‘HE HAS GONE--FOR EVER!’
Mrs. Blencarrow spent that evening with her children; she made no
attempt to leave them after dinner. A lull had come into her heart after
the storm. She was aware that it was only temporary, nothing real in it;
but in the midst of a tempest even a few minutes of stillness and
tranquillity are dear. She had found on the mantelpiece of the
business-room the intimation, ‘Away on business till Monday,’ and though
it perplexed, it also soothed her. And the brothers returning with the
proof of Kitty’s statement, the extract which no doubt they would bring
from those books to confound her, could now scarcely arrive to-night. A
whole evening undisturbed among the children, who might so soon be torn
from her, in her own familiar place, which might so soon be hers no
longer; an evening like the past, perhaps the last before the coming of
that awful future when she must go forth to frame her life anew,
loveless and hopeless and ashamed. It was nothing but ‘the torrent’s
smoothness ere it dash below,’ the moment of calm before the storm; and
yet it was calm, and she was thankful for that one soft moment before
the last blow fell.
The children were again lively and happy over their round game; the
sober, kind governess--about whom Mrs. Blencarrow had already concluded
in her own mind that she could secure at least the happiness of the
little ones if their mother were forced to leave them--was seated with
them, even enjoying the fun, as it is a blessed dispensation of
Providence that such good souls often do. Emmy was the only one who was
out of it; she was in her favourite corner with a book, and always a
watchful glance at her mother. Emmy, with that instinct of the heart
which stood her in place of knowledge, had a perception, she could not
have told how, of the pause in her mother’s soul. She would do nothing
to disturb that pause. She sat praying mutely that it might last, that
it might be peace coming back. Naturally Emmy, even with all her
instinct, did not know the terrible barrier that stood between her
mother and peace.
And thus they all sat, apparently in full enjoyment of the sweet
household quiet, which by moments was so noisy and full of commotion,
the mother seated with the screen between her and the great blazing
fire, the children round the table, Emmy with her book.
Mrs. Blencarrow’s eyes dwelt upon them with the tenderest, the most
pathetic of smiles.
‘She looked on sea, and hill, and shore,
As she might never see them more,’
with a throb of tragic wonder rising in her heart how she could ever
have thought that this was not enough for her--her children, and her
home, and this perfect peace.
It was already late and near their bedtime when the fly from the station
drove up to the door. Mrs. Blencarrow did not hear until some minutes
after Emmy had raised her head to listen, and then for a moment longer
she would not hear it, persuading herself that it was the wind rising
among the trees. When at last it was unmistakable, and the great hall
door was heard to open, and even--or so she thought in the sudden shiver
of agitation that seized her--a breath of icy wind came in, sweeping
through the house, she was for the moment paralyzed with dismay and
fear. She said something to hurry the children to bed, to bid them
go--go! But she was inaudible even to herself, and did not attempt, nor
could indeed form any further thought on any subject, except horror of
the catastrophe which she felt to be approaching in this moment of
peace. If it had but waited till to-morrow! Till an hour later, when
she should have been alone!
Motionless, holding by her chair, not even hearing the wondering
question, ‘Who can be coming so late?’ Mrs. Blencarrow, with wide-open
eyes fixed on the door, and her under-lip dropping in mortal anguish,
awaited her fate.
It was the avengers returning from their search; her brothers hurrying
in one after the other. The Colonel said, ‘How delightfully warm!’
rubbing his hands. Roger (Roger was always the kindest) came up to her
and took her hand. She had risen up to meet them, and grasped with her
other hand the only thing she could find to support her--the top of the
screen which stood between her and the fire.
‘Joan!’ her brothers began, both speaking together.
She was hoarse, her lips were baked, it was all she could do to
articulate.
‘Nothing before the children!’ she said, with a harsh and breathless
voice.
‘Joan, this does not matter. We have come to beg your pardon, most
humbly, most penitently.’
‘Fact is, it must all have been a mistake----’
‘Say an invention, Reginald.’
‘An invention--a cursed lie of that confounded girl! Hallo!’
There was a sudden crash and fall. The children all rushed to see, and
Mrs. Blencarrow stood with the light streaming upon her, and the gilt
bar of the screen in her hand. She had crushed it in her agitated grasp;
the pretty framework of gilded wood and embroidery lay in a heap at her
feet. The sound and shock had brought the blood rushing to her ghastly
tragical countenance. She stood looking vaguely at the bar in her hand;
but none of the children had any eyes for her--they were all on their
knees in a group round the gilded ruin. Save Mr. d’Eyncourt and Emmy, no
one noticed the terrible look in her face.
‘Come and sit down here while they pick up the pieces,’ said Roger.
‘Joan, I am afraid you are very angry, and you have reason; that we
should have believed such a slander--of all the women in the world--of
you! But, my dear, we are heartily ashamed of ourselves, if that is
anything.’
‘Most penitent,’ said the Colonel, ‘thoroughly ashamed. I said to
Roger, “If ever there were men who had reason to be proud of their
sister----”’
‘And yet we gave a moment’s credence to such a barefaced lie!’
She heard them dimly as from a far distance, and saw them as through a
fog; but the voices thus echoing and supplementing each other like a
dull chorus gave her time to recover. She said sedately, not with any
enthusiasm:
‘I am glad that you have found out--your mistake.’
