Lady Hazleton's Confession

Front matter

LADY HAZLETON'S CONFESSION BY Mrs. J. KENT SPENDER AUTHOR OF " HER BROTHER'S KEEPER," " MR. NOBODY, ' " PARTED LIVES," " BOTH IN THE WRONG," ETC, CHEAP EDITION LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. PATERNOSTER SQUARE CONTENTS. -s#«- CHAP. PAGE I. ENSLEIGH RECTORY I II. FATHER AND SON 12 III. TWO OLD COLLEGE CHUMS ... - 27 IV. AT DALMALLY 35 V. A CYNIC IN LONDON 48 VI. ROBERT FOUND LONDON STIFLING - - 56 VII. IN MRS. PERCIVAL'S BOUDOIR - - - - 64 VIII. A PASSION IN SOLITUDE - 79 IX. A BOX AT A THEATRE 86 X. THE DIE IS CAST 99 XL BREAKFAST AT LORD HAZLETON'S - - - 106 XII. A DOUBLE WEDDING 1 16 XIII. IN THE HOUSE 1 33 XIV. AT LORD HAZLETON'S 141 XV. IRMA'S PLAN 156 XVI. AT ASCOT 169 XVII. HUSBAND AND WIFE 1 78 XVIII. A STOLEN VISIT ------ 196 XIX. SUNDAY MORNING IN ROBERT'S HOUSE - CONTENTS. IV CHAP. PAGE XX.

MISCHIEVOUS SCANDAL ----- 223 XXI. A HORRIBLE MISTAKE ----- 229 XXII. A MYSTERIOUS APPARITION - - - - 240 XXIII. A MISSION OF MERCY 252 XXIV. BERNARD RETIRES FROM PUBLIC LIFE - - 262 XXV. LORD HAZLETON'S DEATH - - - - 27 1 XXVI. EIGHTEEN YEARS AFTERWARDS - - - 278 XXVII. LADY HAZLETON'S SECRET ... - 288 XXVIII. IN THE DEATH CHAMBER ... - 299 XXIX. IRMA DOES HER DUTY ----- 306 XXX. IN QUEST ------- 3I2 XXXI. FOUND AT LAST - - - - - - 3 19 XXXII. HOME AGAIN ------- 325 XXXIII. TWO COUSINS 337 XXXIV. AN UNWILLING HEIR 344 XXXV. READING THE WILL ... -

Part I. Chapter

I. ENSLEIGH RECTORY. " It is really your duty to speak out. It would be wrong not to remonstrate with him." " My dear, I have a suspicion that it would do no good."' " You mean he does not like to be told of his faults ? " " That is a weakness which he shares with other mortals." The daughter rose angrily from the breakfast-table, pushing away her untasted coffee. Anne Everingham was a type of woman which the deadly earnestness and over-education of modern times have helped to develop — self-sacrificing and hard-working, without a touch of playfulness, ready to suffer and endure, without a sign of affection, wanting in humour, and in the art of making herself popular, full of sterling worth, and resentful of the fact that her own relations did not properly appreciate her. The Honour able and Reverend Cyril Everingham, long time rector of Easleigh, and brother of Lord Hazleton, submitted to be lectured by her, and kept in order A from morning to night, as if their mutual relations were inverted.

But" she never fawned over him with little attentions, never gave him his greatcoat, never warmed his slippers before the fire, patted bis hands, or kissed his rough old cheek as her less perfect mother had done before her. The Rev. Cyril Everingham was happy, nevertheless, even in the fact that the practical cleverness of his daughter, with her capable hands always ready for an emergency, her active mind responding with enthusiasm and interest to all his plans for the parish, left him more time for dreaming over his books. The rector had always been a scholar and a dreamer. He was considered now to be the " slack " member of his family, and with his quiet tastes for country pursuits he was well content with his lot, often de claring that the " lines had fallen for him in pleasant places."

