immediately on the discovery of what had happened, clement was summoned by the major, who then conducted hermia to another room. a brief examination sufficed to prove that miss pengarvon must have been dead a couple of hours at the least. when doctor bland arrived a little later he seemed in no way surprised. his patient had been suffering from heart disease for years, and in no case could a fatal termination have been much longer delayed.
at last barney dale's lips were unsealed; his mistress's death had absolved him from his oath. he was now as willing to tell all he knew as before he had been obstinately dumb. with what degree of interest his narrative was listened to may readily be imagined.
on that snowy december night, now more than twenty years ago, poor isabel was all but dead when carried into the house by barney and his wife. she never recovered consciousness, nor even as much as opened her eyes, but presently breathed three or four faint sighs and was gone. her infant, lying warmly against its mother's bosom, had suffered but little harm. there was no wedding-ring on isabel's finger, but one was found suspended by a ribbon round her neck. on the child's clothes a third name had been carefully erased, the words "hermia rivers" being alone left. miss pengarvon had at once leaped to the conclusion that her sister had not been married. it would never do to let the world know that the family honor of the "proud pengarvons" had been smirched. at any and every cost isabel and her fault must be hidden away. barney dale had a nephew in stavering, a carpenter by trade; this man secretly made an oak coffin, and conveyed it to broome after nightfall. exactly below the green parlor, and hollowed out of the soft sandstone on which the hall was built, was an underground room which had been used as a hiding-place in the old, bad days of religious intolerance and persecution, and was known as the "priest's chamber." access to it was obtained by means of a narrow stairway in the thickness of the wall, hidden by a sliding panel behind the old bureau.
the secret of the chamber had always been carefully confined to members of the family, and not even barney had known of its existence until miss pengarvon revealed to him her design, which was to make it the last resting-place of her sister. accordingly, in the dead of night, a portion of the flooring of the green parlor was taken up by barney and his nephew, and the coffin and its inmate lowered into the vault below--miss letitia, on her knees, weeping and praying silently, while miss pengarvon stood by, frowning and dry-eyed. the flooring was then replaced, and a month later, barney's nephew, who had long been desirous of emigrating, had his passage to the states paid by miss pengarvon, and in addition, a sum of money given him to enable him to make a fair start in life when he got there.
hermia was brought up by a sister of barney, who lived at a distance, until she was three years old, at which age she passed into the keeping of john brancker and his sister.
next day clement hazeldine went back home and got into harness again without an hour's delay. hermia, miss brancker, and the major stayed at broome over the funeral. it was a double funeral, for miss pengarvon and the sister whom living she had so cruelly treated were laid to rest in one grave. no will could be found; neither, so far as could be ascertained, had miss pengarvon ever made one. broome, and the two small farms pertaining to it, together with the accumulated savings of the two sisters during a long course of years, all devolved upon hermia as next of kin. she was the last of the old race.
it was only natural that edward hazeldine's thoughts should turn again in the direction of miss winterton, now that varrel, by his confession, had absolved the elder mr. hazeldine's memory of the charge of self-murder. the confession had been published in the newspapers, and the facts of the case were now known to the world at large. sometimes edward told himself that he would tempt fortune once again at the very first opportunity which should offer itself; at other times he said to himself, "although my father's memory has been cleared, nothing can do away with the fact that i proposed to miss winterton at a time when i had every reason to believe that he had committed suicide, trusting to her and the world's ignorance of that fact for the successful issue of my suit. how is it possible that she should ever forgive me?"
whether or no he would ever have summoned up courage enough to urge his suit again may well be doubted, had not the lady herself, after a fashion which it would be futile for one of the opposite sex to attempt to describe, contrived to make him aware that his chance of success might not, perhaps, be quite so hopeless as in his more desponding moods he was inclined to believe it to be. in any case, he did propose, and was accepted.
it was not till some time after she had made him happy that he ventured to ask miss winterton for an explanation of one point which had always been a mystery to him, namely, by what means she had been led to believe that his father had committed suicide. her explanation was a very simple one.
it has been mentioned that ephraim judd had two sisters, one of whom, at the time of his illness and death, was in service at seaham lodge, while the other, eliza by name, was at home, waiting till she could obtain another situation. eliza, who had a large measure of the curiosity which was so marked a trait of her brother's character, was penetrated by a strong desire to ascertain what it was ephraim had to say to doctor hazeldine which no one else must be allowed to hear. ephraim's room was divided from the next room by a pair of folding doors, behind which eliza took up a position as listener, the next time doctor hazeldine called. she could not hear all that passed, but she heard what she took for a positive statement by her brother that mr. hazeldine's death was the result of his own act. like ephraim, she was close of tongue, and she spoke of what she had heard to no one but her sister. this sister was a favorite of miss winterton, filling among other duties, those of maid to her, and she it was who repeated the story eliza had told her. as a consequence, miss winterton at once sent for eliza, and then bound both the girls to secrecy; and, so far as was known, neither of them had broken the promise they had then given her. at the same time that miss winterton told all this to edward, she led him to understand that, had he frankly confided to her when he first proposed what at that time he believed to be the truth about his father, her answer might have been a different one. it had been his secrecy in the matter, not the manner of his father's death, which, for the time being, had turned her against him.
