The Two Widows. A novel

Front matter

THE TWO WIDOWS. rrW flObtl BY ANNIE THOMAS, (mrs. fekder cudlip.) AUTHOR OP "DENIS DONNE," "PLAYED OUT," "FALSE COLOUR-!,1 etc., etc. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1873. [All rights reserved.] CONTENTS OF VOL. II. CHAPTPJR PAGE I. THE MESSAGE ! . . . . 1 II. " IN MY LADY'S CHAMBER " .26 in. emmy's confession ... .2 IV. " YOU WERE FREE TO CHOOSE " . 1)6 V. " THE VESTAL REASON SHALL WATCH THE FIRE WAKED BY LOVE " . . 82 VI. CECIL DRAWS HER SWORD . . 108 VII. DOUBLY FALSE . . . .135 VIII. A NET IS SPREAD FOR GILBERT . . 164 IX. THE CHAIN GROWS LOOSE IN EVERY LINK . . . . .192 X. " SO SLIGHT A THING " . . . . 216 XL SELF RELEASED . . . 244 XII. " LOVE IS ENOUGH " .

Chapter I. The Message

! Meanwhile Gilbert Denham buried the wife whose life he had counted on as being of such value to him when the time was ripe for Miss Vicary to demand her pound of flesh, and then suffered himself to be dragged back to Larpington by the irre sistible power of repulsion, During his absence he found that he had been very securely assigned by rumour to Miss Vicary. VOL. II. ] Her mother had given Mrs. Arthur Wal dron's unwilling hand an emphatic squeeze when they met on the Sunday previously, in comings out of church. " And that woman actually had the audacity to add that she heartily and cordially approved of the arrangements, and that when you married her daughter, she would retire and leave you in possession of Larpington House. As if your interest was to be bought away from my boy in that way ; or as if I was to be won to sink his rights because it may be that my own brother will enjoy them."

Horatia panted out her protestation eagerly, and Gilbert replied to it in a way that re-assured her. " Rely upon it, that no power on earth, or under it either for that matter, shall ever induce me to marry Miss Vicary," he said, in a tone of gloomy desperation ; " but there will be some sharp and severe paasages before I gain my point and get. free from her." "You moan before you gain the secret whatever it may bo about Clarice V "Yes; the secret whatever it may be about Clarice is the greatest interest. 1 have on earth now." The " now " was an afterthought added bv the poor young widower, as a. respectful tribute to the memory oi' his deceased wife. " Well, Gilbert," his sister began, hesi tatingly, with a woman's natural unwilling ness to point out to another that tho love which she had been accredited with gaining was in reality given to somebody else. ■■ Well, Gilbert, since you went awa\ some thing very extraordinary has happened," and then she went on to tell him oi' her 1—2 visit to Clarice, of the water-colour sketch, and all its consequences.

And as she told him she saw that another complication would arise. For she saw her brother's face darken and flush ominously, and she noticed that his voice had a strange, harsh ring in it as he said, " I don't want any aid from Stapylton," and there was about him that air of gruff rejection of anything that might be con strued into a service or favour, from a man who might develop into a rival, which is so unmistakable. " He is going to love her, too, and be jealous of Frank," the poor young widow thought, and then her jealousy for her son — for the son who might live to be a talented and distin guished man, and so glorify her (his mother) in a way that no new lover could ever do — entered in and for the time cast ! 5 out the jealousy of the mysterious Cecil, with whom Frank Stapylton fancied him self in love.

That her boy might be worsted in this struggle — that her little Gerald's interests might be swamped in this general flood of feeling which seemed to be setting in — was a possibility that strung her up to the point of enduring anything. She was very ready to sacrifice herself. A woman who is worth anything is always ready to do that, but she was not ready to sacrifice her child — her boy — the son of whom she was so proud in his babyhood, that to live to be his mother in his manhood was her most fervent prayer. Under the influence of this feehng she spoke to her brother with all the convincing warmth that characterises a woman who is in loving earnest. " But Gilbert why not take his aid, if he can give you any ? take his aid in clearing away the mists which are between my boy and his own, and give him your help in winning this woman to be his wife ; help each other.

Do ! do ! for my sake." And Gilbert looked at her, pulling his moustache the while, in vague endeavour to comprehend her, and didn't understand her in the least, and was indeed rather further from her real meaning when the conversa tion ended than he had been at the be ginning of it. " Of course, if you're so set on his marrying this girl, whether he wants to do so or not, you'll carry your point by the force of sheer pertinacity ; you quietly impulsive women are apt to get your way. But I thought that the wind was blowing quite another way ; really, Horry, I thought the other night " " Oh ! don't tell me what you thought the other night," she interrupted. " You were mistaken, and I ought to be very thankful that I have not been led into temptation, and at the same time I ought to bless this vision of Cecil Rashleio-h's face, for through it we may find out something about the way that woman got hold of my boy's property."