In Ensleigh he had lived, only leaving it occasionally for visits to his brother at Hazleton Hall, and in Ensleigh he hoped to linger till the approach of that unconscious senility which should lessen the terrors of dissolution. He had little in common with his brother, Lord Hazleton, and since his two sons had left him — Robert the elder, the practical, the pragmatical, heir some day to the title and estate sooner or later to be vacated by his child less uncle ; and Bernard the younger, the unconven tional enthusiast, the would-be reformer, at present studying at Oxford — Mr. Everingham and Anne had managed to "jog on" not unhappily together. For if the Rev. Cyril was sometimes a little afraid of the girl's dominant will and the strength of her person ality, it was his rule to hear without heeding, so as to escape vexation, and he would have been offended with anyone who dared to point out that when his daughter asserted herself the odds were against him.

" It is nonsense to put it off any longer. You know that yrou have such a growing dislike to travelling that the longer you defer it the harder it will be for you. But joVl must go to Oxford — go and see to Bernard yourself. I do not at all like the tone of that letter." The apple of discord at that moment was a letter received from Bernard. The rector had been in discreet in reading passages of it aloud as soon as the servants filed out from morning prayers, but under any circumstances it would have been impossible to prevent Anne from hearing of it. For old customs were kept up at Ensleigh, and the letters were laid properly in their places by the side of the plates and the knives and forks of the owners, in accordance with the prevailing contempt for modern improvements — afternoon tea and such fashions included.

" Well, and what do you mean to do ? " asked Anne, with growing impatience. Mr. Everingham did not speak. He only gazed out of the window to the nicely-kept garden which communicated by a sunk fence with God's Acre beyond, with primroses blooming beneath the boughs of the scyamores, and thrushes singing on the veritable bird-lawn, so utterly did he dread the thought of anything to break through his ordinary life of soft, unquestioning, monotonous happiness. But the sound of Anne's keys rattling indignantly at her waistband, as she pushed away her breakfast and took up her knitting-needles, recalled him to the necessity of determining on some answer, and his eyes wandered about the room. A ray of sunshine, entering through the old-fashioned casements of the mullioned windows, played on the oak furniture, almost blackened by time.

Rector after rector had taken the oak table, sideboard, and chairs, which gave a rich and some what melancholy appearance to the brown tones of the room. Two silver wine-coolers and a pair of candelabra, that had been for years in the family, stood in the shade of the sideboard. A couple of round frames, enclosing pictures by Stothard of high waisted maidens with soft faces and pretty hair, were the only adornments suffered to interfere with the sombre solemnity of the walls. For the rector of Ensleigh had his fads. The family portraits were never removed from Hazleton Hall, or Lord Hazleton's house in Grosvenor-square. Cyril Everingham could not endure landscape paintings, which seemed to him to give little impression of the soul-satisfying beauty of nature ; their low colours, after the real ones, not impressing his imagination.

The rector himself was the most striking picture in the room — a tall, well-knit old man, whose upright sinewy frame suggested a vast amount of physical strength. The skin, which had once been fine, was etched with innumerable wrinkles, and there were cavernous depths beneath the deep-set grey-blue eyes, reaching to the cheekbones and casting shadows under the frontal development on the expressive benevolent cheeks, which suggested a portrait by Rembrandt. Only Herkomer, amongst our modern artists, or possibly Millais, could have done justice to the lights and shadows of the face. Continual exposure to the open air, the cold winds of winter, the mists of evening, or the burning rays of the mid day sun, had roughened the beauty of the outlines which once had been finely modelled. It was a ruggedness of cuticle which rather heightened than destroyed the intense individuality of an old and much-tried man — so used to seek sources of satisfaction in retirement from his fellows, and so accustomed by the force of circumstances to one groove in life, that he could not readily accommodate himself to any other.

The soul of the man looked out from beneath those shaggy brows with an intrepidity, a serenity of aspect, seldom to be found in these restless and critical times. One glance at the rector told you that he had as fervent a faith in the old traditions, and as unswerving a fidelity to the ideals of his youth, as if there bad been no nineteenth century iconoclasts to hammer at those ideals. Conservative by nature, he had set himself against most modern innovations — false teeth included — to the detriment of his parishioners. So that his chin advanced to meet his aquiline nose, and his partially bald head was shaded by a fringe of hair having the appearance of a tonsure. The hair, once auburn in colour, was now sprinkled with white, which made it look like ginger ; and the long beard, which was of the same tint, saved him the trouble of shaving, adding to the apostolic appearance of his figure.

