Elster's Folly Part 36

"Right, did you say? Right? There cannot be a question about that. Which is the more fitting to grace your coronet: Maude, or a country parson's daughter?"

"I'm sure if this goes on I shall shoot myself," cried Val. "Taken to task at the Rectory, taken to task here--shooting would be bliss to it."

"No doubt," returned the dowager. "It can't be a very pleasant position for you. Any one but you would get out of it, and set the matter at rest."

"I should like to know how."

"So long as you are a single man they naturally remain on the high ropes at the Rectory, with their fine visions for Anne--"

"I wish you would understand once for all, Lady Kirton, that the Ashtons are our equals in every way," he interrupted: "and," he added, "in worth and goodness infinitely our superiors."

The dowager gave a sniff. "You think so, I know, Hart. Well, the only plan to bring you peace is this: make Maude your wife. At once; without delay."

The proposition took away Val's breath. "I could not do it, Lady Kirton.

To begin with, they'd bring an action against me for breach of promise."

"Breach of nonsense!" wrathfully returned the dowager. "Was ever such a thing heard of yet, as a doctor of divinity bringing an action of that nature? He'd lose his gown."

"I wish I was at the bottom of a deep well, never to come up again!"

mentally aspirated the unfortunate man.

"Will--you--marry--Maude?" demanded the dowager, with a fixed denunciation in every word, which was as so much slow torture to her victim.

"I wish I could. You must see for yourself, Lady Kirton, that I cannot.

Maude must see it."

"I see nothing of the sort. You are bound to her in honour."

"All I can do is to remain single to the end of my days," said Val, after a pause. "I have been a great villain to both, and I cannot repair it to either. The one stands in the way of the other."

"But--"

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," he interrupted, so peremptorily that the old woman trembled for her power. "This is my final decision, and I will not hear another word. I feel ready to hang myself, as it is. You tell me I cannot marry any other than Maude without being a scoundrel; the same thing precisely applies to Anne. I shall remain single."

"You will give me one promise--for Maude's sake. Not, after this, to marry Anne Ashton."

"Why, how can I do it?" asked he, in tones of exasperation. "Don't you see that it is impossible? I shall not see the Ashtons again, ma'am; I would rather go a hundred miles the other way than face them."

The countess-dowager probably deemed she had said sufficient for safety; for she went out and shut the door after her. Lord Hartledon dashed his hair from his brow with a hasty hand, and was about to leave the room by the other door, when Maude came up to him.

"Is this to be the end of it, Percival?"

She spoke in tones of pain, of tremulous tenderness; all her pride gone out of her. Lord Hartledon laid his hand upon her shoulder, meeting the dark eyes that were raised to his through tears.

"Do you indeed love me like this, Maude? Somehow I never thought it."

"I love you better than the whole world. I love you enough to give up everything for you."

The emphasis conveyed a reproach--that he did not "give up everything"

for her. But Lord Hartledon kept his head for once.

"Heaven knows my bitter repentance. If I could repair this folly of mine by any sacrifice on my own part, I would gladly do it. Let me go, Maude!

I have been here long enough, unless I were more worthy. I would ask you to forgive me if I knew how to frame the pet.i.tion."

She released the hand of which she had made a prisoner--released it with a movement of petulance; and Lord Hartledon quitted the room, the words she had just spoken beating their refrain on his brain. It did not occur to him in his gratified vanity to remember that Anne Ashton, about whose love there could be no doubt, never avowed it in those pretty speeches.

"Well?" said Mr. Carr, when he got back to the dining-room.

"It is not well, Carr; it is ill. There can be no release. The old dowager won't have it."

"But surely you will not resign Miss Ashton for Lady Maude!" cried the barrister, after a pause of amazement.

"I resign both; I see that I cannot do anything else in honour. Excuse me, Carr, but I'd rather not say any more about it just now; I feel half maddened."

"Elster's folly," mentally spoke Thomas Carr.

