CHAPTER XIII.
"THERE IS MANY A SLIP."
A room that was like a picture – a carpet of rose-buds gleaming through rich green moss, lounges piled with downy-silk pillows, a bed curtained in foamy lace, a pretty room – Aileen Jocyln's chambre-a-coucher, and looking like a picture herself, in a flowing morning-robe, the rich, dark hair falling heavy and unbound to her waist, Aileen Jocyln lay among piles of scarlet cushions, like some young Eastern Sultana.
Lay and music with, oh! such an infinitely happy smile upon her exquisite face; mused, as happy youth, loving and beloved, upon its bridal-eve doth muse. Nay, on her bridal-day, for the dainty little French clock on the bracket was pointing its golden hands to three.
The house was very still; all had retired late, busy with preparations for the morrow, and Miss Jocyln had but just dismissed her maid. Every one, probably, but herself, was asleep; and she, in her unutterable bliss, was too happy for slumber. She arose presently, walked to the window and looked out. The late setting moon still swung in the sky; the stars still spangled the cloudless blue, and shone serene on the purple bosom of the far-spreading sea; but in the east the first pale glimmer of the new day shone – her happy wedding day. The girl slid down on her knees, her hands clasped, her radiant face glorified with love and bliss, turned ecstatically, as some faithful follower of the prophet might, to that rising glory of the east.
"Oh!" Aileen thought, gazing around over the dark, deep sea, the star-gemmed sky, and the green radiance and sweetness of the earth, "what a beautiful, blissful world it is, and I the happiest creature in it!"
Kneeling there, with her face still turned to that luminous East, the blissful bride fell asleep; slept, and dreamed dreams as joyful as her waking thoughts, and no shadow of that sweeping cloud that was to blacken all her world so soon fell upon her.
Hours passed, and still Aileen slept. Then came an imperative knock at her door – again and again, louder each time; and then Aileen started up, fully awake. Her room was flooded with sunshine, and countless birds sang their glorias in the swaying green gloom of the branches, and the ceaseless sea was all a-glitter with sparkling sun-light.
"Come in," Miss Jocyln said. It was her maid, she thought – and she walked over to an arm-chair and composedly sat down.
The door opened, and Col. Jocyln, not Fanchon, appeared, an open note in his hand, his face full of trouble.
"Papa!" Aileen cried, starting up in alarm.
"Bad news, my daughter – very bad! very sorrowful! Read that."
The note was very brief, in a spidery, female hand.
"Dear Col. Jocyln: – We are in the greatest trouble. Poor Lady Thetford died with awful suddenness this morning in one of those dreadful spasms. We are all nearly distracted. Rupert bears it better than any of us. Pray come over as soon as you can.
"May. Everard."
Aileen Jocyln sunk back in her seat, pale and trembling.
"Dead! Oh, papa! papa!"
"It is very sad, my dear, and very shocking and terribly unfortunate that it should have occurred just at this time. A postponed wedding is ever ominous of evil."
"Oh! pray, papa, don't think of that! Don't think of me! Poor Lady Thetford! Poor Rupert! You will go over at once, papa, will you not?"
"Certainly, my dear. And I will tell the servants, so that when our guests arrive you may not be disturbed. Since it was to be," muttered the Indian officer under his moustache. "I would give half my fortune that it had been one day later. A postponed marriage is the most ominous thing under the sun."
He left the room, and Aileen sat with her hands clasped, and an unutterable awe overpowering every other feeling. She forgot her own disappointment in the awful mystery of sudden death. Her share of the trial was light – a year of waiting, more or less; what did it matter, since Rupert loved her unchangeably? but, poor Lady Aileen, remembering how much the dead woman had loved her, and how fondly she had welcomed her as a daughter, covered her face with her hands, and wept as she might have wept for her own mother.
"I never knew a mother's love or care," Aileen thought; "and I was doubly happy in knowing I was to have one at last. And now – and now – "
It was a drearily long morning to the poor bride elect, sitting alone in her chamber. She heard the roll of carriages up the drive, the pause that ensued, and then their departure. She wondered how he bore it best of all, May had said; but, then, he was ever still and strong and self-restrained. She knew how dear that poor, ailing mother had ever been to him, and she knew how bitterly he would feel her loss.
"They talk of presentiments," mused Miss Jocyln, walking wearily to and fro; "and see how happy and hopeful I was this morning, whilst she lay dead and he mourned. If I only dared go to him – my own Rupert!"
It was late in the afternoon before Col. Jocyln returned. He strode straight to his daughter's presence, wearing a pale, fagged face.
"Well, papa?" she asked, faintly.
