CHAPTER XVIII.

Mocking Angel! The trials of a tortured throng are naught when weighed

in the balance of future anticipations. The living sometimes learn the

touchy tricks of the traitor, the tardy, and the tempted; the dead have

evaded the flighty earthly future, and form to swell the retinue of

retired rights, the righteous school of the invisible, and the

rebellious roar of raging nothing.

The night was dark and tempestuous; the hill rather inclined to be

steep; the clouds were bathed in wrinkled furrows of vapoury smoke; the

traffic on the quiet and lonely roads surrounding Dunfern Mansion was

utterly stopped, and nature seemed a block of obstruction to the eye of

the foreigner who drudged so wearily up the slope that led to the home

of Mrs. Durand, who had been confined to bed for the past three years,

a sufferer from rheumatism.

Perceiving the faint flicker of light that occasionally flung its feeble

rays against the dim fanlight of faithful Fanny's home--the aged sister

of the late Tom Hepworth--the two-fold widowed wanderer, with trembling

step, faltered to the door of uncertain refuge, and, tapping against it

with fingers cold and stiff, on such a night of howling wind and beating

rain, asked, in weakened accents, the woman who opened to her the door,

"If she could be allowed to remain for the night?"--a request that was

granted through charity alone. After relieving herself of some outer

garments, and partaking of the slight homely fare kindly ordered by Mrs.

Durand, the widow of Oscar Otwell and Sir John Dunfern warmed herself

and dried her saturated clothing before going to bed. She had just

arrived the day previous, and hastened to take up her abode as near her

former home of exquisiteness as she could, without detection.

On extinguishing the light before retiring, and casting one glance in

the direction of the little window, the innumerable recollections of the

abundant past swept across the mind of the snowy-haired widow, and were

further augmented by the different starlike lights which shone from the

numerous windows in Dunfern Mansion, directly opposite where she lay.

A couple of days found her almost rested after such a trying night as

that on which she arrived, and observing the sharpest reticence lest she

might be known, she nerved herself to appear next day at Dunfern

Mansion, to accomplish the last wish of her late lover and husband, for

whom she ventured so much and gained so little, and particularly to try

and see her son.

The morning was warm and fine; numerous birds kept chirping outside the

little cottage of Mrs. Durand. The widow, with swollen eyes and face of

faded fear, prepared herself for the trying moment, which she was

certain of achieving. Partaking of a very slight breakfast, she told

Mrs. Durand not to expect her for dinner.

Marching down the hill's face, she soon set foot on the main road that

led direct to Dunfern Mansion. Being admitted by Nancy Bennet, a prim

old dame, who had been in charge of the lodge for the last eighteen

years, the forlorn widow, whose heart sank in despair as she slowly

walked up the great and winding avenue she once claimed, reached the

huge door through which she had been unconsciously carried by Marjory

Mason a good many years ago.

Gently ringing the bell, the door was attended by a strange face.

Reverently asking to have an interview with Sir John Dunfern, how the

death-like glare fell over the eyes of the disappointed as the footman

informed her of his demise! "Madam, if you cast your eyes thence--[here

the sturdy footman pointed to the family graveyard, lying quite

adjacent, and in which the offcast of effrontery had oftentimes

trodden]--you can with ease behold the rising symbol of death which the

young nobleman, Sir Hugh Dunfern, has lavishly and unscrupulously

erected to his fond memory."

The crushed hopes of an interview with the man she brought with head of

bowed and battered bruises, of blasted untruths and astounding actions,

to a grave of premature solitude were further crumbled to atoms in an

instant. They were driven beyond retention, never again to be fostered

with feverish fancy. After the deplorable news of her rightful husband's

death had been conveyed to the sly and shameless questioner, who tried

hard to balance her faintish frame unobserved, she asked an interview

with Sir Hugh Dunfern. This also was denied, on the ground of absence

from home.

Heavily laden with the garb of disappointment did the wandering woman of

wayward wrong retrace her footsteps from the door for ever, and

leisurely walked down the artistic avenue of carpeted care, never more

to face the furrowed frowns of friends who, in years gone by, bestowed

on her the praises of poetic powers. Forgetful almost of her present

movements, the dangerous signal of widowhood was seen to float along the

family graveyard of the Dunferns.

Being beforehand acquaint with the numerous and costly tombstones

erected individually, regardless of price, the wearied and sickly woman

of former healthy tread was not long in observing the latest tablet, of

towering height, at the north-east end of the sacred plot.

There seemed a touchy stream of gilded letters carefully cut on its

marble face, and on reading them with watery eye and stooping form, was

it anything remarkable that a flood of tears bathed the verdure that

peeped above the soil?

The lines were these:--

I.

The hand of death hath once more brought

The lifeless body here to lie,

Until aroused with angels' voice,

Which call it forth, no more to die.

II.

This man, of health and honest mind,

Had troubles great to bear whilst here,

Which cut him off, in manhood's bloom,

To where there's neither frown nor tear.

III.

His life was lined with works of good

For all who sought his affluent aid;

His life-long acts of charity

Are sure to never pass unpaid.

IV.