CHAPTER XVII.

AN AGREEABLE WEDDING.

That circ.u.mstances, combined with the countess-dowager, worked terribly against Lord Hartledon, events proved. Had the Ashtons remained at the Rectory all might have been well; but they went away, and he was left to any influence that might be brought to bear upon him.

How the climax was accomplished the world never knew. Lord Hartledon himself did not know the whole of it for a long while. As if unwilling to trust himself longer in dangerous companionship, he went up to town with Thomas Carr. Whilst there he received a letter from Cannes, written by Dr. Ashton; a letter that angered him.

It was a cool letter, a vein of contemptuous anger running through it; meant to be hidden, but nevertheless perceptible to Lord Hartledon. Its purport was to forbid all correspondence between him and Miss Ashton: things had better "remain in abeyance" until they met, ran the words, "if indeed any relations were ever renewed between them again."

It might have angered Lord Hartledon more than it did, but for the hopelessness which had taken up its abode within him. Nevertheless he resented it. He did not suppose it possible that the Ashtons could have heard of the dilemma he was in, or that he should be unable to fulfil his engagement with Anne, having with his usual vacillation put off any explanation with them; which of course must come sometime. He had taken an idea into his head long before, that Dr. Ashton wished to part them, and he looked upon the letter as resulting from that. Hartledon was feeling weary of the world.

How little did he divine that the letter of the doctor was called forth by a communication from the countess-dowager. An artful communication, with a charming candour lying on its surface. She asked--she actually asked that Dr. Ashton would allow "fair play;" she said the "deepest affection" had grown up between Lord Hartledon and Lady Maude; and she only craved that the young man might not be coerced either way, but might be allowed to choose between them. The field after Miss Ashton's return would be open to the two, and ought to be left so.

You may imagine the effect this missive produced upon the proud, high-minded doctor of divinity. He took a sheet of paper and wrote a stinging letter to Lord Hartledon, forbidding him to think again of Anne.

But when he was in the act of sealing it a sudden doubt like an instinct rushed over him, whether it might not be a ruse, and nothing else, of the crafty old dowager's. The doubt was sufficiently strong to cause him to tear up the letter. But he was not satisfied with Lord Hartledon's own behaviour; had not been for some few months; and he then wrote a second letter, suspending matters until they should meet again. It was in effect what was asked for by the countess-dowager; and he wrote a cold proud letter to that lady, stating what he had done. Of course any honourable woman--any woman with a spark of justice in her heart--would have also forbidden all intercourse with Lady Maude. The countess-dowager's policy lay in the opposite direction.

But Lord Hartledon remained in London, utterly oblivious to the hints and baits held out for his return to Calne. He chiefly divided his time between the House of Lords and sitting at home, lamenting over his own ill-starred existence. He was living quite en garcon, with only one man, his house having been let for the season. We always want what we cannot obtain, and because marriage was denied him, he fell into the habit of dwelling upon it as the only boon in life. Thomas Carr was on circuit, so that Hartledon was alone.

Easter was early that year, the latter end of March. On the Monday in Pa.s.sion-week there arrived a telegram for Lord Hartledon sent apparently by the butler, Hedges. It was vaguely worded; spoke of a railway accident and somebody dying. Who he could not make out, except that it was a Kirton: and it prayed him to hasten down immediately. All his goodness of heart aroused, Val lost not a moment. He had been engaged to spend Easter with some people in Ess.e.x, but dispatched a line of apology, and hastened down to Calne, wondering whether it was the dowager or Maude, and whether death would have taken place before his arrival.

"What accident has there been?" he demanded, leaping out of the carriage at Calne Station; and the man he addressed happened to be the porter, Jones.

"Accident?" returned Jones, touching his cap.

"An accident on the line; somewhere about here, I conclude. People wounded; dying."

"There has been no accident here," said Jones, in his sulky way. "Maybe your lordship's thinking of the one on the branch line, the bridge that fell in?"