"My pale Aileen!" he said, kissing her fondly; "my poor, patient girl! I am sorry you must undergo this trial, and," knitting his brows, "such talk as it will make."
"Don't think of me, papa – my share is surely the lightest. But Rupert – " wistfully faltering.
"There's something odd about Rupert; he was very fond of his mother, and he takes this a great deal too quietly. He looks like a man slowly turning to stone, with a face white and stern; and he never asked for you. He sat there with folded arms and that petrified face, gazing on his dead, until it chilled my blood to look at him. There's something odd and unnatural in this frozen calm. And, oh! by-the-bye! I forgot to tell you the strangest thing – May Everard it was told me; that painter fellow – what's his name – "
"Legard, papa?"
"Yes, Legard. He turns out to be the son of Mrs. Weymore; they discovered it last night. He was there in the room, with the most dazed and mystified and altogether bewildered expression of countenance I ever saw a man wear, and May and Mrs. Weymore sat crying incessantly. I couldn't see what occasion there was for the governess and the painter there in that room of death, and I said so to Miss Everard. There's something mysterious in the matter, for her face flushed and she stammered something about startling family secrets that had come to light, and the over-excitement of which had hastened Lady Thetford's end. I don't like the look of things, and I'm altogether in the dark. That painter resembles the Thetford's a great deal too closely for the mere work of chance; and yet, if Mrs. Weymore is his mother, I don't see how there can be anything in that. It's odd – confoundedly odd!"
Col. Jocyln rumbled on as he walked the floor, his brows knitted into a swarthy frown. His daughter sat and eyed him wistfully.
"Did no one ask for me, papa? Am I not to go over?"
"Sir Rupert didn't ask for you! May Everard did, and I promised to fetch you to-morrow. Aileen, things at Thetford Towers have a suspicious look to-day; I can't see the light yet, but I suspect something wrong. It may be the very best thing that could possibly happen, this postponed marriage; I shall make Sir Rupert clear matters up completely before my daughter becomes his wife."
Col. Jocyln, according to promise, took his daughter to Thetford Towers next morning. With bated breath and beating heart and noiseless tread, Aileen Jocyln entered the house of mourning, which yesterday she had thought to enter a bride. Dark and still, and desolate it lay, the morning light shut out, unbroken silence everywhere.
"And this is the end of earth, its glory and its bliss," Aileen thought as she followed her father slowly up-stairs, "the solemn wonder of the winding-sheet and the grave."
There were two watchers in the dark room when they entered – May Everard, pale and quiet, and the young artist, Guy Legard. Even in that moment, Col. Jocyln could not repress a supercilious stare of wonder to behold the housekeeper's son in the death-chamber of Lady Thetford. And yet it seemed strangely his place, for it might have been one of those lusty old Thetfords, framed and glazed up-stairs, stepped out of the canvas and dressed in the fashion of the day.
"Very bad tastes all the same," the proud old colonel thought, with a frown: "very bad taste on the part of Sir Rupert. I shall speak to him on the subject presently."
He stood in silence beside his daughter, looking down at the marble face. May, shivering drearily in a large shawl, and looking like a wan little spirit, was speaking in whispers to Aileen.
"We persuaded Rupert – Mr. Legard and I – to go and lie down; he has neither eaten nor slept since his mother died. Oh, Aileen! I am so sorry for you!"
"Hush!" raising one tremulous hand and turning away; "she was as dear to me as my own mother could have been! Don't think of me."
"Shall we not see Sir Rupert?" the colonel asked. "I should like to, particularly."
"I think not – unless you remain for some hours. He is completely worn out, poor fellow!"
"How comes that young man here, Miss Everard?" nodding in the direction of Mr. Legard, who had withdrawn to a remote corner. "He may be a very especial friend of Sir Rupert's – but don't you think he presumes on that friendship?"
Miss Everard's eyes flashed angrily.
"No, sir! I think nothing of the sort! Mr. Legard has a perfect right to be in this room, or any other room at Thetford Towers. It is by Rupert's particular request he remains!"
The colonel frowned again, and turned his back upon the speaker.
"Aileen," he said, haughtily, "as Sir Rupert is not visible, nor likely to be for some time, perhaps you had better not linger. To-morrow, after the funeral, I shall speak to him very seriously."
Miss Jocyln arose. She would rather have lingered, but she saw her father's annoyed face and obeyed him immediately. She bent and kissed the cold, white face, awful with the dread majesty of death.
"For the last time, my friend, my mother," she murmured, "until we meet in heaven."