to frank derison a few parting words are due.
as week by week his balance at the ashdown savings bank kept on melting away, he vowed to himself, not once but a hundred times--generally when on his way home with empty pockets--that he would never cross the threshold of the "bons frères" again. but by the time next evening, or the evening after that, had come round, he was again under the influence of the fatal fascination, so that even while telling himself he would not go, his feet would lead him, almost as it seemed in his own despite, in the direction of the railway station; and when once he got as far as that he knew there was no going back for him. at length the day came when he drew his last sovereign out of the bank, yet even then he lacked the strength of mind to put his foot down and say resolutely to himself: "not a single step further will i advance on the pleasant but delusive path which has already led me to the brink of ruin." instead of that, he began to borrow money here and there among his many friends and acquaintances, but chiefly from mr. howes. mr. howes was a bachelor, and a thrifty man to boot, and had a pleasant little banking-account of his own. he made no demur about lending frank a few pounds now and again, being careful to take his i.o.u. in return. in all probability the young man would one day be taken into partnership, and mr. howes calculated that whatever sums he might now disburse in the way of loans would be repaid him many times over, if not in one form then in another, after that event should have come to pass. it is to be said in his favor that, although he sometimes wondered why frank stood in need of such frequent loans, he had not the remotest suspicion of the purpose to which the money was really put. since mr. avison had spoken to him, frank had to all seeming developed into one of the most sober and steady-going of bank officials. as already stated, all his gambling was done at dulminster.
but by this time the "bons frères" club had acquired for itself a very unenviable reputation among the more staid circles of dulminster society. more than one promising young man had ruined himself, or had been ruined by others--it came to the same thing in the end--in that cosy octagon room built out at the back of the club, where so many pleasant fellows forgathered night after night. by-and-bye it began to be whispered about that the place was little better than a den of thieves. thus it came to pass that one day an information was sworn against the club by the father of a youngster who had come to grief within its walls, the consequence of which was that the same night the police made a raid on the premises, and not content with seizing the whole of the gambling plant, they marched everyone they found there to the police-station, where names and addresses were taken down, and a summons handed to each delinquent to appear next morning before the magistrates. among those thus taken red-handed was frank derison. from that moment, as he knew full well, his career at the bank was at an end. such an escapade was one of those things which mr. avison was the last man in he world to overlook; indeed, frank never went near him afterwards. two days later, without saying a word to anyone, he took the train for london and enlisted.
this little affair of frank's happened about a fortnight before richard varrel's confession was made public. when mr. avison read the confession in his morning paper, he saw the way open to him for an act of reparation, which he had been longing for some time to carry into effect, but which his pride--in this instance, surely, a very foolish sort of pride--had hitherto kept him from doing. now, however, he wrote a very gracious note to john brancker, in which the latter was asked to call upon the banker without delay. it will be sufficient to record the result of the meeting, which was that john was asked to accept the position of junior partner in the firm.
but little more remains to be told.
it was a great mortification to poor mrs. hazeldine, and one which it took her some time to recover from, to find that both lady glendoyle and the hon. mrs. gore-bandon, after calling twice upon her--their carriages and liveried servants waiting for them at the door meanwhile--dropped her as easily and quietly as they had taken her up. whether their calls in the first instance had originated in a feeling of sympathy for her in her great affliction, not unmixed, it may be, with a hardly acknowledged wish to ascertain the particulars of the late tragedy at the fountain-head, or whether they discovered certain qualities in mrs. hazeldine which seemed to render it desirable that they should not cultivate her further, were points best known to themselves, and as to which they took nobody into their confidence. in any case, the fact remained the same--the widow saw them no more.
after a time--that is to say, when her husband had been dead about half a year--mrs. hazeldine, at fanny's prompting and instigation, began to receive such of her friends and acquaintances as chose to favor her with their company to five o'clock tea. it was a species of mild dissipation, such as she would not have ventured upon during her husband's lifetime; but she was not long in discovering that it imparted a zest to existence undreamed of before.
mrs. hazeldine could not afford to keep a carriage, and being naturally indolent, she had a great distaste for walking exercise, while she was one of those women who have a perpetual craving for society, and whose mental exigencies, so to call them, are not satisfied without an ample supply of gossip--not for the world would one call it scandal--and a knowledge of all that is happening within the limited round of their acquaintance, from the arrival of mrs. a.'s latest baby to the appearance at church of mrs. z. in a new and ultrafashionable bonnet.
