Irene Iddesleigh Part 8

He was known to sit for hours at a time in deep and painful thought, and it was only when aroused by Madam Fulham that he ever cared to stir from his much-frequented couch of rest; she whom he appointed housekeeper in Rachel Hyde's stead, and who acted as well mother to his little son until removed to school--she extended him every attention, of which he stood in great need, after his severe attack of illness and trial, bodily and mentally.

Time rolled along until his son's return from Canterbury, whose very presence should have healed the gaping wounds his absence inflicted, and chased away all gloomy cavities from the mind of Sir John. On the day of Hugh's home-coming, after five years' training under Professor Smeath, which should have been a day of gladness and rejoicing throughout Dunfern Mansion, it was only one of sadness for the heart-broken father.

Bouncing into the room with boyish pride, Hugh ran and proudly embraced him, who, in return, stood face to face with the very image of her whom he could never again own.

There were the rounded forehead, the aquiline nose, the hazel eyes, the nut-brown hair, the ruby lips, the pearly teeth, the dimpled cheeks and tiny chin of his mother, who probably was grappling at the crumbs of pauperism! However, Sir John manfully tried to hide from his boy the source of his grave looks, until some day of revelation would demand their blackened origin to be boldly announced to him who as yet was solely ignorant of his mother being alive.

Six weeks' holiday pa.s.sed too quickly, Hugh thought, until he would another time be compelled to quit his home of unbounded luxury and enter Chitworth College, Berks, for a further period of instruction, the length of which events alone would define.

Although the very name of Chitworth College brought reminiscences of dislike to him who suffered so much from one of its former staff, yet those days had fled, and with them the footsteps of flaming stratagem.

Being a personal friend of Professor O'Sullivan, Sir John preferred his son to reside with him, and receive under his able control all the necessary acquirements devolving upon a son of such a proud and distinguished race. The morning at last arrived for Hugh to start on his college career, and, accompanied by his father, was not long in completing the journey.

The interview between Sir John and his attached friend, Doctor O'Sullivan, was affecting in the extreme, so much so that Hugh, being an entire stranger to such outbursts of grief, and not being prepared for such sudden emotional and silent greeting as that now witnessed by him, began to feel it impossible to refrain from joining in their sorrow.

Throwing his youthful arms around his father's neck, he sobbed hysterically, and could only be quieted when his father again appeared cheerful.

Leaving his son in charge of Doctor O'Sullivan, the latter retired from duty that day, and begged Sir John to remain over-night, adding that he would so much like to have a chat with him over matters he had known, and was persuaded to believe caused heartfelt pity to be secreted where once there dwelt heartfelt pride. To this proposal Sir John consented willingly, not caring to leave his gentle and much-loved boy so soon after such a trying meeting as that which he not alone witnessed between friends of old standing, but in which he modestly and sympathetically joined.

All the past gravity which marred Sir John Dunfern's mirth and usefulness, and which he kept attracted to one common centre, crept from its crazy cell on this evening. So soon as dinner was over the President and Sir John retired to a room of seclusion, and the intense relief it gave the trodden and blighted messenger of manhood to at last have a friend in whom he could confide no one could half imagine!

For fully five hours both sat talking confidentially to each other and sympathising when necessary, and it was only during this conversation that Sir John was first made acquaint either of his wife's marriage with Oscar or her present abode, neither of which, in the President's estimation, moved the husband of treachery in its most mischievous form much.

The news of his wife being Mrs. Otwell, instead of the honourable name her conduct ordered her to bury, only served to cast for ever the gentle words of practical remembrance Sir John had in his last will and testament concerning her into an unknown chasm. Until now the forgiving husband, the meek adviser, the patient sufferer, the wounded knight, the once attached partner, the loving father, and the son of justice, grat.i.tude, and chast.i.ty was ready to share a little of his ransom with her whom he thought he may have probably wronged by too rigorous punishment. But President O'Sullivan, whose well-guided words and fatherly advice had on this evening so sealed the mind of forgiveness with the wax of disinterested intent that Sir John, on his arrival home, at once sent for his solicitors, Messrs. Hutchinson & Harper, and ordering his will to be produced, demanded there and then that the pen of persuasion be dipped into the ink of revenge and spread thickly along the paragraph of blood-related charity to blank the intolerable words that referred to the woman he was now convinced, beyond doubt, had braved the bridge of bigamy. Some slight alterations, in consequence, were necessary to be made, and these being righted, the will of Sir John Dunfern remained a prisoner until released on the day of execution, which as yet could not possibly be named.

CHAPTER XVI.

