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CHAPTER XVI
HARK! The bell tolled its death-like strains, faint as the far-off fatherland, steady as the starlight, and sweet as the scent of the blooming woodbine. The hour of departure is sure and settled, the loss is sharply felt, the gain completed, and vigorous attempts to retain both are oftentimes multiplying on the exertions of the benefitted.
During all these years of revolution the wheel of action rounded its roads of revelling, riot, and separation. Shandon Cottage, the little house of Oscar Otwell, where he took up residence when first a visitor to the land of laudable ingenuity, was a pretty structure, and would doubtless have proved a little palace of peace to two such lovers had the means been forthcoming to keep the glare of poverty within its bed of stillness, and prohibit its visitation where least desired.
Oscar, who, during his English career, never was possessor of aught but a slight pittance derived from the sources of his mental labours, and who courted the vain idea, on being made the recipient of £1,000, which he pocketed under false pretences by the underhand sale of Audley Hall, that he was a man of wealth for life, and when safely settled in his trim little cottage, squandered his trifle in a very short time, leaving himself and wife on the mercy of strangers’ sympathy, which more or less presents an icy aspect to the eye of the needy.
Marjory Mason, who just spent twelve months under Oscar’s roof, was fortunate in securing a husband, whose calling kept her during her short lifetime aloof from the imaginative pinches of the uncertain future.
It was only when Oscar was forced to evade starvation that he deemed it imperative to accept an appointment in a public school, at the yearly income of one thousand dollars, an office he retained until compelled to resign through courting too great love for the all-powerful monster of mangled might—Intemperance. After a number of years the partaker of maddened love was the imparter of maddened might.
With beastly force did Oscar Otwell enter Shandon Cottage on the night of his open dismissal from Waketown Public School, and arousing from sleep his wife, with monster oaths inflicted upon her strokes of abuse which time could never efface.
Ah! it was now the actions of youthful frivolity stood before her mountain high and baffled her sickly retort. It was now she pored over her journal of events, which seemed a burthen unbearable for such a fragile frame, and begged the credit side to be for ever closed to her view, whilst she prayed that the debit be left open until she would enter therein all her past debts to him whom she deceived, deluded, denounced, and despised.
Next morning mended matters little for Oscar Otwell’s wife. Still raging with drunken horror, he lavished upon her torrents of insinuations, which she found impossible to overlook, and which forced her to take refuge in the house of the Reverend Bertram Edgar, near by. This man of true piety, at whose church she had occasionally worshipped, extended the refuge she presently implored, and proved instrumental in securing for her the position of governess in a nobleman’s family some miles distant.
Disposing of all the household effects, Oscar pocketed their dainty worth, and left Shandon Cottage in earnest pursuit of his wife, intending to again return to their native county in England.
His various inquiries regarding her whereabouts proved vain as the vanishing shadow of Venus, and finally, when completely overcome with sober thoughts of his riotous conduct towards the loving and faithful object of his choice, who had risked so much for him, he cursed his very existence.
A few weeks found him in utter destitution, without either house or chattels to illegally dispose of in case of emergency, and line his pockets of pauperism with coin of dishonest stamp and flashing forgery. Unsuccessful in his worthless attempts to further manifest a standing in the literary world, and being driven almost crazy in his eager efforts to ascertain whither his wife had bent her footsteps, he, in a moment of madness, resolved to resign himself to that ever-anxious defender of Satanic rights who prowls about in ambush until safely securing his prey with the crooked claws of callous craft.
Walking along in the moonlight in the direction of Afton Lake, which sometimes offers its deep waters too freely to victims of sin and suffering, Oscar Otwell resolved to bathe his body of perilous adventure in its darkened waters of deepest death, never more to face the troubles and trials of weak man and share them with weaker woman—never again to approach the wife of his bosom with language of lowest type or lift to her the hand which he so often had sworn should extend her the aid she now must seek.
Arriving at the water’s edge, Oscar Otwell divested himself of his scanty attire, and in another moment was struggling in the freezing element which soon should shroud his future with robe of blackest doubt.
Dunraven Hall was situated only a mile from Afton Lake, and was inhabited by the Honourable Eric Eustace, a nobleman of unbounded wealth, whose extension of charity was both wide and varied. It was in this family that Mrs. Otwell was fortunate enough in securing the position before referred to through the instrumentality of her spiritual adviser.
On the night that Oscar Otwell resigned his worldly career, there beat one heart in Dunraven Hall with wild emotion. Mrs. Otwell, retiring to bed as usual, found sleep had altogether fled, and rising from her springy structure of restlessness, dressed herself and paced the bedroom floor enveloped in dread. She was convinced something was about to happen, and struggling in her great efforts to baffle the fear that haunted her night and day lately, she resolved, so soon as daybreak peeped its cheerful face through her window, to take a walk along the road in order to cast her fears upon the highway of forgetfulness.
