Soon after daybreak, upon the morning following the occurrence of the
incidents related in the preceding chapter, Lady Wynde’s gray companion
departed from Hawkhurst for Canterbury in a dog-cart which, with
its driver, the baronet’s wife had ordered to be always at Artress’
disposal. She took the early train up to London, her business a secret
between her mistress and herself.
At the usual breakfast hour, eight o’clock, Lady Wynde descended to
the breakfast room. Sir Harold was already there, and greeted her with
his usual tender smile, although he looked somewhat careworn. Their
greetings were scarcely over, and the couple had taken their places at
the table, when the butler appeared, bringing in the morning mail bag.
Sir Harold produced his key and unlocked it. There were a few
newspapers for himself, some packets of silk samples, and a letter from
Madame Elise, her dressmaker, for Lady Wynde. There were two letters
for the baronet, one quite unimportant, which he tossed aside. The
other bore the Indian post-mark.
“A letter from George,” said Sir Harold, his eyes brightening. “No,
it’s not from George. The address is not in his hand. Who can have
written to me in his stead?”
He tore open the letter hastily, his countenance falling.
His first glance was at the date; his second at the signature. An
exclamation broke from his lips as he read aloud the name appended to
the letter: “Cooper Graham, Regimental Surgeon.”
“What can this mean?” he exclaimed, in sudden agitation. “Can George be
ill? Octavia, read the letter to me. The words seem all blurred.”
Lady Wynde took the letter, reading it aloud.
It was long, too long to transcribe here, and its import was terrible
to the baronet. It opened with the announcement that the writer was
the surgeon of Captain Wynde’s regiment, and that Captain Wynde was a
patient under his care. It went on to say that Captain Wynde was the
victim of a terrible and incurable disease under which he had been
suffering for months, and the surgeon had learned that the poor young
man had not written home to his friends the fact of his peril. His
disease was a cancer, which was preying upon his vitals. Captain Wynde
had been relieved of his regimental duties, and sent up into the hill
country, where he now was. The young man’s thoughts by day and night
were of his home--his one longing was to see his father before he died.
Surgeon Graham went on to say that Captain Wynde could not possibly
survive a sea journey; that he could not bear the bracing sea air, nor
the fatigues of the overland route, and he would assuredly die on his
way home. But, he added, that in the cool and quiet seclusion of his
upcountry bungalow, his life could probably be prolonged for some three
months.
Surgeon Graham concluded his startling letter with a further reference
to Captain Wynde’s anxiety to look once more on his father’s face
before he died. He said that the poor young man had desired that the
letter should not be written to Sir Harold, and that the baronet should
be informed of his son’s illness only in the letter which should
announce that son’s death.
This terrible news was a fearful shock to Sir Harold. His son George,
the heir of his name and estates, was dying in a far, foreign land,
with a frightful disease, with no relative nor friend about him to
smooth his pillow in his last agony, or to wipe the death-damp from his
brows. The father sobbed aloud in his agony.
“My boy! my poor boy!” he cried, in a broken voice. “My poor dying boy!”
“It is very sad,” said Lady Wynde, wondering in her own heart if George
Wynde’s death could be made to benefit her pecuniarily. “The surgeon
seems a very kind-hearted person, and he says that George has an
excellent native nurse, George’s man-servant--”
Sir Harold interrupted his wife by a gesture of impatience.
“The man is a Hindoo,” he said. “What consolation can he offer George
in the hour of his death, when his eyes should rest on a tender, loving
face--when his dying hands should grasp the hands of a friend? My poor
brave boy! How could I ever consent to his going out to India? All his
bright, military genius, all his longings to distinguish himself in the
army, must end in an early Indian grave! But he shall not die with not
one of his kindred beside him. We must go to him, Octavia. We shall
reach him in time.”
Sir Harold seized upon his unopened _Times_, and glanced over the
advertisements.
“A steamer sails from Marseilles two days hence,” he announced. “We
must be off to-day, immediately, to catch it. I will have a bag packed
at once. Order your maid to pack your trunks, Octavia--”
He paused, not comprehending the surprised stare in her ladyship’s bold
black eyes.