Hark! The bell tolled its death-like strains, faint as the far-off fatherland, steady as the starlight, and sweet as the scent of the blooming woodbine. The hour of departure is sure and settled, the loss is sharply felt, the gain completed, and vigorous attempts to retain both are oftentimes multiplying on the exertions of the benefitted.

During all these years of revolution the wheel of action rounded its roads of revelling, riot, and separation. Shandon Cottage, the little house of Oscar Otwell, where he took up residence when first a visitor to the land of laudable ingenuity, was a pretty structure, and would doubtless have proved a little palace of peace to two such lovers had the means been forthcoming to keep the glare of poverty within its bed of stillness, and prohibit its visitation where least desired.

Oscar, who, during his English career, never was possessor of aught but a slight pittance derived from the sources of his mental labours, and who courted the vain idea, on being made the recipient of 1,000, which he pocketed under false pretences by the underhand sale of Audley Hall, that he was a man of wealth for life, and when safely settled in his trim little cottage, squandered his trifle in a very short time, leaving himself and wife on the mercy of strangers' sympathy, which more or less presents an icy aspect to the eye of the needy.

Marjory Mason, who just spent twelve months under Oscar's roof, was fortunate in securing a husband, whose calling kept her during her short lifetime aloof from the imaginative pinches of the uncertain future.

It was only when Oscar was forced to evade starvation that he deemed it imperative to accept an appointment in a public school, at the yearly income of one thousand dollars, an office he retained until compelled to resign through courting too great love for the all-powerful monster of mangled might--Intemperance. After a number of years the partaker of maddened love was the imparter of maddened might.

With beastly force did Oscar Otwell enter Shandon Cottage on the night of his open dismissal from Waketown Public School, and arousing from sleep his wife, with monster oaths inflicted upon her strokes of abuse which time could never efface.

Ah! it was now the actions of youthful frivolity stood before her mountain high and baffled her sickly retort. It was now she pored over her journal of events, which seemed a burthen unbearable for such a fragile frame, and begged the credit side to be for ever closed to her view, whilst she prayed that the debit be left open until she would enter therein all her past debts to him whom she deceived, deluded, denounced, and despised.

Next morning mended matters little for Oscar Otwell's wife. Still raging with drunken horror, he lavished upon her torrents of insinuations, which she found impossible to overlook, and which forced her to take refuge in the house of the Reverend Bertram Edgar, near by. This man of true piety, at whose church she had occasionally worshipped, extended the refuge she presently implored, and proved instrumental in securing for her the position of governess in a n.o.bleman's family some miles distant.

Disposing of all the household effects, Oscar pocketed their dainty worth, and left Shandon Cottage in earnest pursuit of his wife, intending to again return to their native county in England.

His various inquiries regarding her whereabouts proved vain as the vanishing shadow of Venus, and finally, when completely overcome with sober thoughts of his riotous conduct towards the loving and faithful object of his choice, who had risked so much for him, he cursed his very existence.

A few weeks found him in utter dest.i.tution, without either house or chattels to illegally dispose of in case of emergency, and line his pockets of pauperism with coin of dishonest stamp and flashing forgery.

Unsuccessful in his worthless attempts to further manifest a standing in the literary world, and being driven almost crazy in his eager efforts to ascertain whither his wife had bent her footsteps, he, in a moment of madness, resolved to resign himself to that ever-anxious defender of Satanic rights who prowls about in ambush until safely securing his prey with the crooked claws of callous craft.

Walking along in the moonlight in the direction of Afton Lake, which sometimes offers its deep waters too freely to victims of sin and suffering, Oscar Otwell resolved to bathe his body of perilous adventure in its darkened waters of deepest death, never more to face the troubles and trials of weak man and share them with weaker woman--never again to approach the wife of his bosom with language of lowest type or lift to her the hand which he so often had sworn should extend her the aid she now must seek.

Arriving at the water's edge, Oscar Otwell divested himself of his scanty attire, and in another moment was struggling in the freezing element which soon should shroud his future with robe of blackest doubt.

Dunraven Hall was situated only a mile from Afton Lake, and was inhabited by the Honourable Eric Eustace, a n.o.bleman of unbounded wealth, whose extension of charity was both wide and varied. It was in this family that Mrs. Otwell was fortunate enough in securing the position before referred to through the instrumentality of her spiritual adviser.