She drew her veil over her face to hide her falling tears, and silently followed the stern and displeased Indian officer down-stairs and out of the house. She looked back wistfully once at the gray, old ivy-grown facade; but who was to tell her of the weary, weary months and years that would pass before she crossed that stately threshold again?
It was a very grand and imposing ceremonial, that burial of Lady Thetford; and side by side with the heir walked the unknown painter, Guy Legard. Col. Jocyln was not the only friend of the family shocked on this occasion. What could Sir Rupert mean? And what did Mr. Legard mean by looking ten times more like the old Thetford race than Sir Noel's own son and heir?
It was a miserable day, this day of the funeral. There was a sky of lead hanging low like a pall, and it was almost dark in the rainy afternoon gloaming when Col. Jocyln and Sir Rupert Thetford stood alone before the village church. Lady Thetford slept with the rest of the name in the stony vaults; the fair-haired artist stood in the porch, and Sir Rupert, with a face wan and stern, and spectral, in the dying daylight, stood face to face with the colonel.
"A private interview," the colonel was repeating; "most certainly, Sir Rupert. Will you come with me to Jocyln Hall? My daughter will wish to see you."
The young man nodded, went back a moment to speak to Legard, and then followed the colonel into the carriage. The drive was a very silent one – a vague, chilling presentiment of impending evil on the Indian officer as he uneasily watched the young man who had so nearly been his son.
Aileen Jocyln, roaming like a restless ghost through the lonely, lofty rooms, saw them alight, and came out to the hall to meet her betrothed. She held out both hands shyly, looking up, half in fear, in the rigid, death-white face of her lover.
"Aileen!"
He took the hands and held them fast a moment; then dropped them and turned to the colonel.
"Now, Col. Jocyln."
The colonel led the way into the library. Sir Rupert paused a moment on the threshold to answer Aileen's pleading glance.
"Only for a few moments, Aileen," he said, his eyes softening with infinite love; "in half an hour my fate shall be decided. Let that fate be what it may, I shall be true to you while life lasts."
With these enigmatical words, he followed the colonel into the library, and the polished oaken door closed between him and Aileen.
CHAPTER XIV.
PARTED
Half an hour had passed.
Up and down the long drawing-room Aileen wandered aimlessly, oppressed with a dread of she knew not what, a prescience of evil, vague as it was terrible. The dark gloom of the rainy evening was not darker than that brooding shadow in her deep, dusky eyes.
In the library Col. Jocyln stood facing his son-in-law elect, staring like a man bereft of his senses. The melancholy, half light coming through the oriel window by which he stood, fell full upon the face of Rupert Thetford, white and cold, and set as marble.
"My God!" the Indian officer said, with wild eyes of terror and affright, "what is this you are telling me?"
"The truth, Col. Jocyln – the simple truth. Would to Heaven I had known it years ago – this shameful story of wrong-doing and misery!"
"I don't comprehend – I can't comprehend this impossible tale, Sir Rupert."
"That is a misnomer now, Col. Jocyln. I am no longer Sir Rupert."
"Do you mean to say you credit this wild story of a former marriage of Sir Noel's? Do you really believe your late governess to have been your father's wife?"
"I believe it, colonel. I have facts and statements and dying words to prove it. On my father's death-bed he made my mother swear to tell the truth; to repair the wrong he had done; to seek out his son, concealed by his valet, Vyking, and restore him to his rights! My mother never, kept that promise – the cruel wrong done to herself was too bitter; and at my birth she resolved never to keep it. I should not atone for the sin of my father; his elder son should never deprive her child of his birthright. My poor mother! You know the cause of that mysterious trouble which fell upon her at my father's death, and which darkened her life to the last. Shame, remorse, anger – shame for herself – a wife only in name; remorse for her broken vow to the dead, and anger against that erring dead man."
"But you told me she had hunted him up and provided for him," said the mystified colonel.
"Yes; she saw an advertisement in a London paper calling upon Vyking to take charge of the boy he had left twelve years before. Now, Vyking, the valet, had been transported for house-breaking long before that, and my mother answered the advertisement. There could be no doubt the child was the child Vyking had taken charge of – Sir Noel Thetford's rightful heir. My mother left him with the painter, Legard, with whom he had grew up, whose name he took, and he is now at Thetford Towers."
"I thought the likeness meant something," muttered the colonel; "his paternity is plainly enough written in his face. And so," raising his voice, "Mrs. Weymore recognized her son. Really, your story runs like a melodrama, where the hero turns out to be a duke and his mother knows the strawberry mark on his arm. Well, sir, if Mrs. Weymore is Sir Noel's rightful widow, and Guy Legard his rightful son and heir – pray what are you?"