“You seem to be laboring under a mistake Sir Harold,” said Lady Wynde,
coolly. “If you choose to go out to India, you can do so. George is
your son and heir, and I suppose it would really look better if you
were to go. But as to my hurrying by sea and land, by day and night,
to witness the death of a young man I never saw, the idea is simply
preposterous. My health could never endure the strain of such a
fatigue. You would have two graves to make instead of one.”
The lines in Sir Harold’s face contracted as in a sudden spasm.
“I--I was selfish to think of your going, Octavia,” he said
sorrowfully. “It is true that we should have to travel day and night to
reach Marseilles in time to catch the steamer. The passage of the Red
Sea would also be hard for you. But I was thinking of my poor brave boy
dying there among strangers, with no woman beside him. If--if you could
have gone to him, my wife, and let him feel that he was going from one
mother here to another mother _there_--”
“I should like to go, if only my health would permit,” sighed Lady
Wynde. “But why do you not take your daughter with you?”
The father shook his head.
“She is so young,” he said. “She is so fond of poor George. I cannot
cast so heavy a shadow over her future life as that visit to her
brother’s death-bed would be. No, Octavia, I will go alone.”
He arose and went out, leaving his breakfast untouched. Lady Wynde
sipped her coffee leisurely, and ate her breakfast with untroubled
appetite. Then she proceeded to her own private sitting-room and took
her place at one of the windows, watching the whirling snow-flakes of
the February storm.
Sir Harold found her here when he came in, dressed for his journey.
He had ordered a carriage, which was ready. His travelling bag was
packed, and had been taken below. He had come in to say good-bye to his
wife.
“What a great change a single hour has wrought in our lives!” he said,
as he came up to Lady Wynde and put his arms around her. “Octavia, my
darling, it wrings my heart to leave you. Write to me by every post. I
shall remain with my boy until all is over. Tell me all the home news.
You will have Neva home at Easter, and love her for my sake! She will
be our only child soon!”
He embraced his wife with passionate affection, and murmured words of
anguished farewell. He tore himself from her, but at the door he turned
back, and spoke to her with a solemnity she had never seen in him
before.
“Octavia,” he said, “at this moment a strange presentiment comes over
me--a sudden horror--a chill as of death! Perhaps I am to die out there
in India! If--if anything happens to me, Octavia, promise me to be good
to my Neva.”
“It is not necessary to promise,” said Lady Wynde, “but to please you,
I promise!”
Sir Harold’s keen blue eyes, full of anguish, rested in a long
steady gaze upon that false handsome face, and the solemnity of his
countenance increased.
“You will be Neva’s guardian, if I die,” he said, in a broken voice.
“I trust you absolutely. God do unto you, Octavia, as you do unto my
orphan child!”
How those words rang in the ears of Lady Wynde long afterward!
Sir Harold gave her a last embrace, and dashed down the stairs and
sprang into the carriage. Lady Wynde watched him with tearless eyes as
he drove down the avenue.
When he had disappeared from her sight, she said to herself:
“Of course I could have done nothing to put an end to Sir Harold’s life
this morning. I only hope he will die in India--to save me the trouble
of--of doing anything when he gets back!”
Sir Harold proceeded to Canterbury with all speed. On arriving, he
proceeded directly to his solicitor’s, had a new will drawn up,
constituting Lady Wynde his daughter’s personal guardian, and making
Neva his sole heiress in the event of her brother’s death, Lady Wynde
having been sufficiently provided for by her marriage settlements. The
will duly signed and witnessed, Sir Harold hastened to the station,
catching the train for Dover.
He crossed to Calais by the first boat, and went on to Marseilles, by
way of Paris, without stopping even to see his daughter. He was not
only in time to get passage by the _Messageries Imperiales_ steamer,
but had an hour to spare. In this hour he wrote a long and very
tender letter to his daughter, telling her of her brother’s illness,
and hinting of the gloom that had settled down upon his own soul. He
begged her if anything happened to him on this journey, to love her
step-mother, and to obey her in all things, regarding Lady Wynde’s
utterances as if they came from Sir Harold.
He also wrote a note to his wife, and sent the two ashore to be posted
by one of the agents of the company, just as the vessel weighed anchor
for Suez.
In thirty-five days after leaving home he was in the Indian hill
country, and beside his dying son.
