A pair of blue eyes
It was plain that, after these renounced beginnings, a fourth letter
had been written and despatched, which had been deemed a proper one.
Upon the table were two drops of sealing-wax, the stick from which they
were taken having been laid down overhanging the edge of the table; the
end of it drooped, showing that the wax was placed there whilst warm.
There was the chair in which the writer had sat, the impression of the
letter’s address upon the blotting-paper, and the poor widow who had
caused these results lying dead hard by. Knight had seen enough to lead
him to the conclusion that Mrs. Jethway, having matter of great
importance to communicate to some friend or acquaintance, had written
him a very careful letter, and gone herself to post it; that she had
not returned to the house from that time of leaving it till Lord
Luxellian and himself had brought her back dead.
The unutterable melancholy of the whole scene, as he waited on, silent
and alone, did not altogether clash with the mood of Knight, even
though he was the affianced of a fair and winning girl, and though so
lately he had been in her company. Whilst sitting on the remains of the
demolished tower he had defined a new sensation; that the lengthened
course of inaction he had lately been indulging in on Elfride’s account
might probably not be good for him as a man who had work to do. It
could quickly be put an end to by hastening on his marriage with her.
Knight, in his own opinion, was one who had missed his mark by
excessive aiming. Having now, to a great extent, given up ideal
ambitions, he wished earnestly to direct his powers into a more
practical channel, and thus correct the introspective tendencies which
had never brought himself much happiness, or done his fellow-creatures
any great good. To make a start in this new direction by marriage,
which, since knowing Elfride, had been so entrancing an idea, was less
exquisite to-night. That the curtailment of his illusion regarding her
had something to do with the reaction, and with the return of his old
sentiments on wasting time, is more than probable. Though Knight’s
heart had so greatly mastered him, the mastery was not so complete as
to be easily maintained in the face of a moderate intellectual revival.
His reverie was broken by the sound of wheels, and a horse’s tramp. The
door opened to admit the surgeon, Lord Luxellian, and a Mr. Coole,
coroner for the division (who had been attending at Castle Boterel that
very day, and was having an after-dinner chat with the doctor when Lord
Luxellian arrived); next came two female nurses and some idlers.
Mr. Granson, after a cursory examination, pronounced the woman dead
from suffocation, induced by intense pressure on the respiratory
organs; and arrangements were made that the inquiry should take place
on the following morning, before the return of the coroner to St.
Launce’s.
Shortly afterwards the house of the widow was deserted by all its
living occupants, and she abode in death, as she had in her life during
the past two years, entirely alone.
Chapter XXXIV
“Yea, happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.”
Sixteen hours had passed. Knight was entering the ladies’ boudoir at
The Crags, upon his return from attending the inquest touching the
death of Mrs. Jethway. Elfride was not in the apartment.
Mrs. Swancourt made a few inquiries concerning the verdict and
collateral circumstances. Then she said—
“The postman came this morning the minute after you left the house.
There was only one letter for you, and I have it here.”
She took a letter from the lid of her workbox, and handed it to him.
Knight took the missive abstractedly, but struck by its appearance
murmured a few words and left the room.
The letter was fastened with a black seal, and the handwriting in which
it was addressed had lain under his eyes, long and prominently, only
the evening before.
Knight was greatly agitated, and looked about for a spot where he might
be secure from interruption. It was the season of heavy dews, which lay
on the herbage in shady places all the day long; nevertheless, he
entered a small patch of neglected grass-plat enclosed by the
shrubbery, and there perused the letter, which he had opened on his way
thither.
The handwriting, the seal, the paper, the introductory words, all had
told on the instant that the letter had come to him from the hands of
the widow Jethway, now dead and cold. He had instantly understood that
the unfinished notes which caught his eye yesternight were intended for
nobody but himself. He had remembered some of the words of Elfride in
her sleep on the steamer, that somebody was not to tell him of
something, or it would be her ruin—a circumstance hitherto deemed so
trivial and meaningless that he had well-nigh forgotten it. All these
things infused into him an emotion intense in power and supremely
distressing in quality. The paper in his hand quivered as he read:
“THE VALLEY, ENDELSTOW.
“SIR,—A woman who has not much in the world to lose by any censure this
act may bring upon her, wishes to give you some hints concerning a lady
you love. If you will deign to accept a warning before it is too late,
you will notice what your correspondent has to say.
“You are deceived. Can such a woman as this be worthy?
“One who encouraged an honest youth to love her, then slighted him, so
that he died.
“One who next took a man of no birth as a lover, who was forbidden the
house by her father.
“One who secretly left her home to be married to that man, met him, and
went with him to London.
“One who, for some reason or other, returned again unmarried.
“One who, in her after-correspondence with him, went so far as to
address him as her husband.
“One who wrote the enclosed letter to ask me, who better than anybody
else knows the story, to keep the scandal a secret.
“I hope soon to be beyond the reach of either blame or praise. But
before removing me God has put it in my power to avenge the death of my
son.
“GERTRUDE JETHWAY.”