The silence was only broken by the click of Anne's knitting-needles. The girl was rarely idle, and the click reminded her father that she — his most active curate — had much to do in the village that morning, and was still waiting for his answer. " My dear," he said at length — his bushy eyebrows gathered together with a deep fold between them, and thrusting out his lower lip as his habit was in thought — "if you think it necessary, I will go, but 1 regret the necessity, and I see no cause for haste." " I can only say that in your case I should lose no time ; I should go at once." When Anne said "7 should do such and such a thing" in a tone like this, it was equivalent to an admonition. She meant no harm, but it was a part of her character to be always sure that she was right, and to enjoy a keen satisfaction in her own righteous ness.

Usually this comfortable conviction of her own goodness was annoying to no one, being diffused into a number of small channels. But on this occasion it roused her father's humour. " I know, my dear," he answered, " that you are quite equal to working the machinery of this parish. I don't doubt your talent for organisation or your untiring energy, but I doubt your power of dealing with young men." " And I know that Bernard is wasting his time at Oxford — he not only talks politics which he cannot understand, but he reads all sorts of books." " He browses, as Charles Lamb called it, in all sorts of pastures." " So much the greater pity — it is the way to neglect his more regular studies." The rector again relapsed into silence, but Anne came nearer to him. " I am not demonstrative," she often said ; somehow managing to convey in her tone the imputation that only foolish and shallow women were led away by their affections, adding that she looked upon kissing as an entirely foolish custom.

But on this occasion she rose and put her hand upon her father's arm with a gesture which was unmistak able, and the voice sounded strange and hoarse in which she repeated, " In your case I should go at once." " I intend to go to Oxford when the boy takes his degree," pleaded the rector as he sipped his coffee. " You intend — meanwhile ? " " He is as right as a trivet." The rector continued to sip the coffee, shifted another log on the fire, and helped himself to an omelette, but he did not look his daughter in the face as she cried impetuously, " Right ! when you know you have always spoilt him." He was too accustomed to accept Anne's amend ments to think it worth while to contradict this statement. And as he slowly opened his newspaper, gazing again across the lawn at the meek-eyed cows' Anne knew that the victory was virtually won.

She was too practised a general to vacate the field while it was uncertain. From the time she left school she had been used to have her finger in every pie. And if she arrogated to herself a power which was almost sacerdotal, being a sort of queen of the parish, winning the respect and admiration of everyone in the useful life which she led, her father always admired and gave way to her, even when she advocated tbe introduction of incense and ecclesiastical adornments, which be himself discouraged. " My dear, you may think yourself to be a good Churchwoman without being a good Christian," he had ventured one day to say gently. He watched her now, stepping towards the greensward, somewhat too weighty in style for an unmarried woman, but simple, dignified, and plainly dressed, with an absence of tags, buttons, and flounces meant for show and not for use ; and he prided himself, as usual, on his belongings.

Not only was he monarch of all he surveyed, in one of the prettiest spots in creation, but he considered himself singularly blest in his children. He was aware that he was shy by nature, and that indolence was growing upon him, that he feared meeting his old friends, or hearing that opinions had changed, or " the times were out of joint." He accused himself of vegetating — basking in the rays of the sun like a lizard — in summer, or sitting with his books by the fire in winter ; and he admired his daughter for the energy which made mediocrity terrible to her. Everything which she attempted she liked to do well, and at twenty-nine she knew as much as many men of forty. He did not wonder that she was loth to abdicate her independence at Ensleigh, and had no natural liking for the ordinary cares of maternity, when she was like Deborah — mother of the community.