" I don't see that you ought to be very thankful for either circumstance, Horry," her brother said, laughing ; " and I'm sure you are not either ; you're trying to delude yourself, my dear girl ; I shall think Stapyl ton a sentimental fool if he falls off from his preference for you ; there's something maudlin about a fellow getting spooney on an idea in this way that I don't like. I be lieve you, in the zeal of your desire to sacri fice yourself, have been talking him into it." Mrs. Arthur Waldron shook her head, and answered with just a tinge of jealous bitterness in her tone. " No, no ; there was no need for me to do that, I assure you, Gilbert ; it was genuine emotion — the emotion produced by genuine love — which he betrayed on seeing that poor faint sketch of a face that I feel to be fair enough to chain any man's con stancy for life.

I wish you wouldn't laugh doubtfully in that way. I want you to be lieve that Frank Stapylton will have my hearty aid and warmest wishes." " By Jove, then, he won't have mine," Gilbert Denham cried, hastily, and fellow feeling taught his sister truly that he, too, was being stung much in the same way that she herself was. The fair face had evidently made an indelible impression on him. For a few moments, Horatia Waldron allowed hope to thrill her heart as the thought flashed into her mind that Gilbert would attempt to rival Frank Stapylton. Why should not her handsome, clever bro ther rival him successfully? There was balm in the thought. Then, with the absurd partiality of a woman in love, she let the hope fade away, as she said to her self, " But what chance would Gilbert stand against Frank ?

She refused him in his youth, because she was bound to some one else ; but what free woman could resist him now ? Well ! I have my children." " I have my children." The cry wells up from many a bleeding heart, and the reflection saves many a woman from utter de spair. " I have my children !" It is a merciful dispensation that the majority do not think at the same time, " But they will soon grow away from finding their mother their nearest, dearest interest ; they will each and all of them learn to love some stranger better than me ; and it is right that it should be so ; right ! but, Heaven, how hard !" Happily for Horatia no thought of the husband and wife of the future who would come and take her children from her dis turbed her peace now. She had them still — entirely, undisputably ; and having them she told herself she could see Frank Stapyl ton lapse from her without a sigh.

" I suppose you have that water-colour sketch you were speaking of? I should like to have a look at it," Gilbert said, in a tone of transparently-assumed carelessness, presently. " No, I haven't, Gilbert ; I lent it to Mr. Stapylton," and then Horatia went on heroically to describe how Mr. Stapylton had pleaded ardently for the poor, weak re flection of the beauty he adored. " I consider it mere maudlin sentimen tality — a fellow going on in that way," Gilbert said angrily ; " parading his puny constancy to a woman who refused him once as if it was something to be proud of; Stapylton hasn't half the stuff in him that I thought he had." " It's because he is showing that he has such good faithful stuff in him that you're annoyed, Gilbert," she said, warmly. Ho ratia Waldron suffered terribly in her own heart on account of that same faithfulness of Frank's. But she would not hear him censured for it without uttering her protest.

But she saw how it was with painful per spicuity. Both these men — the two dearest to her on earth — had gone over to the side of the unconscious woman whom ordinarily just Horatia Waldron had come to regard as her enemy; and she felt piteously pained and outraged and helpless. The avenger in the person of Emmeline Vicary was upon Gilbert Denham before he had recovered the blow of hearing that Frank Stapylton was going to put in a prior claim to the beauty whose identity was shrouded in mystery. Miss Vicary came down in all her glory upon the in habitants of the Bridge House ; came down with a chariot and horses, and a determmed looking mother, and raiment of price upon her fine expansive person. And she called Gilbert " Gilbert," in the tones of an owner, and generally by means of her manner made both Gilbert and his sister hate her more than they had done hitherto.

In explanation of a certain abstraction of ! 13 mind and indifference of manner, which he could not help himself from exhibiting, and which Miss Vicary, with ponderous warmth, promptly resented, Gilbert suffered the statement to escape him that he had just lost by death the dearest friend he had in the world. And forthwith Emmeline per plexed him with inquiries. " Tell me about him, Gilbert," she said, laying a suspicious emphasis on the personal pronoun ; " you will find that I shall never be jealous of your men friends occupying a warm place in your regard ; I think it's mean of a woman to be that, don't you ?" " I find that women are capable of any amount of meanness," he answered, writhing. In the present distorted state of his judgment he almost believed that there was a touch of meanness in the fact of that fair faced beauty up at Larpington House having existed previously for any other man.