On the night that Oscar Otwell resigned his worldly career, there beat one heart in Dunraven Hall with wild emotion. Mrs. Otwell, retiring to bed as usual, found sleep had altogether fled, and rising from her springy structure of restlessness, dressed herself and paced the bedroom floor enveloped in dread. She was convinced something was about to happen, and struggling in her great efforts to baffle the fear that haunted her night and day lately, she resolved, so soon as daybreak peeped its cheerful face through her window, to take a walk along the road in order to cast her fears upon the highway of forgetfulness.

Wrapping herself in her warmest cloak, she soon was found walking rapidly along in silence on the road that swept round Afton Lake. She had not gone far when people were seen to mount the fence that conducted them to the nearest point of its watery expanse, which lay about fifty perches from the main road.

Courting her curiosity with nervous fear, she walked along, wondering what had happened to attract such crowds. And finding it rather difficult to refrain from making inquiry from some of the gathering, who by this time had hurriedly been retracing their flighty footsteps from the imaginative scene of death, Mrs. Otwell, modestly approaching a female who swiftly hopped over the fence in tears, asked what had happened.

"Oh, madam," cried the woman, "the clothing of a gentleman was seen early this morning as David Gillespie, a labourer, was engaged at a drain hard by. It was neatly folded and deposited on the brink. Surely some one must have been demented and drowned himself in Afton Lake.

The authorities are now on the spot and refuse to mention who the gentleman is."

Thanking her for kindly informing her of what she had both seen and heard, Mrs. Otwell hurried back to Dunraven Hall in nervous astonishment, and hastily proceeded to her bedroom to prepare herself for what soon must follow.

The breakfast being shortly afterwards announced, Mrs. Otwell, pale as death, entered the room, and taking her accustomed seat to partake of it, as best she could. She had scarcely got properly seated ere two officers of the law were seen approach Dunraven Hall. Ringing furiously, they demanded an interview with the Hon. Eric Eustace.

Satisfied as to the name of his present governess, they wished to be allowed to see her, which request was willingly granted. Being told that morning by the gardener at Dunraven Hall, who ran to the spot on hearing the news, that a lady named Mrs. Otwell permanently resided at the Hall as governess, the authorities immediately grasped the fact that she might be the unfortunate widow, and on putting the usual questions to her concerning her husband, they were still further convinced as to her ident.i.ty. Drawing from his pocket a parcel containing Oscar's card, photo, and a letter addressed to Mrs. Oscar Otwell, the officer in charge asked her to read it aloud, which she did in a rather trembling voice, without betraying such signs of grief as antic.i.p.ated. The letter ran thus:--

"Dobbs' Ferry,

Friday Night,

11 p.m.

"Dearest Irene and Wife,--

"Should ever this reach your length, I trust you will pardon me for the rash act I am about to commit.

"Since the morning you left me at Shandon Cottage my sorrow has been greater than my present frame of mind can well support. I, therefore, have decided on ending my days of starvation by hiding for ever beneath the gla.s.sy surface of Alton Lake to shield my wicked body from further inflicting upon you the wrongs I have perpetrated in the past, and for which I am grievously tormented.

"Dearest Irene, I hope you, in your past great warmth of devotion for me (your poor tutor and husband), will forgive my late ungentlemanly conduct in striking you so cowardly on the eve of my downfall, and thereby breaking the confidence you reposed in me for such a lengthened period of our existence.

"From what I know of your n.o.ble character, I have every faith in your forgiveness, and rest a.s.sured, I never mean to face death without imploring you to rectify, if ever in your power, the wrong you accomplished, partly at my request, in breaking the holy cord of union which bound you during your natural existence to Sir John Dunfern, and again uniting it under foul auspices.

"Had I been so fortunate as to secure you first of all, my conscience, certainly, would at this moment be both clear and unclouded. But feeling persuaded I have robbed that n.o.bleman who now possibly is pining for separation from a world of shame and sorrow underneath the lordly roof of Dunfern Mansion, I am positively convinced, under such dangling dishonour, that never more can this world of sin extend to me the comfort I in vain have tried to seek.

"Awake, then, my beloved, to whom I attach not the slightest blame, to a sense of feeling and justice, and go, I implore of you, and cast yourself at the feet of him and beg his forgiveness, who loved you with a love unspeakable--who severed nearly all his self-indulgence with the instrument of intensity and hesitated not to lavish it upon the head of her to whom I offer my last advice.

Then shall you meet the messenger--death--not with shrinking fear (like me), but daring bravery.

"Of your present position or abode I am totally unaware, but, dearest wife, I trust your race of penury is almost run, and that your latter years may be crowned with Christian fort.i.tude and ease, and freed from the th.o.r.n.y dart of the wicked, in whose grave I must soon lie unwept.

"Good bye, for ever!