Elster's Folly Part 84

It was a strange and awful story: and Lord Hartledon felt a shiver run through him as he listened. In truth, that shed was the safest and fittest place for him to die in!

As die he did ere the third day was over. And was buried as Pike, the wild man, without a mourner. Clerk Gum stood over the grave in his official capacity; and Dr. Ashton, who had visited the sick man, himself read the service, which caused some wonder in Calne.

And the following week Lord Hartledon caused the shed to be cleared away, and the waste land ploughed; saying he would have no more tramps encamping next door to Mr. and Mrs. Gum.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

THE DOWAGER'S ALARM.

Again the years went on, bringing not altogether comfort to the house of Hartledon. As Anne's children were born--there were three now--a sort of jealous rivalry seemed to arise between them and the two elder children; and this in spite of Anne's efforts to the contrary. The moving spring was the countess-dowager, who in secret excited the elder children against their little brothers and sister; but so craftily that Anne could produce nothing tangible to remonstrate against. Things would grow tolerably smooth during the old woman's absences; but she took good care not to make those absences lengthened, and then all the ill-nature and rebellion reigned triumphant.

Once only Anne spoke of this, and that was to her father. She hinted at the state of things, and asked his advice. Why did not Val interpose his authority, and forbid the dowager the house, if she could not keep herself from making mischief in it, sensibly asked the Rector. But Anne said neither she nor Val liked to do this. And then the Rector fancied there was some constraint in his daughter's voice, and she was not telling him the whole case unreservedly. He inquired no further, only gave her the best advice in his power: to be watchful, and counteract the dowager's influence, as far as she could; and trust to time; doing her own duty religiously by the children.

What Anne had not mentioned to Dr. Ashton was her husband's conduct in the matter. In that one respect she could read him no better than of old.

Devoted to her as he was, as she knew him to be, in the children's petty disputes he invariably took the part of his first wife's--to the glowing satisfaction of the countess-dowager. No matter how glaringly wrong they might be, how tyrannical, Hartledon screened the elder, and--to use the expression of the nurses--snubbed the younger. Kind and good though Lady Hartledon was, she felt it acutely; and, to say the truth, was sorely puzzled and perplexed.

Lord Elster was an ailing child, and Mr. Brook, the apothecary, was always in attendance when they were in London. Lady Hartledon thought the boy's health might have been better left more to nature, but she would not have said so for the world. The dowager, on the contrary, would have preferred that half the metropolitan faculty should see him daily. She had a jealous dread of anything happening to the boy, and Anne's son becoming the heir.

Lord Hartledon was a busy man now, and had a place in the Government--though not as yet in the Cabinet. Whatever his secret care might have been, it was now pa.s.sive; he was a general favourite, and courted in society. He was still young; the face as genial, the manners as free, the dark-blue eyes as kindly as of yore; eminently attractive in earlier days, he was so still; and his love for his wife amounted to a pa.s.sion.

At the close of a sharp winter, when they had come up to town in January, that Lord Hartledon might be at his post, and the countess-dowager was inflicting upon them one of her long visits, it happened that Lord Elster seemed very poorly. Mr. Brook was called in, and said he would send a powder. He was called in so often to the boy as to take it quite as a matter of course; and, truth to say, thought the present indisposition nothing but a slight cold.

Late in the evening the two boys happened to be alone in the nursery, the nurse being temporarily absent from it. Edward was now a tall, slender, handsome boy in knickerbockers; Reginald a timid little fellow, several years younger--rendered timid by Edward's perpetual tyranny, which he might not resent. Edward was quiet enough this evening; he felt ill and shivery, and sat close to the fire. Casting his eyes upwards, he espied Mr. Brook's powder on the mantelpiece, with the stereotyped direction--"To be taken at bedtime." It was lying close to the jam-pot, which the head-nurse had put ready. Of course he had the greatest possible horror of medicine, and his busy thoughts began to run upon how he might avoid that detestable powder. The little fellow was sitting on the carpet playing with his bricks. Edward turned his eyes on his brother, and a bright thought occurred to him.

"Regy," said he, taking down the pot, "come here. Look at this jam: isn't it nice? It's raspberry and currant."

The child left his bricks to bend over the tempting compound.