Wrapping herself in her warmest cloak, she soon was found walking rapidly along in silence on the road that swept round Afton Lake. She had not gone far when people were seen to mount the fence that conducted them to the nearest point of its watery expanse, which lay about fifty perches from the main road.
Courting her curiosity with nervous fear, she walked along, wondering what had happened to attract such crowds. And finding it rather difficult to refrain from making inquiry from some of the gathering, who by this time had hurriedly been retracing their flighty footsteps from the imaginative scene of death, Mrs. Otwell, modestly approaching a female who swiftly hopped over the fence in tears, asked what had happened.
“Oh, madam,” cried the woman, “the clothing of a gentleman was seen early this morning as David Gillespie, a labourer, was engaged at a drain hard by. It was neatly folded and deposited on the brink. Surely some one must have been demented and drowned himself in Afton Lake. The authorities are now on the spot and refuse to mention who the gentleman is.”
Thanking her for kindly informing her of what she had both seen and heard, Mrs. Otwell hurried back to Dunraven Hall in nervous astonishment, and hastily proceeded to her bedroom to prepare herself for what soon must follow.
The breakfast being shortly afterwards announced, Mrs. Otwell, pale as death, entered the room, and taking her accustomed seat to partake of it, as best she could. She had scarcely got properly seated ere two officers of the law were seen approach Dunraven Hall. Ringing furiously, they demanded an interview with the Hon. Eric Eustace.
Satisfied as to the name of his present governess, they wished to be allowed to see her, which request was willingly granted. Being told that morning by the gardener at Dunraven Hall, who ran to the spot on hearing the news, that a lady named Mrs. Otwell permanently resided at the Hall as governess, the authorities immediately grasped the fact that she might be the unfortunate widow, and on putting the usual questions to her concerning her husband, they were still further convinced as to her identity. Drawing from his pocket a parcel containing Oscar’s card, photo, and a letter addressed to Mrs. Oscar Otwell, the officer in charge asked her to read it aloud, which she did in a rather trembling voice, without betraying such signs of grief as anticipated. The letter ran thus:—
“Dobbs’ Ferry,Friday Night,11 p.m.
“Dearest Irene and Wife,—
“Should ever this reach your length, I trust you will pardon me for the rash act I am about to commit.
“Since the morning you left me at Shandon Cottage my sorrow has been greater than my present frame of mind can well support. I, therefore, have decided on ending my days of starvation by hiding for ever beneath the glassy surface of Alton Lake to shield my wicked body from further inflicting upon you the wrongs I have perpetrated in the past, and for which I am grievously tormented.
“Dearest Irene, I hope you, in your past great warmth of devotion for me (your poor tutor and husband), will forgive my late ungentlemanly conduct in striking you so cowardly on the eve of my downfall, and thereby breaking the confidence you reposed in me for such a lengthened period of our existence.
“From what I know of your noble character, I have every faith in your forgiveness, and rest assured, I never mean to face death without imploring you to rectify, if ever in your power, the wrong you accomplished, partly at my request, in breaking the holy cord of union which bound you during your natural existence to Sir John Dunfern, and again uniting it under foul auspices.
“Had I been so fortunate as to secure you first of all, my conscience, certainly, would at this moment be both clear and unclouded. But feeling persuaded I have robbed that nobleman who now possibly is pining for separation from a world of shame and sorrow underneath the lordly roof of Dunfern Mansion, I am positively convinced, under such dangling dishonour, that never more can this world of sin extend to me the comfort I in vain have tried to seek.
“Awake, then, my beloved, to whom I attach not the slightest blame, to a sense of feeling and justice, and go, I implore of you, and cast yourself at the feet of him and beg his forgiveness, who loved you with a love unspeakable—who severed nearly all his self-indulgence with the instrument of intensity and hesitated not to lavish it upon the head of her to whom I offer my last advice. Then shall you meet the messenger—death—not with shrinking fear (like me), but daring bravery.
“Of your present position or abode I am totally unaware, but, dearest wife, I trust your race of penury is almost run, and that your latter years may be crowned with Christian fortitude and ease, and freed from the thorny dart of the wicked, in whose grave I must soon lie unwept.
“Good bye, for ever!From your affectionate“Oscar.
“Mrs. Oscar Otwell
(Address unknown).”
Folding the letter, and handing it to the officers, together with Oscar’s card and photograph—all of which would prove indispensable for their future use—Mrs. Otwell quietly moved again to the breakfast room, and, strange to say, finished her meal in silence.