She had not one pair of feet and one pair of hands only, as the neighbours said when they discussed her, but she mi edit have had seven-leagued boots or the arms of Briareus. " I was wrong to argue with her," thought the LADY HAZLETON'!, CONFESSION. rector ; : the heart of a woman is infinitely more delicate than our grosser organs. The incessant exercise which women give it develops in it faculties of refinement, subtle distinctions, greater sensibilities, and presentiments which we cannot appreciate." For in this peaceful monotonous life a discussion of this sort created almost as great a breach as a quarrel in another family, and the rector's inquietude would be great throughout the day. The recollection jarred upon Anne as she went on her errands of mercy, looking — as usual — clear-skinned and upright, and stepping out with quick, decisive tread, with something of the " governess " in her manner, as more than one of her friends complained.

In her secret heart she thought her father required keeping up to the mark in more things than one ; for he was not only easily contented, but a very tender-hearted man. More than one curate who had come to Ensleigh with weak health had been excused by the rector from duties which were performed, after all, by himself or his daughter. And he was still more indulgent wherever his favourite son, Bernard, was concerned. The inflexible and almost conventual rules of the house were absurdly relaxed when that spoilt child appeared. Breakfast in bed, which for a young man seemed to have something to do with the works of the devil, had been served to Bernard be fore now, on the feeble excuse of his studying past midnight. Anne had no patience with such vagaries, and had shaken her key^s defiantly as she passed the door of his bedroom.

She herself had always submitted without a murmur, and had never longed for a wider sphere than this humdrum, village life. She told herself that she had been the molt devoted of daughters, and, if the element of im periousness had entered into her devotion, it must be confessed that she had never troubled others by longing after the sweets ; and now — it was like the LADY LLAZLE TON'S CONFESSION. 9 parable of the elder son and the prodigal ! No fatted calf had been killed for her, no ring put upon her finger, and whatever Bernard chose to do was sure to be excused ! Her thoughts made her indignant, and her figure was stiffer than usual, as she walked with head erect and eyes fixed on the ground, suddenly coming into collision with another more slightly-made maiden, whom she almost knocked down.

" Irma ! " she cried, taking a step back at the sound of merry laughter. " You may well say ' Irma ! ' I had not time to get out of your way, you were making straight for me ; it was a sort of air of ' Stand and deliver ! ' or ' Your life or your purse ! ' What is the matter this morning ? " There was a likeness as well as difference between the two girls, though the one was young, and the other verging on old maidenhood. The one was ten years younger than the other, but both had been reared under the same influences, for Irma Elwyn was the daughter of the squire of the parish. Both were products of country air, healthy lives, and wholesome influences. But the beauty of the sunshine seemed to have passed into the newcomer's face. Anne's hair was black ; Irma's a deep brown with golden lights; and Irma's face was also tinted a golden brown — a tint rarely seen except on a nectarine or peach on the side nearest the sun.

She never thought herself beautiful ; but she had the glow of health about her — a glow seldom seen, and natural to associate with gladness and happiness. The propor tions of the figure were perfect, with curves from neck to hip, repeated in the prettily-shaped ankle, and in the free and graceful movements of the body, unhindered by the devices of fashion. Her's, too, were the large and well-opened eyes, with that droop of the lips about the corners which gives to a woman's confesslon. 10 face a look of unquestioning childhood. More than one man had already been fascinated and arrested by that look, for to know Irma Elwyn was to love her. Anne had held out for some time, but had at last fallen a victim to her attractions, and the two women were firm friends. It seemed more natural for Anne to open her heart to Irma than to other people, — to tell her of the morning's vexation, Bernard's worrying letter, and her father's proposed visit to Oxford.

And she added with a sigh, " It was such a trouble to get him to promise to go. I always think all the worries are about Bernard." But her practical cleverness seemed for once to have been at fault. For Irma's full eyes flashed, and her cherry lips quivered. " I am sure that it is not Bernard's fault — I can't conceive it necessary for anyone to look after him," she said. Anne looked keenly at her friend. Had it been any other woman she would have asked a little sharply why Irma thought it so necessary to espouse the cause of her brother — priding herself on her coolness and scdf-possessed way of saying things which from other people might give offence. But something in the expression of Irma's face daunted her. Such inquiries even from Bernard's sister might have savoured of officiousness, and it would have seemed indelicate to guess at the meaning of innuendoes.