And he was almost inclined to ac cuse poor Horatia of meanness in being ready to aid and abet that other man to win her (the fair-faced beauty). He was altogether out of gear in fact, and so Miss Vicary had him very much at her tender mercy. " You will acknowledge that I have not shown anything like meanness in the man agement of our affairs," she said, depre catingly, " in spite of your leaving me so abruptly, after all, you know. I was very brave, for I told mamma and your sister about it myself. Mamma was all that was kind, but (you mustn't be angry with me for telling you the truth now and at all times, Gilbert) your sister showed very ill feeling about it." She had got him out in the most THE 21 ESS AGE! 15 secluded part of Horatia's garden as she made this communication, and she was leaning weightily on his arm in the pon derously affectionate way in which some young women do delight hi making manifest their right supreme to the situation.

He could bear many things, when the many things were merely means towards an end that was dear to him. But he could not bear censure of his sister from Emmeline Vicary. " My sister was naturally shocked and surprised at what you said to her," he said coldly. " Why ' naturally' ?" Miss Vicary asked angrily. "There is nothing so very out of-the-way in your thinking me good enough to be your wife ; your marriage with me won't lower you, or her either, and it strikes me that's all she cares for — " THE TWO WIDO WS. 16 "Don't speak of marriage, I've just left a death-bed," Gilbert interrupted, with an amount of emotion that under the circumstances must have been perplexing and offensive to the lady by his side. How ever, she subdued any evidence of anger which she might have been tempted to show, and said, almost humbly, " I hope you won't be annoyed at one other thing I've done during your absence ; I have taken Mrs. Arthur to see Clarice ?"

" No, I'm not annoyed at it," he said, and yet he was anaccountably annoyed about it the whole time. " Perhaps," he went on, " it would have been well to have consulted me first ; my sister is en thusiastic, and enthusiasm is very pene trating ; if there is anything to be discovered about Clarice which you wish to keep concealed you have done an unwise thing." THE MESSAGE! 17 " I shall make you the judge of whether it will be well for us to conceal it or not, very soon," she said in a whisper. " I'll trust you entirely — as I love you ; you shall know Clarice's story." He felt that an appalling responsibility of some unknown kind would be cast upon him as soon as he did know it. Neverthe less he panted to hear all she had to tell him. " The sooner the better for us all," he said quietly, and Emmeline nerved herself to the task, and would have told him "all" there was to tell, if her mother and his sister had not come to the window calling them just then.

" Mr. Stapylton is here, and Mrs. Wal dron wishes us all to go up and have luncheon with her," Mrs. Arthur Waldron said to her brother as he approached her, 2 VOL. THE TWO WIDOWS. " and I should like to go if you will, Gil bert." She went on driving the dagger deeper into her heart as she thought of how Frank would not only "thrill," but tell her of his thrills ,when he found him self under the same roof with the woman he loved. And Gilbert acquiesced in the plan, for anything was better than delay, and so as soon as it was settled, Miss Vicary pro posed that the carriage should be sent home, and that the whole party should walk up together. So they went through the village a peaceful procession apparently, full of all manner of kindly feeling and goodwill to wards one another. And so many of their fellow-creatures as observed them thought what an auspicious spectacle it was, and how well it augured for the THE 21 ESS AGE! 19 future prosperity of the place that the two branches of the family should be proclaim ing in this way their intention of dwelling in peace and amity together.

The luncheon was a lengthy ceremony at Larpington House always, but to-day it seemed hideous in its extreme length to the two men who were anxious to see it come to an end, and to be on their way to fresh discoveries. They grew silent, sad, utterly uninteresting in their bored im patience, and it was a relief even to un conscious Mrs. Waldron when it came to an end, and Emmeline moved an adjourn ment to the picture gallery. " For there without making ourselves conspicuous we can talk apart," she whispered to Gilbert Denham. And he knowing that the picture gallery opened into Clarice's room said " Yes" to her proposition gladly. 2—2 THE TW01WID0WS. 20 They sauntered up and down for a time looking at the dead and gone Waldrons, and talking of the extreme beauty which had characterized the last two represen tatives of the race ; and Frank Stapylton made himself Mrs. Arthur Waldron's close escort during the sauntering, and whispered to her perpetually, for did she not know of his secret, and sympathise with it ?