The colorless face of the young man turned dark-red for an instant, then whiter than before.
"My, mother was as truly and really Sir Noel's wife as women can be the wife of man in the sight of Heaven. The crime was his; the shame and suffering hers; the atonement mine. Sir Noel's elder son shall be Sir Noel's heir – I will play usurper no longer. To-morrow I leave St. Gosport; the day after, England – never, perhaps, to return."
"You are mad," Col. Jocyln said, turning very pale; "you do not mean it."
"I am not mad, and I do mean it. I may be unfortunate; but, I pray God, never a villain! Right is right; my brother Guy is the rightful heir – not I!"
"And Aileen?" Col. Jocyln's face turned dark and rigid as iron as he spoke his daughter's name.
Rupert Thetford turned away his changing face, quite ghastly now.
"It shall be as she says. Aileen is too noble and just herself not to honor me for doing right."
"It shall be as I say," returned Col. Jocyln, with a voice that rang and an eye that flashed. "My daughter comes of a proud and stainless race, and never shall she mate with one less stainless. Hear me out, young man. It won't do to fire up – plain words are best suited to a plain case. All that has passed betwixt you and Miss Jocyln must be as if it had never been. The heir of Thetford Towers, honorably born, I consented she should marry; but, dearly as I love her, I would see her dead at my feet before she should mate with one who was nameless and impoverished. You said just now the atonement was yours – you said right; go, and never return."
He pointed to the door; the young man, stonily still, took his hat.
"Will you not permit your daughter, Col. Jocyln, to speak for herself?" he said, at the door.
"No, sir. I know my daughter – my proud, high-spirited Aileen – and my answer is hers. I wish you good-night."
He swung round abruptly, turning his back upon his visitor. Rupert Thetford, without one word, turned and walked out of the house.
The bewildering rapidity of the shocks he had received had stunned him – he could not feel the pain now. There was a dull sense of aching torture over him from head to foot – but the acute edge was dulled; he walked along through the black night like a man drugged and stupefied. He was only conscious intensely of one thing – a wish to get away, never to set foot in St. Gosport again.
Like one walking in his sleep, he reached Thetford Towers, his old home, every tree and stone of which was dear to him. He entered at once, passed into the drawing-room, and found Guy, the artist, sitting before the fire staring blankly into the coals, and May Everard roaming restlessly up and down, the firelight falling dully on her black robes and pale, tear-stained face. Both started at his entrance – all wet, and wild, and haggard; but neither spoke. There was that in his face which froze the words on their lips.
"I am going away to-morrow," he said, abruptly, leaning against the mantle, and looking at them with weird, spectral eyes.
May uttered a faint cry; Guy faced him almost fiercely.
"Going away! What do you mean, Sir Rupert? We are going away together, if you like."
"No; I go alone. You remain here; it is your place now."
"Never!" cried the young artist – "never! I will go out and die like a dog, in a ditch, before I rob you of your birthright!"
"You reverse matters," said Rupert Thetford; "it is I who have robbed you, unwittingly, for too many years. I promised my mother on her death-bed, as she promised my father on his, that you should have your right, and I will keep that promise. Guy, dear old fellow! don't let us quarrel, now that we are brothers, after being friends so long. Take what is your own; the world is all before me, and surely I am man enough to win my own way. Not one other word; you shall not come with me; you might as well talk to these stone walls and try to move them as to me. To-morrow I go, and go alone."
"Alone!" It was May who breathlessly repeated the word.
"Alone! All the ties that bound me here are broken; I go alone and single-handed to fight the battle of life. Guy, I have spoken to the rector about you – you will find him your friend and aider; and May is to make her home at the rectory. And now," turning suddenly and moving to the door, "as I start early to-morrow, I believe I'll retire early. Good-night."
And then he was gone, and Guy and May were left staring at each other with blank faces.
The storm of wind and rain sobbed itself out before midnight, and in the bluest of skies, heralded by banners of rosy clouds, rose up the sun next morning. Before that rising sun had gilded the tops of the tallest oaks in the park he, who had so lately called it all his own, had opened the heavy oaken door and passed from Thetford Towers, as home, forever. The house was very still – no one had risen; he had left a note to Guy, with a few brief, warm words of farewell.
"Better so," he thought – "better so! He and May will be happy together, for I know he loves her and she him. The memory of my leave-taking shall never come to cloud their united lives."
One last backward glance at the eastern windows turning to gold; at the sea blushing back the first glance of the day-king; at the waving trees and swelling meadows, and then he had passed down the avenue, out through the massive entrance-gates, and was gone.