The letter enclosed was the note in pencil that Elfride had written in
Mrs. Jethway’s cottage:
“DEAR MRS. JETHWAY,—I have been to visit you. I wanted much to see you,
but I cannot wait any longer. I came to beg you not to execute the
threats you have repeated to me. Do not, I beseech you, Mrs. Jethway,
let any one know I ran away from home! It would ruin me with him, and
break my heart. I will do anything for you, if you will be kind to me.
In the name of our common womanhood, do not, I implore you, make a
scandal of me.—Yours,
“E. SWANCOURT.
Knight turned his head wearily towards the house. The ground rose
rapidly on nearing the shrubbery in which he stood, raising it almost
to a level with the first floor of The Crags. Elfride’s dressing-room
lay in the salient angle in this direction, and it was lighted by two
windows in such a position that, from Knight’s standing-place, his
sight passed through both windows, and raked the room. Elfride was
there; she was pausing between the two windows, looking at her figure
in the cheval-glass. She regarded herself long and attentively in
front; turned, flung back her head, and observed the reflection over
her shoulder.
Nobody can predicate as to her object or fancy; she may have done the
deed in the very abstraction of deep sadness. She may have been moaning
from the bottom of her heart, “How unhappy am I!” But the impression
produced on Knight was not a good one. He dropped his eyes moodily. The
dead woman’s letter had a virtue in the accident of its juncture far
beyond any it intrinsically exhibited. Circumstance lent to evil words
a ring of pitiless justice echoing from the grave. Knight could not
endure their possession. He tore the letter into fragments.
He heard a brushing among the bushes behind, and turning his head he
saw Elfride following him. The fair girl looked in his face with a
wistful smile of hope, too forcedly hopeful to displace the firmly
established dread beneath it. His severe words of the previous night
still sat heavy upon her.
“I saw you from my window, Harry,” she said timidly.
“The dew will make your feet wet,” he observed, as one deaf.
“I don’t mind it.”
“There is danger in getting wet feet.”
“Yes...Harry, what is the matter?”
“Oh, nothing. Shall I resume the serious conversation I had with you
last night? No, perhaps not; perhaps I had better not.”
“Oh, I cannot tell! How wretched it all is! Ah, I wish you were your
own dear self again, and had kissed me when I came up! Why didn’t you
ask me for one? why don’t you now?”
“Too free in manner by half,” he heard murmur the voice within him.
“It was that hateful conversation last night,” she went on. “Oh, those
words! Last night was a black night for me.”
“Kiss!—I hate that word! Don’t talk of kissing, for God’s sake! I
should think you might with advantage have shown tact enough to keep
back that word ‘kiss,’ considering those you have accepted.”
She became very pale, and a rigid and desolate charactery took
possession of her face. That face was so delicate and tender in
appearance now, that one could fancy the pressure of a finger upon it
would cause a livid spot.
Knight walked on, and Elfride with him, silent and unopposing. He
opened a gate, and they entered a path across a stubble-field.
“Perhaps I intrude upon you?” she said as he closed the gate. “Shall I
go away?”
“No. Listen to me, Elfride.” Knight’s voice was low and unequal. “I
have been honest with you: will you be so with me? If
any—strange—connection has existed between yourself and a predecessor
of mine, tell it now. It is better that I know it now, even though the
knowledge should part us, than that I should discover it in time to
come. And suspicions have been awakened in me. I think I will not say
how, because I despise the means. A discovery of any mystery of your
past would embitter our lives.”
Knight waited with a slow manner of calmness. His eyes were sad and
imperative. They went farther along the path.
“Will you forgive me if I tell you all?” she exclaimed entreatingly.
“I can’t promise; so much depends upon what you have to tell.”
Elfride could not endure the silence which followed.
“Are you not going to love me?” she burst out. “Harry, Harry, love me,
and speak as usual! Do; I beseech you, Harry!”
“Are you going to act fairly by me?” said Knight, with rising anger;
“or are you not? What have I done to you that I should be put off like
this? Be caught like a bird in a springe; everything intended to be
hidden from me! Why is it, Elfride? That’s what I ask you.”
In their agitation they had left the path, and were wandering among the
wet and obstructive stubble, without knowing or heeding it.
“What have I done?” she faltered.
“What? How can you ask what, when you know so well? You KNOW that I
have designedly been kept in ignorance of something attaching to you,
which, had I known of it, might have altered all my conduct; and yet
you say, what?”
She drooped visibly, and made no answer.
“Not that I believe in malicious letter-writers and whisperers; not I.
I don’t know whether I do or don’t: upon my soul, I can’t tell. I know
this: a religion was building itself upon you in my heart. I looked
into your eyes, and thought I saw there truth and innocence as pure and
perfect as ever embodied by God in the flesh of woman. Perfect truth is
too much to expect, but ordinary truth I WILL HAVE or nothing at all.
Just say, then; is the matter you keep back of the gravest importance,
or is it not?”
“I don’t understand all your meaning. If I have hidden anything from
you, it has been because I loved you so, and I feared—feared—to lose
you.”