Sir John Dunfern, whose noble name

Is heard to echo, far and wide,

In homes of honour, truth, and right,

With which he here lies side by side.

V.

The wings of love and lasting strength

Shall flap above his hollow bed;

Angelic sounds of sweetest strain

Have chased away all tears he shed.

VI.

Then, when the glorious morn shall wake

Each member in this dust of ours,

To give to each the sentence sure

Of everlasting Princely Power--

VII.

He shall not fail to gain a seat

Upon the bench of gloried right,

To don the crown of golden worth

Secured whilst braving Nature's fight.

After carefully reading these lines the figure of melting woe sat for a

long time in silence until a footstep came up from behind, which alarmed

her not a little. Looking up she beheld the face of a youth whose

expression was very mournful, and asking after her mission, was informed

she had been casting one last look on the monument of her lamented

husband.

"Mighty Heavens!" exclaimed Sir Hugh Dunfern, "are you the vagrant who

ruined the very existence of him whom you now profess to have loved?

You, the wretch of wicked and wilful treachery, and formerly the wife of

him before whose very bones you falsely kneel! Are you the confirmed

traitoress of the trust reposed in you by my late lamented, dearest, and

most noble of fathers? Are you aware that the hypocrisy you manifested

once has been handed down to me as an heirloom of polluted possession,

and stored within this breast of mine, an indelible stain for life, or,

I might say, during your known and hated existence?

"False woman! Wicked wife! Detested mother! Bereft widow!

"How darest thou set foot on the premises your chastity should have

protected and secured! What wind of transparent touch must have blown

its blasts of boldest bravery around your poisoned person and guided you

within miles of the mansion I proudly own?

"What spirit but that of evil used its influence upon you to dare to

bend your footsteps of foreign tread towards the door through which they

once stole unknown? Ah, woman of sin and stray companion of tutorism,

arise, I demand you, and strike across that grassy centre as quickly as

you can, and never more make your hated face appear within these mighty

walls. I can never own you; I can never call you mother; I cannot extend

the assistance your poor, poverty-stricken attire of false don silently

requests; neither can I ever meet you on this side the grave, before

which you so pityingly kneel!"

Speechless and dogged did the dishonoured mother steal for ever from the

presence of her son, but not before bestowing one final look at the

brightened eye and angry countenance of him who loaded on her his lordly

abuse. The bowed form of former stateliness left for ever the grounds

she might have owned without even daring to offer one word of repentance

or explanation to her son.

Walking leisurely along the road that reached Dilworth Castle, how the

trying moments told upon her who shared in pangs of insult and

poverty!--how the thoughts of pleasant days piled themselves with

parched power upon the hilltop of remembrance and died away in the

distance! The whirling brain became more staid as she heard the approach

of horses' feet, and stopping to act the part of Lot's wife, gave such a

haggard stare at the driver of the vehicle as caused him to make a

sudden halt. Asking her to have a seat, the weary woman gladly mounted

upon its cushion with thankfulness, and alighted on reaching its

journey's end, about three miles from Audley Hall. The drive was a long

one, and helped to rest the tired body of temptation.

Returning thanks to the obliging driver, she marched wearily along until

she reached the home of her first refuge after flight.

Perceiving the yellow shutters firmly bolted against the light admitters

of Audley Hall, she feared disappointment was also awaiting her.

Knocking loudly twice before any attempt was made to open the door,

there came at last an aged man with halting step and shaking limb.

"Is Major Iddesleigh at home?" asked the saddened widow. "Oh, madam, he

has been dead almost twelve years, and since then no one has occupied

this Hall save myself, who am caretaker. The Marquis of Orland was

deceived by his nephew, who sold it in an underhand manner to the major,

and he resolved that never again would he allow it to be occupied since

the major's death by any outsider."

"You are rather lonely," said the widow. "Yes, yes," replied he; "but I

have always been accustomed living alone, being an old bachelor, and

wish to remain so. It is better to live a life of singleness than

torture both body and soul by marrying a woman who doesn't love you,

like the good Sir John Dunfern--a nobleman who lived only some miles

from this, and who died lately broken-hearted--who became so infatuated

with an upstart of unknown parentage, who lived in Dilworth Castle, with

one Lord Dilworth, the previous owner, that he married her offhand, and,

what was the result, my good woman?--why she eventually ran off with a

poor tutor! and brought the hairs of hoary whiteness of Sir John Dunfern

to the grave much sooner than in all probability they would have, had he

remained like me."

Facing fumes of insult again, thought the listener. And asking after

Major Iddesleigh's will, eagerly awaited his reply.

Placing one hand upon her shoulder, and pointing with the other,

"Behold," said he, "yonder church? that was his last will--Iddesleigh

Church. It was only when the jaws of death gaped for their prey that the

major was forced to alter his will, having had it previously prepared in

favour of his niece, whose whereabouts could never be traced until after

his death." "Enough--enough, I must go," said the painful listener, and

thanking the old man for his information, which, like her son's, had

screwed its bolts of deadly weight more deeply down on the lid of

abstract need, turned her back on Audley Hall for ever.