Lady Wynde went out very little after her husband’s departure. She gave
no more dinner parties, and behaved with such admirable discretion that
her neighbors were full of praises of her. Although young, handsome
and admired, presiding over one of the finest places in the county,
with no one to direct or thwart her movements, the most censorious
tongue could find nothing to condemn in her.
The only recreation she allowed herself were her weekly visits to
London, ostensibly to see Madame Elise, but as the ashen-eyed Artress
always accompanied her, they excited no comment even in her own
household.
Easter drew near, and Lady Wynde wrote to her step-daughter that it
would not be convenient to have her at Hawkhurst during the holidays,
and ordered her to remain at her school.
The spring months passed slowly. Lady Wynde wrote by every post to her
husband, and received letters as frequently. George’s minutest symptoms
were described to her by the anxious father, and George himself,
looking at his step-mother through his father’s eyes, sent her loving
and pathetic messages, to which she duly responded.
Thus the time wore on until the midsummer.
About the middle of July, Lady Wynde received a black-bordered letter
from her husband stating that his son and heir was dead. He had died
at his up-country bungalow, after an illness which had been protracted
considerably beyond the anticipations of his surgeon. Sir Harold wrote
that he was exhausted by long nursing, and that he should remain a
fortnight longer at his son’s bungalow to recruit his own health, and
that he should then start for home.
“I wish he would come,” said Lady Wynde discontentedly, to her gray
companion. “I am tired of this dull existence. I am anxious to rid
myself of the trammels of my present marriage, and to be free to marry
again.”
“You can be free within a week after Sir Harold’s return,” said
Artress. “And he will be here in September.”
“I shall be free in September,” mused Lady Wynde, with sparkling eyes.
“A widow with four thousand a year! Ah, if only some good demon would
bring about that happy fact, leaving _my_ hands unstained with crime?”
It seemed as if her familiar demon had anticipated her prayer.
Some two weeks later, a second black-bordered letter was brought to
Lady Wynde. It was in an unfamiliar handwriting, and proved to be from
Surgeon Graham.
It announced the death of Sir Harold Wynde!
The surgeon stated that the baronet had made all arrangements for
returning to England, and that he had gone for a last ride among the
hills. He had taken a jungle path, but being well armed and attended by
a Hindoo servant, had anticipated no trouble. Some hours after he had
set out on his ride, about the time the surgeon looked for his return,
the Hindoo servant, covered with dust, rode up alone in a very panic
of terror. With difficulty he told his story. Sir Harold Wynde had
been attacked by a tiger that had leaped upon him from the jungle, and
before his terrified servant could come to his aid, he had been dragged
from his saddle, with the life-blood welling from his torn throat and
breast. The servant, appalled, had not dared to fire, knowing that no
human power could help Sir Harold in his extremity, and the baronet had
been killed before his eyes. The Hindoo had then fled homeward to tell
the awful story.
The surgeon added, that a party had been made up to visit the scene
of the tragedy. A pool of blood, fragments of Sir Harold’s garments,
the bones of his horse, and the foot-prints of a tiger, all tended to
the confirmation of the Hindoo’s story. A hunt was organized for the
tiger, and he was found near the same spot on the following day and
killed.
We have given a brief epitome of the letter that declared to Lady Wynde
that her prayer was answered, and that she was a widow.
She was sitting in the drawing-room at Hawkhurst when the letter was
brought in to her. She was still sitting there, the letter lying on her
lap, twice read, when her gray companion stole into the room.
“A letter from Sir Harold, Octavia?” said Artress, glancing at the
black-bordered missive.
“No, it is from that Surgeon Graham,” answered her ladyship, with an
exultant thrill in her low, soft voice. “You cannot guess the news,
Artress. Sir Harold is dead!”
“Dead?”
“Yes,” cried Lady Wynde, “and I am a widow. Is it not glorious? A
widow, well-jointured and free to marry again! Ha, ha! Tell the
household the sad news, Artress, and tell them all that I am too
overcome with grief to speak to them. Let the bell at the village be
set tolling. Send a notice of the death to the _Times_. I am a widow,
and the guardian of the heiress of Hawkhurst! You must write to my
step-daughter of her bereavement, and also drop a note to Craven. A
widow, and without crime. The heiress of Hawkhurst in my hands to do
with as I please! Your future is to be linked with mine, my young Neva,
and a fate your father never destined for you shall be yours. I stand
upon the pinnacle of success at last.”