Gilbert Denham and Emmeline meantime strolling apart, he anxious beyond the bounds of mere common anxiety for the moment to arrive which should put him in possession of Clarice's story ; she striv ing with all her power to string herself up to the task of telling it. Presently the mistress of the house, seeing that the quartette had arranged it self so happily, and feeling that as the odd one she was de trop, left them, and went THE 21 ESS AGE! 21 back to one of the back saloons wherein she loved to sit, while her imagination peopled it with an aristocratic crowd whom she had had the power of calling together. So the four were left alone, without her guarding presence, within a few yards of the secret, which three of them thirsted to find out. Wildly, impatiently, without an end or aim, Horatia Waldron moved about the gallery, and spoke as coherently as she could of the things which she scarcely saw.

Tried to talk Art, poor thing ! with her heart aching about Nature, and tailed ; and still concealed her failure from the man who caused her to make it. That he was not worth one of these pangs which she suffered on his account was a saving consideration wdiich never came to her aid once during these dark days. It never does until a woman has en dured all the anguish, and then it comes with overwhelming force, and adds terribly to her mortification. On the whole, better the agony of loving than the discovery that the one loved is not worth the price of pain one has paid for him. But Horatia Waldron had not made this discovery yet. Most probably she was one of the women who never do make it, but who go on to the end making gods of mere idols of some kind of poor composition. If she is one of these women, all I can say is that hers will be the happier fate.

The feeling of having been deceived by one's own vain imaginings is about as painful a one as a woman can be called upon to live through. Frank Stapylton was one of the men whom women truthfully enough speak of as de- THE 21 ESS AGE ! ■2:', lightful, and men warmly mention as a " very good fellow." Nevertheless he was not that despicable thing " a general favourite." Far be it from me to wish to depreciate the man Horatia Waldron honoured with her regard. He was not a general favourite, but he was very weU liked, with very good reason, by the great majority. Since the fading away of his first love dream, he had taken life very gaily. His real inner cry had been — " Then let me live a long romance, And learn to trifle well, And write my motto ' Vive la Janse !' And ' Vive la bagatelle ! ' " But Horatia Waldron had fetched him down from this airy unfeeling sphere.

Fetched him down only that he might fall in love with another woman. Into the midst of their quiet in this picture gallery, this latter reflection would intrude and disquiet her. She knew all the time that he was waiting, longing, yearning for a sound and a sight of that other woman as ardently as he was shrink ing from it. And so presently she said, with the impassioned fervour of despairing love and defiant jealousy, " If ' Will' had anything to do with the matter I'd bring Clarice into our midst this moment. It is hard on us all — it is more than cruel to you, that circumstances should keep her boxed up so close to us when a sight of her might — " Into the midst of her speech came a strain, and the cry of the recognition of it. Out from the barred and bolted chamber in which Clarice was imprisoned there rang the words of Blumenthal's " Message," — the first words of the witching melody, THE 21 ESS AGE! 25 sung in a high tremulous soprano, and in response to it, Frank Stapylton stammered out, " It is Cecil herself."

Chapter II

" IN MY LADY'S CHAMBEB." He did not soften or subdue his voice, he gave out his conviction that it %vas " Cecil herself," gladly, loudly, gloriously as a man should give out any conviction he may hold about the woman he loves. " Let us go in at once," he said eagerly to Horatia Waldron, turning to her for sure and ready sympathy and hearty acquies cence, and utterly ignoring Miss Vicary 's presence and possible power. And his hand was on the handle of the door of "IN 2IY LADY'S CHA2IBER." 27 Clarice's prison in a moment and the flush of love and anticipation wTas on his face, and Mrs. Arthur Waldron felt that the hour had come for another to " shine her down " altogether, as far as he was concerned, when suddenly Miss Vicary interposed. Coldly, mockingly, tauntingly, it al most seemed to them all, Emmeline spoke.

" Really, Mr. Stapylton, it seems to me that weakness is infectious ; that is the only way I can account for your taking such an unpardonable liberty as to attempt to enter that room." " But I tell you that I know her ; that I will see her," he cried excitedly, and then, lashed to fury by the fear that the secret she was going to surrender for love, to barter for love, would be discovered, and so make her surrender of no avail, she ran to the head of the staircase and called loudly for " Mr. Carter." " Why on earth were you so impetuous, so ridiculously fast about it," Gilbert Den ham said, complainingly. " How could it have entered your mind for one moment that the door would be unlocked ? You have done away with all chance of seeing her now." And indeed it seemed as if Frank Stapylton had damaged an excellent cause when Mr. Carter appeared, in answer to Emmeline's loud appeals, and with surly de termination refused to " permit his patient to be made the object of idle curiosity."