"I'll give it you every bit to eat before nurse comes back," continued the boy, "if you'll eat this first."

Reginald cast a look upon the powder his brother exhibited. "What is it?"

he lisped; "something good?"

"Delicious. It's just come in from the sweet-stuff shop. Open your mouth--wide."

Reginald did as he was bid: opened his mouth to its utmost width, and the boy shot in the powder.

It happened to be a preparation of that nauseous drug familiarly known as "Dover's powder." The child found it so, and set up a succession of shrieks, which aroused the house. The nurse rushed in; and Lord and Lady Hartledon, both of whom were dressing for dinner, appeared on the scene.

There stood Reginald, coughing, choking, and roaring; and there sat the culprit, equably devouring the jam. With time and difficulty the facts were elicited from the younger child, and the elder scorned to deny them.

"What a wicked, greedy Turk you must be!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the nurse, who was often in hot water with the elder boy.

"But Reginald need not have screamed so," testily interposed Lord Hartledon. "I thought one of them must be on fire. You naughty child, why did you scream?" he continued, giving Reginald a slight tap on the ear.

"Any child would scream at being so taken by surprise," said Lady Hartledon. "It is Edward who is in fault, not Reginald; and it is he who deserves punishment."

"And he should have it, if he were my son," boldly declared the nurse, as she picked up the unhappy Reginald. "A great greedy boy, to swallow down every bit of the jam, and never give his brother a taste, after poisoning him with that nasty powder!"

Edward rose, and gave the nurse a look of scorn. "The powder's good enough for him: he is nothing but a young brat, and I am Lord Elster."

Lady Hartledon felt provoked. "What is that you say, Edward?" she asked, laying her hand upon his shoulder in reproval.

"Let me alone, mamma. He'll never be anything but Regy Elster. _I_ shall be Lord Hartledon, and jam's proper for me, and it's fair I should put upon him."

The nurse flounced off with Reginald, and Lady Hartledon turned to her husband. "Is this to be suffered? Will you allow it to pa.s.s without correction?"

"He means nothing," said Val. "Do you, Edward, my boy?"

"Yes, I do; I mean what I say. I shall stand up for myself and Maude."

Hartledon made no remonstrance: only drew the boy to him, with a hasty gesture, as though he would shield him from anger and the world.

Anne, hurt almost to tears, quitted the room. But she had scarcely reached her own when she remembered that she had left a diamond brooch in the nursery, which she had just been about to put into her dress when alarmed by the cries. She went back for it, and stood almost confounded by what she saw. Lord Hartledon, sitting down, had clasped his boy in his arms, and was sobbing over him; emotion such as man rarely betrays.

"Papa, Regy and the other two are not going to put me and Maude out of our places, are they? They can't, you know. We come first."

"Yes, yes, my boy; no one shall put you out," was the answer, as he pressed pa.s.sionate kisses on the boy's face. "I will stand by you for ever."

Very judicious indeed! the once sensible man seemed to ignore the evident fact that the boy had been tutored. Lady Hartledon, a fear creeping over her, she knew not of what, left her brooch where it was, and stole back to her dressing-room.

Presently Val came in, all traces of emotion removed from his features.

Lady Hartledon had dismissed her maid, and stood leaning against the arm of the sofa, indulging in bitter rumination.

"Silly children!" cried he; "it's hard work to manage them. And Edward has lost his pow--"

He broke off; stopped by the look of angry reproach from his wife, cast on him for the first time in their married life. He took her hand and bent down to her: fervent love, if ever she read it, in his eyes and tones.

"Forgive me, Anne; you are feeling this."

"Why do you throw these slights on my children? Why are you not more just?"

"I do not intend to slight our children, Anne, Heaven knows. But I--I cannot punish Edward."

"Why did you ever make me your wife?" sighed Lady Hartledon, drawing her hand away.

His poor a.s.sumption of unconcern was leaving him quickly; his face was changing to one of bitter sorrow.

"When I married you," she resumed, "I had reason to hope that should children be born to us, you would love them equally with your first; I had a right to hope it. What have I done that--"

"Stay, Anne! I can bear anything better than reproach from you."

"What have I and my children done to you, I was about to ask, that you take this aversion to them? lavishing all your love on the others and upon them only injustice?"

Val bent down, agitation in his face and voice.