as matters were now arranged, she could enjoy herself to her heart's content without the necessity of setting foot across her own threshold. to be expensively dressed--and mourning can be made very expensive, as some of us know to our cost--and to receive a constant succession of visitors in your own drawing-room, who are just as ready to tell you everything there is to tell--with, it may be, a few more or less fanciful additions of the narrator's own incorporated here and there--as you are to listen to it, and yet who neither put you to too much outlay in return, nor stay long enough to bore you--can anything be more delightful?
to fanny hazeldine the first three or four months after her father's death were the dreariest she had ever known. the dreadful nature of the tragedy which had overshadowed her own and her mother's life had the effect of intensifying their bereavement in the eyes of the world, and, for the time, of isolating them more completely than if mr. hazeldine's death had resulted from natural causes.
that fanny doffed her "horrid crape" at the earliest possible date goes without saying. she was fully alive to the fact that the soft semi-tones of half-mourning became her admirably; and before long she began to plume herself for further conquests.
but, indeed, when she came once more to cast her eyes around, the prospect was a most disheartening one; for where is the use of a young amazon donning her armor and going forth on conquest bent, when with every year that passes it becomes a more difficult matter to find anyone on whom it is worth while to try one's prowess? and that such is becoming the case in ashdown can no longer be denied. more and more the young men, while not yet out of their teens, take to turning their back on their provincial homes, going to fight the battle of life, and find wives for themselves elsewhere.
well may fanny hazeldine, as one birthday comes treading on the heels of another, begin to feel a touch of despair. in years gone by she was an arrant flirt, having entered the lists at an early age, and in pure recklessness, and because she loved the game too well to bring it willingly to a close, spurned two or three really excellent offers. now it seems as if the fates are about to avenge themselves, as they have a way of doing, sooner or later, by allowing her--dreadful phrase!--to be "left on the shelf."
hermia and clement were married about three months after miss pengarvon's death, by which time clement had succeeded to a great part of the practice of doctor finchdown, whom advancing years had compelled to retire. a tenant was found for broome in the person of a wealthy manufacturer. even had her husband been a man of independent means, instead of a hard-working country doctor, hermia would have shrunk from making the old house her home. it was associated in her mind with too many painful episodes in connection with her mother for her ever to have felt happy under its roof. at her wish, the entrance to the "priest's chamber" was bricked up, and the green parlor panelled afresh.
barney dale, liberally pensioned by hermia, took up his abode with his niece and her husband. twice a year he spends a week with mr. and mrs. hazeldine at ashdown, on which occasions the old man is made much of and petted to his heart's content.
major strickland, who is fond of his club, fluctuates between london and oaklands, which is the name of doctor hazeldine's new house, where his room is always kept in readiness for him, so that he can come and go as the whim takes him, which is just what he likes to do.
the latest news anent edward hazeldine is to the effect that he has at length definitely made up his mind to offer himself to the electors of ashdown as a candidate at the next general election. in this he is encouraged by his wife, who has her ambitions; and as lord elstree, who has considerable influence in the borough, has promised to back him up in every legitimate way possible, there seems a fair chance of success for him, more especially in view of the fact that the present member has contrived to render himself thoroughly obnoxious to a large number of his supporters.
when, in due course, a son and heir made his appearance at oaklands, at the christening uncle john and aunt charlotte acted as sponsors for the child. when master hazeldine woke up in his cot after the christening guests had gone and made his voice heard in the land, his mother, on going to him, was surprised to find that his chubby fingers were firmly grasping a piece of paper. this, on being examined, was found to be a cheque for the twelve hundred and odd pounds about which we know something already. it was uncle john and aunt charlotte's gift to their godson.
should you chance to walk past nairn cottage almost any friday evening between eight and ten o'clock, the strains of music proceeding therefrom will be pretty sure to greet your ears, for the old quartete parties have by no means been allowed to fall into desuetude. there, as of old, mr. kittaway's puckered face stares at you over his high cravat, what time, with an antiquated flourish of his bow arm, he evokes the resonant accents of his beloved 'cello, which at his bidding seems to do everything but speak. john with his flute, and clement with his fiddle, play as if they had one soul between them, while hermia at the piano with deft fingers blends the whole into one rich, full, harmonious volume of sound. dear aunt charlotte with a kitten on her lap and a piece of crewel-work in her hands, which, however, progresses but slowly, listens and looks on, placidly happy in the happiness of those she loves. stretched at full length on the hearthrug may be seen a sturdy urchin intent on putting together a more than usually intricate puzzle picture, and thereby proving to all and sundry what a clever and important personage he is. but, as far as his mother and his aunt charlotte are concerned, no such proof is needed. they have been fully convinced of the fact long ago.
