sure he had a selfish motive of
some kind."
"I don't believe he had a single selfish motive; he is not a selfish
man," said Piers.
"I wouldn't swear to his motives, Piers. Between you and me, he wants
to go to Parliament again."
"He ought to be there; it is his native heath, in a manner."
"Well, as I said, one way or another, I get a lot of pleasure out of
these men. There is a truce on now between them and Edgar; but, in the
main, it is a lively truce."
"Edgar seems to enjoy the conditions, also, Father."
"Well, he ought to have a bit of something that pleases him. He has a
deal of contrary things to fight. There is his eldest son."
"Augustus?"
"Yes, Augustus."
"What has Augustus done?"
"He will paint pictures and make little figures, and waste his time
about such things as no Atheling in this world ever bothered his head
about,--unless he wanted his likeness painted. The lad does wonders
with his colours and brushes, and I'll allow that. He brought me a
bit of canvas with that corner by the fir woods on it, and you would
have thought you could pull the grass and drink the water. But I did not
think it right to praise him much. I said, 'Very good, Augustus, but
what will you make by this?'"
"Well?"
"Well, Piers, the lad talked about his ideals, and said Art was its
own reward, and a lot of rubbishy nonsense. But I never expected much
from a boy called Augustus. That was his mother's whim; no Atheling
was ever called such a name before. He wants to go to Italy, and his
father wants him in the mill. Edgar is finding a few things out now he
didn't believe in when he was twenty years old. The point of view is
everything, Piers. Edgar looks at things as a father looks at them now;
then, he had an idea that fathers knew next to nothing. Augustus is no
worse than he was. Maybe, he will come to looms yet; he is just like
the Curzons, and they were loom lovers. Now Cecil, his second boy, has
far better notions. He likes a rod, and a horse, and a gun; and he
thinks a gamekeeper has the best position in the world."
"Mrs. Atheling sets us all an example. She is always doing something
for the people."
"They don't thank her for it. She brings lecturers, and expects them
to go and hear them; and the men would rather be in the cricket field.
She has classes of all kinds for the women and girls; and they don't
want her interfering in their ways and their houses. I'll tell you
what it is, Piers, you cannot write Reform upon flesh and blood as
easy as you can write it upon paper. It will take a few generations
to erase the old marks, and put the new marks on."
"Still Reform has been a great blessing. You know that, Father."
"Publicly, I know it, Piers. Privately, I keep my own ideas. But there
is Kate calling us, and I see the carriage is waiting. Thank God, Reform
has nothing to do with homes. Wives and children are always the same.
We don't want them changed, even for the better."
"You do not mean that?"
"Yes, I do," said the Squire, positively. "My wife's faults are very
dear to me. Do you think I would like to miss her bits of tempers, and
her unreasonableness? Even when she tries to get the better of me, I like
it. I wouldn't have her perfect, not if I could."
Then Piers called for his son; but Harold could not be found. The Squire
laughed. "He has run away," he said. "The boy wants a holiday. I'll
take good care of him. He isn't doing nothing; he is learning to catch a
trout. Many a very clever man can't catch a trout." Then Piers asked
his little daughters to come home with him; and Edith hid herself behind
the ample skirts of her grandfather's coat, and Maude lifted her arms
to her grandmother, and snuggled herself into her bosom.
[Illustration:]
"Come, Piers, we shall have to go home alone," Kate said.
"You have Katherine at home," said the Squire.
And then Kate laughed. "Why, Father," she said, "you speak as if
Katherine was more than we ought to expect. Surely we may have one of
our six children. The Duke thinks he has whole and sole right in Dick
and John; and you have Harold and Edith and Maude."
"And you have Katherine," reiterated the Squire.
When they got back to Exham Hall, the little Lady Katherine was in
the drawing-room to meet them. She was the eldest daughter of the
house, a fair girl of fifteen with her father's refined face and rather
melancholy manner. Piers delighted in her; and there was a sympathy
between them that needed no words. She had a singular love for music,
though from what ancestor it had come no one could tell; and it was
her usual custom after dinner to open the door a little between the
drawing-room and music-room, and play her various studies, while her
father and mother mused, and talked, and listened.
This evening Piers lit his cigar, and Kate and he walked in the garden.
It was warm, and still, and full of moonshine; and the music rose and
fell to their soft reminiscent talk of the many interests that had
filled their lives for the past twenty golden years. And when they were
wearied a little, they came back to the drawing-room and were quiet. For
Katherine was striking the first notes of a little melody that always
charmed them; and as they listened, her girlish voice lifted the song,
and the tender words floated in to them, and sunk into their hearts, and
became a prayer of thanksgiving.
"We have lived and loved together,
Through many changing years;
We have shared each other's gladness,
And wept each other's tears."
And while Kate's face illuminated the words, Piers leaned forward, and
took both her hands in his, and whispered with far tenderer, truer love
than in the old days of his first wooing.
And if any thought of The Other One entered his mind at this hour, it
came with a thanksgiving for a life nobly redeemed by a pure, unselfish
love, and a death which was at once sacrificial and sacramental.
Transcriber's Note:
Spelling and punctuation inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling is preserved.
Author's punctuation style is preserved.
Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
The Table of Contents lists Chapter Sixteenth starting on Page 341.
The physical page is actually Page 340. It has been left as printed.