Irma spoke of Bernard naturally by his Christian name, for she had played with both the brothers when all had been children together ; but, in the atmosphere of purity which surrounded both these women, to discourse of more serious affections would have savoured more or less of sacrilege. The con versation took another turn — that of Easter decora tions, Anne being of opinion that in Easter orna mentation nothing should be allowed but daffodils primroses and bluebells. CONFESSION. 11 "And mind, if you help me, you don't forget to put water in the glasses. Acid it the last thing at night," cried Anne, whose own delft fingers always super intended the decorations for Ensleigh church.

Chapter II. Father And Son

To anyone who connects Oxford with memories of twilight aisles and dreamy spires, there is something rather profane about the Randolph Hotel with its electric bells, lifts, and latest modern improvements. The hotel was not quite so bad in the year 18(57, and yet the Rector of Ensleigh never felt so unhappy and uncomfortable in bis life as he did on the following Saturday evening at the table d'hote with its new-fashioned courses served up to a great con course of London visitors. His sight was still good, and it seemed to him that some of the ladies' com plexions were not innocent of rouge, and that one at least was suspiciously dark under her e}~es. He happened to have fallen on Oxford just at that season of the year when foreign elements most prevail and when she is least her modest academic self.

It was, in fact, the height of the Eights' week, and, for the nonce, fine weather. When such cir cumstances combine to favour the fair city that nestles on the banks of the Isis (where the oxen used to find — so legend has it — a grateful ford in the deep swift-flowing stream), then not Monte Carlo herself, nor Nice by the Southern seas, can surpass this little English town in gaiety and brightness. The women vie with one another to distract the " dear bovs " from their books, and to spoil their " Mods " with the brightness of their frocks and the glamour of their eyes. The lecture-rooms are deserted, suppers CONFESSLON. 13 and picnics are the order of the day, the quadrangles ring with the laughter of boys and girls, and every year it becomes more the custom to deliberately lie by for a week, and offer it up a solemn sacrifice to the spirit of delight.

In vain do the older dons protest and declare that men come up to work and not to " fool with women ! " The power passed from their hands on the fateful day when Convocation declared that fellows could take unto themselves wives. Since then social matters hav~ been at best under a dual control, with a growing tendency to become single in favour of the fairest but certainly not the weakest partners. In 1867 the new causes were only just beginning to work, and the yearly invasion which took place left less devastation in its track. The older residents were beginning to shake their heads, but they had not settled down to the moody silence of an abject des pair, and the submissive helplessness of an impotent celibate minority. Still, things were advanced enough to fill the breast of an old country rector like Mr. Everingham with confusion and dismay.

Tandems and prize-fights he perfectly well remembered as the improper but strictly masculine employment of the baser sort of undergraduate. But tea-fights and familiar couples walking — alas ! not tandem-wise but side by side — he now found to be the ordinary everyday avocation of quite respectable Oxonians. And it annoyed and puzzled him extremely. It was Saturday evening, and Mr. Everingham determined to put off visiting Bernard at least until the morrow, when he would be able to discover, he re flected, with a touch of the wisdom of the serpent inculcated by Anne but slightly pricking his con science, how the lad spent his Sundays. After the table d'hote he went downstairs to the smoking-room, thinking mournfully of that old order which had for ever passed away, when he was startled to hear i4 LADY HAZLE TON 'S CONFESSLON.

Bernard's name mentioned in a conversation going on a few yards from where he was sitting. The speakers were young men, and they were talking rather loudly. "Don't know Everingham? I should think not, indeed," said one rather rowdy-looking undergraduate with a heavy moustache and light check suit. " Do you think I would have anything to do with a con founded Socialist ? He is the sort of man who, if he were a Russian, would be spending his twenty years in Siberia. And it would serve him jolly well right too. Our Government does not keep a sharp enough eye on our Universities. If it did it would have nipped half our full-blown Radical agitators in the bud." " Gently, gently ! " rejoined his friend, a more refined and thoughtful-looking man ; " if you are so rabid you will have a reaction, and that won't be good for you.

