Elster's Folly

"And the result? Is he much hurt?" asked Lord Hartledon, constraining his voice to calmness.

"Well, no; not hurt at all, my lord. He was up again soon, saying he'd lash the pony for throwing him. He don't seem hurt a bit."

"Then why need you have alarmed us so?" interrupted Dr. Ashton, reprovingly.

"Well, sir, it's her ladyship seems hurt—or something," cried the man.

Lord Hartledon looked at him.

"What have you come to tell, Richard? Speak out."

Apparently Richard could not speak out. His lady had been frightened and fainted, and did not come to again. And Lord Hartledon waited to hear no more.

The people, standing about in the park here and there—for even this slight accident had gathered its idlers together—seemed to look at Lord Hartledon curiously as he passed them. Close to the house he met Ralph the groom. The boy was crying.

"'Twasn't no fault of anybody's, my lord; and there ain't any damage to the ponies," he began, hastening to excuse himself. "The little lord only slid off, and they stood as quiet as quiet. There wasn't no cause for my lady's fear."

"Is she fainting still?"

"They say she's—dead."

Lord Hartledon pressed onwards, and met Mr. Hillary at the hall-door. The surgeon took his arm and drew him into an empty room.

"Hillary! is it true?"

"I'm afraid it is."

Lord Hartledon felt his sight failing. For a moment he was a man groping in the dark. Steadying himself against the wall, he learned the details.

The child's pony had swerved. Ralph could not tell at what, and Lady Hartledon did not survive to tell. She was looking at him at the time, and saw him flung under the feet of the other pony, and she rose up in the carriage with a scream, and then fell back into the seat again. Ralph jumped out and picked up the child, who was not hurt at all; but when he hastened to tell her this, he saw that she seemed to have no life in her. One of the servants, Richard, happened to be going through the Park, within sight; others soon came up; and whilst Lady Hartledon was being driven home Richard ran for Mr. Hillary, and then sought his master, whom he found at the Rectory. The surgeon had found her dead.

"It must have been instantaneous," he observed in low tones as he concluded these particulars. "One great consolation is, that she was spared all suffering."

"And its cause?" breathed Lord Hartledon.

"The heart. I don't entertain the least doubt about it."

"You said she had no heart disease. Others said it."

"I said, if she had it, it was not developed. Sudden death from it is not at all uncommon where disease has never been suspected."

And this was all the conclusion come to in the case of Lady Hartledon. Examination proved the surgeon's surmise to be correct; and in answer to a certain question put by Lord Hartledon, he said the death was entirely irrespective of any trouble, or care, or annoyance she might have had in the past; irrespective even of any shock, except the shock at the moment of death, caused by seeing the child thrown. That, and that alone, had been the fatal cause. Lord Hartledon listened to this, and went away to his lonely chamber and fell on his knees in devout thankfulness to Heaven that he was so far innocent.

"If she had not given way to the child!" he bitterly aspirated in the first moments of sorrow.

That the countess-dowager should come down post-haste and invade Hartledon, was of course only natural; and Lord Hartledon strove not to rebel against it. But she made herself so intensely and disagreeably officious that his patience was sorely tried. Her first act was to insist on a stately funeral. He had given orders for one plain and quiet in every way; but she would have her wish carried out, and raved about the house, abusing him for his meanness and want of respect to his dead wife. For peace' sake, he was fain to give her her way; and the funeral was made as costly as she pleased. Thomas Carr came down to it; and the countess-dowager was barely civil to him.

Her next care was to assume the entire management of the two children, putting Lord Hartledon's authority over them at virtual, if not actual, defiance. The death of her daughter was in truth a severe blow to the dowager; not from love, for she really possessed no natural affection at all, but from fear that she should lose her footing in the house which was so desirable a refuge. As a preliminary step against this, she began to endeavour to make it more firm and secure. Altogether she was rendering Hartledon unbearable; and Val would often escape from it, his boy in his hand, and take refuge with Mrs. Ashton.

That Lord Hartledon's love for his children was intense there could be no question about; but it was nevertheless of a peculiarly reticent nature. He had rarely, if ever, been seen to caress them. The boy told tales of how papa would kiss him, even weep over him, in solitude; but he would not give him so much as an endearing name in the presence of others. Poor Maude had called him all the pet names in a fond mother's vocabulary; Lord Hartledon always called him Edward, and nothing more.