It was in vain that Frank, with perfect ingenuousness and utter want of wisdom, protested with fervour that his curiosity was the very reverse of idle, that he had recognised the voice of the friend who was "IN 21 Y LADY'S CHAMBER." 29 the dearest in the world to him, and that one glance at her face would enable him to proclaim whether or not a foul fraud had been perpetrated. It was all in vain. Mr. Carter denied the possibility of the sus pected identity, and declared that he was endowed with power to protect his patient from intrusion, by the authority of her mother. And Emmeline Vicary backed him up in his decision, in defiant disregard of all the reminding, appealing glances. Gilbert Denham levelled at her. " You must be as mad as my patient to have been guilty of such an error of judgment — such a breach of good taste in the house of a friend and neighbour," Mr. Carter presently muttered to the bewil dered, enthusiastic, excited man, who was powerless to do more than repeat his firm and unalterable conviction that it was " Cecil herself " whose voice he had heard.

It was humiliating, mortifying, disap pointing to a degree to them all, to have to leave the mystery fast, as they thought they were on the brink of elucidating it. It was doubly hard on Frank, who had a decent feeling of interest in the affair, as it concerned Mrs. Arthur Waldron's child, and a desperate one as it concerned Cecil Rashleigh. And it was almost equally hard on Horatia, who had so many interests at stake in the matter. They left the house very soon, parting with Mrs. Waldron and Miss Vicary with marked coolness, and, on Frank Stapylton's part, with undisguised suspicion. "You have stopped me from seeing her this time," he said hotly to Miss Vicary, "but yourtriumph will be a very brief one, I can assure you." " IN 211 LADY'S CHA2IBER." 31 And in answer to this last indiscretion, Miss Vicarysaid, " I defy you ever to see my sister."

Gilbert's farewell speech was far less threatening to listen to at the time, but in thinking it over afterwards both the niother and daughter came to the conclusion that it was far more ominous. " Every secret unfolds itself in time ; everything comes to the man who can wait; I can wait, you will find." " He may wait for ever, and it shall never come to him, shall it, Emmy ?" Mrs. Waldron began violently. " Say you'll never let him wdieedle you out of it, Emmy ? All that I have done, I have done for you, my child." " Nonsense, mother : it has been for yourself quite as much as for me, and why shouldn't it be for yourself? It is natural and human to do as much for oneself as for one's children, and I never should try to deny anything that is natural and human." " Ah ! you're not a mother, and can't understand a mother's feelings," Mrs. Waldron resumed plaintively.

" Do you think I would have planned, and toiled, and schemed as I have for myself alone ?" "Yes," Emmeline answered promptly, " why shouldn't you ? you're as fond of fine living and fine clothes as I am, and why shouldn't you be ? You wouldn't like to go back to what you were before I took service with her, any more than I should like it." " It's what I shall have to do and you will have to do if you let him wheedle you out of the truth." " If he ever does wheedle the truth out of me it will be his interest as much as "IN 2IY LADY'S CHAMBER." 33 ours to hold his tongue ; the truth won't benefit his sister, if it would he'd sacrifice me, I believe, but it won't and so his honourable scruples may be lulled to rest, I dare say," Emmy replied, half contemp tuously, for she was feeling bitter against Gilbert for the coldness he had shown to her this morning, and in her bitterness she let the truth, which is the most mortifying of all for a woman to realize, escape her — namely, the conviction that she was after aU only a secondary consideration to the man she loved.

But suggestive as this conversation would have been to any one of the disappointed trio, their conversation was still more preg nant with meaning, as they sat until the twilight fell in the drawing-room of the Bridge House discussing ways and means and possibilities. Gilbert, the practical, VOL. II. declared his intention of getting a detective down from London, while Stapylton, the ardent, made life pleasant for Mrs. Arthur Waldron by avowing that he did not need the services of a detective, and would in finitely prefer breaking Cecil's prison bars himself and carrying her off to some place where Love, aided by Science, should re store reason. His own assertion, unpremeditated and unthought of as it was, worked in his mind, and caused him to devise and plot and plan as he had never done in his life before.

But after all, plotting and planning were of no avail. The scheme he eventually carried out flashed into his mind in an instant, as he rode away from the Bridge House that night. There were but few lights to be seen in the windows of Larpington House. It " IN 21 Y LADY'S CHA2IBER." 35 looked unusually dull, in fact, for the mistress of the mansion and her daughter, ex hausted by the fear and excitement of the day, had gone to bed early, so the usual blaze had not been made in the big saloon and picture-gallery. It all looked quiet a,nd at rest, and a sudden impulse prompted Frank Stapylton to go up and see what the place looked like by moonlight. He tied his horse to a tree in the avenue and walked up to the house, and stood still for a minute or two, wondering which was the window of the room wherein his love was caged.