Everingham is a very clever chap ; he says he is not a party man. He is a fellow of ex cellent intentions and the best motives. He seems to me rather mistaken in the way he goes at things, but character is of more importance than opinion when all is said and done." The other began to protest loudly against this view of the matter, but the rector bad heard enough and left the smoking-room to go to his bedroom. He felt sick at heart at the notion that his name was being bandied about Oxford in connexion with opinions which he regarded with abomination. But he was a little relieved and touched with a certain pride to hear Bernard spoken of so highly even by an enemy. There is something in fame which takes away from the bitterness of knowing that the source of that fame lies in opinions or qualities of which you dis approve.

The Tory father cannot help feeling a secret pride in that misguided son of his, whose speeches were so much praised in the House last session, and the Radical son, unless he be very unnatural, feels a CONFESSION. 15 thrill of pleasure at hearing his father lauded for the pluck with which he resists the anarchical tendencies of the day. But in the case of the rector, pain emerged triumph ant out of these struggling emotions. He thought sadly of the harm which it seemed to him his clever boy might inflict on society, and how different it might have been. " If only," he said to himself, " I could have directed Iris talents into another channel he would have had a chance of becoming just as famous, and then he would have done good instead of evil. But perhaps he will change yet." And the rector went to bed in a very miserable Etate of mind, feebly anxious and insecure as to the wisdom of his venture on the morrow.

He rose betimes and went, as his habit was, to an early service at the cathedral. After breakfast he sat for some time at the window of the Randolph, that he might look over the Corn Market-street and watch the scene below. A varied procession passed as Mr. Everingham sat there on that brilliant May morning; partly frivolous, as when a large party of sisters, cousins, and aunts, in their gayest attire, swept past towards the cathedral, and partly serious, as when the Vice-Chancellor marched by with all the dignity of " pokers " and imposing gowns. Then came a crowd of noisy hobbledehoys, such as hang about a University and make it their chief ambition to be mistaken for students, followed by a batch of fashion abby-dressed undergraduates, making their way to a late Sunday breakfast party. But Mr. Everingham's attention was most attracted by a party of gloomy looking men and women who marched past in a sort of procession, and finally gathered round the Martyrs' Memorial, where an old man dressed in seedy clothes and wearing a venerable beard, began to address them in a loud voice.

LAD Y HAZLETON 'S CONFESSION. Here at last was a sign of religion ! Mr. Evering ham was so interested in this phenomenon that he went down to the street to listen to the old man. " New development of the old forms ; we must take things as they come," muttered the rector to himself. " Perhaps he may give me some hints as to how to get hold of the people. Open-air-preaching is a great weapon." So he said to himself, little knowing. For, as he came nearer, he stood aghast at what he heard. The preacher was a secularist, and was attacking Christianity with the greatest virulence and animosity — uphill — downhill — he never ceased from abusing it. It was " the infamous — the grand delusion of humanity," the " centre of lies and forgeries." Wearied and oppressed with the turgid and aggressive rhetoric of the mild-looking old preacher, the Rev. Cyril Everingham turned away and started towards Bernard's rooms, his son being in his fourth year, and now in lodgings.

He wTalked along tbe "Broad," as Broad-street is vulgarly called by that lover of brevity, the Oxford " undergrad," and turn ing to the left by Wadham College, made his way to Museum-terrace. Bernard lodged at No. 11. He mounted the steps in front of the house and rang the bell. At this moment a sense of the insincerity of what he was doing, which had been growing in strength all the morning, came over him with such force that he nearly turned away and fled along the street. Was not this a piece of Jesuitical dishonesty ? Would it not have been better and fairer, or in the end safer, to write and tell Bernard that he was coming, instead of taking him thus by surprise ? Would not his present proceeding tend to make him worthy of distrust? All these doubts and fears filled him with hesitation ; " hither and thither he divided his swift mind," for even the minds of countiy rectors become swift at critical moments.