A few evenings after the funeral had taken place, Mirrable, who had been into Calne, was hurrying back in the twilight. As she passed Jabez Gum's gate, the clerk's wife was standing at it, talking to Mrs. Jones. The two were laughing: Mrs. Gum seemed in a less depressed state than usual, and the other less snappish.

"Is it you!" exclaimed Mrs. Jones, as Mirrable stopped. "I was just saying I'd not set eyes on you in your new mourning."

"And laughing over it," returned Mirrable.

"No!" was Mrs. Jones's retort. "I'd been telling of a trick I served Jones, and Nance was laughing at that. Silk and crêpe! It's fine to be you, Mrs. Mirrable!"

"How's Jabez, Nancy?" asked Mirrable, passing over Mrs. Jones's criticism.

"He's gone to Garchester," replied Mrs. Gum, who was given to indirect answers. "I thought I was never going to see you again, Mary."

"You could not expect to see me whilst the house was in its recent state," answered Mirrable. "We have been in a bustle, as you may suppose."

"You've not had many staying there."

"Only Mr. Carr; and he left to-day. We've got the old countess-dowager still."

"And likely to have her, if all's true that's said," put in Mrs. Jones.

Mirrable tacitly admitted the probability. Her private opinion was that nothing short of a miracle could ever remove the Dowager Kirton from the house again. Had any one told Mirrable, as she stood there, that her ladyship would be leaving of her own accord that night, she had simply said it was impossible.

"Mary," cried the weak voice of poor timid Mrs. Gum, "how was it none of the brothers came to the funeral? Jabez was wondering. She had a lot, I've heard."

"It was not convenient to them, I suppose," replied Mirrable. "The one in the Isle of Wight had gone cruising in somebody's yacht, or he'd have come with the dowager; and Lord Kirton telegraphed from Ireland that he was prevented coming. I know nothing about the rest."

"It was an awful death!" shivered Mrs. Gum. "And without cause too; for the child was not hurt after all. Isn't my lord dreadfully cut up, Mary?"

"I think so; he's very quiet and subdued. But he has seemed full of sorrow for a long while, as if he had some dreadful care upon him. I don't think he and his wife were very happy together," added Mirrable. "My lord's likely to make Hartledon his chief residence now, I fancy, for—My gracious! what's that?"

A crash as if a whole battery of crockery had come down inside the house. A moment of staring consternation ensued, and nervous Mrs. Gum looked ready to faint. The two women disappeared indoors, and Mirrable turned homewards at a brisk pace. But she was not to go on without an interruption. Pike's head suddenly appeared above the hurdles, and he began inquiring after her health. "Toothache gone?" asked he.

"Yes," she said, answering straightforwardly in her surprise. "How did you know I had toothache?" It was not the first time by several he had thus accosted her; and to give her her due, she was always civil to him. Perhaps she feared to be otherwise.

"I heard of it. And so my Lord Hartledon's like a man with some dreadful care upon him!" he went on. "What is the care?"

"You have been eavesdropping!" she angrily exclaimed.

"Not a bit of it. I was seated under the hedge with my pipe, and you three women began talking. I didn't tell you to. Well, what's his lordship's care?"

"Just mind your own business, and his lordship will mind his," she retorted. "You'll get interfered with in a way you won't like, Pike, one of these days, unless you mend your manners."

"A great care on him," nodded Pike to himself, looking after her, as she walked off in her anger. "A great care! I know. One of these fine days, my lord, I may be asking you questions about it on my own score. I might long before this, but for—"

The sentence broke off abruptly, and ended with a growl at things in general. Mr. Pike was evidently not in a genial mood.

Mirrable reached home to find the countess-dowager in a state more easily imagined than described. Some sprite, favourable to the peace of Hartledon, had been writing confidentially from Ireland regarding Kirton and his doings. That her eldest son was about to steal a march on her and marry again seemed almost indisputably clear; and the miserable dowager, dancing her war-dance and uttering reproaches, was repacking her boxes in haste. Those boxes, which she had fondly hoped would never again leave Hartledon, unless it might be for sojourns in Park Lane! She was going back to Ireland to mount guard, and prevent any such escapade. Only in September had she quitted him—and then had been as nearly ejected as a son could eject his mother with any decency—and had taken the Isle of Wight on her way to Hartledon. The son who lived in the Isle of Wight had espoused a widow twice his own age, with eleven hundred a year, and a house and carriage; so that he had a home: which the countess-dowager sometimes remembered.