Oh, heaven! Oh, miserable fate! But it was no mistake.
Mrs. Blencarrow found herself after a time taking Kitty’s defence.
‘She got her own pardon for it. Her mother is a great gossip, and loves
a tale against her neighbour. Don’t blame the girl too much.’
‘If you excuse her, Joan, who should say a word? But why in all the
world, thinking of an unlikely person to fasten such a slander upon, did
she choose you?’
‘Am I so unlikely, when my brothers believed it?’ she said, with a
strange smile.
An hour full of commotion followed. The boys never tired in showing each
other and everybody else the flaw in the wood where the framework of the
screen had broken.
‘But you must have leant on it very heavily, mamma.’
‘She wanted to break our heads with it,’ said the Colonel, who was in
high spirits.
‘Fancy mamma breaking Uncle Rex’s head with the screen!’ the children
cried with shrieks of laughter; and thus, in a tumult of amusement and
gaiety, the evening closed.
Mrs. Blencarrow went to her room with something cold and hard at her
heart like a stone. They had begged her pardon. They had not found that
record. By some chance, by some miracle--how could she tell what?--she
had escaped detection. But it was true; nothing could alter the fact.
Nothing could spirit away _him_--the husband--the man to whom she had
bound herself; the owner of her allegiance, of herself, if he chose to
exercise his rights. It occurred to her, in the silence of her room,
when she was alone there and dared to think, that her present escape was
but an additional despair. Had they found it, as they ought to have
found it, the worst would have been over. But now, to have the
catastrophe indefinitely postponed--to have it before her every day--the
sword hanging over her head, her mind rehearsing day and night what it
would be! Would it not be better to go and tell them yet, to have it
over? Her hand was on her door to obey this impulse, but her heart
failed her. Who could tell? God might be so merciful as to let her die
before it was known.
The two gentlemen spent a very merry morning on the ice with the
children, and in the afternoon left Blencarrow the best of friends with
their sister, grateful to her for her forgiveness. Mrs. Blencarrow did
not think it necessary to go out to the pond that afternoon--she was
tired, she said--and the skating, which often lasts so short a time that
everybody feels it a duty to take advantage of it, had cleared the
house. She spent the afternoon alone, sitting over the fire, cold with
misery and anxiety and trouble. Everything seemed right again, and yet
nothing was right--nothing. False impressions, false blame, can be
resisted; but who can hold up their head against a scandal that is true?
It was one of the women servants, in the absence of everybody else, who
showed Mr. Germaine into the drawing-room. He was himself very cold and
fatigued, having travelled all the previous night, and half the day,
returning home. He came to the fire and stood beside her, holding out
his hands to the warmth.
‘You are alone, Mrs. Blencarrow?’
‘Quite alone. You look as if you had something to tell me. For God’s
sake what is it? No news can come to me but bad news,’ she said,
rising, standing by him, holding out her hands in piteous appeal.
‘I don’t know whether you will think it bad news or good. I have come
straight from Liverpool, from the deck of a ship which sailed for
Australia to-day.’
‘What do you mean? What do you mean? A ship--which sailed for
Australia?’
‘I have come from--Everard Brown. He has thought it best to go away. I
have brought you a statement of all the affairs, showing how he has
carried with him a certain sum of money. Mrs. Blencarrow, it is too
great a shock; let me call someone.’
‘No!’ She caught at his arm, evidently not knowing what it was upon
which she leant. ‘No, tell me all--all!’
‘He has taken means--I know not what--to destroy all evidence. He has
gone away, never meaning to return. It is all wrong--wrong from
beginning to end, the money and everything; but he had a generous
meaning. He wanted to set you free. He has gone--for ever, Mrs.
Blencarrow!’
She had fallen at his feet without a word.
* * * * *
People said afterwards that they had thought for some time that Mrs.
Blencarrow was not looking well, that she was in a state to take any
illness. And there was a flaw in the drains which nobody had discovered
till then. She had a long illness, and at one time was despaired of.
Things were complicated very much by the fact that Brown, her trusted
and confidential agent, had just emigrated to Australia, a thing he had
long set his heart upon, before she fell ill. But her brother, Mr. Roger
d’Eyncourt, was happily able to come to Blencarrow and look after
everything, and she recovered finally, being a woman with a fine
constitution and in the prime of life. The family went abroad as soon as
she was well enough to travel, and have remained so, with intervals of
London, ever since. When Reginald comes of age, Blencarrow will no doubt
be opened once more; but the care of the estate had evidently become too
much for his mother, and it is not thought that she will venture upon
such a charge again. It is now in the hands of a regular man of
business, which is perhaps better on the whole.
Kitty fell into great and well-deserved disgrace when it was found out
that she had seen what nobody else could see. Walter even, with a man’s
faculty for abandoning his partner in guilt, declared that he never saw
it, that Kitty must have dreamt it, that she tried to make him believe
it was Joan Blencarrow when it was only Jane Robinson, and many other
people were of opinion that it was all Kitty’s cleverness to get herself
forgiven and her own runaway match condoned.
That match turned out, like most others, neither perfect happiness nor
misery. Perhaps neither husband nor wife could have explained ten years
after how it was that they were so idiotic as to think that they could
not live without each other; but they get on together very comfortably,
all the same.
THE END.