Then turning to him in whose service she was, intimated her intention to sail for England when the missing body would be recovered, which she meant to bury in Greenwood Cemetery. She lingered on in eager expectation of casting one final look at her husband, but week after week died away without any sign of it being forthcoming, and all hope being fled, Mrs. Otwell resolved to lose no further time in returning to her home of nativity, in order to obey the last instructions from the hand of Oscar Otwell, from whom she was reluctantly obliged to part in the manner described.
Another side the picture of futurity presented for the anxious mother, and that was to try and obtain an interview with her son, who at this period must be a boy of some fifteen summers. Having everything in readiness for her journey to her native land, Mrs. Otwell left Dunraven Hall amidst torrents of sympathy and warm expressions from every member of the family; and it was when driving past Afton Lake for the last time on her way to the deck of the “Delwyn” that the crushed widow of Oscar Otwell and legal wife of Sir John Dunfern was made to taste of the unlimited sorrow of her sad career.
There she was, a stranger in a foreign land—an outcast to the society she shone so brilliantly amongst during years that were now no more, the fostered orphan, the adopted daughter of heiressed nothing, the wife of devotional distinction, the illegal partner of crutchy poverty, and the penniless widow of undeniable woe.
She was not even granted the ghostly pleasure of viewing her lover’s lifeless body, that would have ended her thoughts relative to him, at least for a time, but as matters stood encircled in doubt, there was nothing left save trouble and anxiety for her whose futurity must ever be shaded.
On approaching the harbour of New York, her attention was attracted by a tall gentleman standing not many yards distant, and being so long familiar with his appearance, she found the object of attraction to be no other than Lord Dilworth. Ordering the cabman to a standstill, she popped her head out in utter astonishment, and shouted in such a strain as to instantly attract his attention. Alighting with ardent enthusiasm in the very midst of her troubles, she soon found herself in the arms of Lord Dilworth, who appeared utterly dazed.
“Protector of Powers? can it be Irene? Lady Dunfern, I mean?” gasped he in bewilderment. To which she bowed, blinded in tears, and in as few words as possible, he related a short narrative concerning both himself and Lady Dilworth, who had long since been dead. On hearing of the death of the once noble mistress of Dilworth Castle, Mrs. Otwell seemed as lifeless as a marble statue, and trying vigorously to regain strength after such a sudden shock, she, in a few broken snatches, related her plotted career; but misery having likewise carpeted Lord Dilworth’s floors of fate so much of late, he consequently did not seem so astonished as imagined.
Leaving Mrs. Otwell so far as his time permitted, he pathetically took his final farewell, and shortly after was busy pouring over his books in Franklin Street, office No. 715, where he was employed as a clerk at five hundred dollars a year.
On the other hand, the mighty ocean palace was steering firmly against the clashing breakers with unobstructed speed, acting as protector and friend to all those who entrusted themselves to its unsettled shelter.
CHAPTER XVII
THE mighty orb of gladness spreads its divine halo over many a harrowed home—it encircles the great expanse of foreign adventure and home-hoarded enterprise, and wields its awakening influence against the burthened boroughs of bigotry and lightened land of liberty to a sense of gilded surprise.
The laurels of separation were twining their oily leaves and speedily constructing a crown for the brow of Sir John Dunfern. After returning from Chitworth College, and ordering the last few finishing touches to be made in his will, he grew more drooped and heartless every year, and seemed almost indifferent to life’s ploughing changes.
He felt acutely the information imparted to him by President O’Sullivan regarding the wife he now for ever despised, and who unlawfully belonged to Oscar Otwell. He even felt more severely the effect of such on account of his beloved boy, who was steadily endeavouring to increase his slight store of knowledge under the watchful eye of the most scholarly personage of the day.
He knew ere long—owing to his present state of health, brought to such a low ebb by the mother of his son—that he would be obliged to open to Hugh the book of nature as it stood past and present, and instruct him in its disagreeable pages.
The thought of opening up the past, with its stains of dissipation, perhaps acted on the mind of Sir John more severely than the reality. Yet he must brave himself for the trial when opportunity offered, lest it might be too late.
The time for Hugh Dunfern’s fourth summer vacation was close at hand. The boy’s genial manner, affability, and frankness, gained for him hosts of friends at Chitworth College, and equally numerous were the sharers in his sorrow on receiving a telegram a very short time before his summer holidays commenced to the effect that his father had taken suddenly ill, and asking him to delay as little as he possibly could during his journey to Dunfern Mansion, which must commence immediately.
The poor, sorrow-stricken boy, who was deeply attached to his father, was quite overcome with grief. Bidding “Good bye” to all his college companions, and taking affectionate leave of his masters and President O’Sullivan, he left the much-loved seat of learning, never more to compete in its classes of clever instruction and high moral bearing—never again to watch with craving eye the distribution of letters, and rejoice on observing his father’s crested envelope being gently reached him by the President; and no more to share in the many innocent games of youth, at some of which he was an unequalled expert.
The dull hum of voices in the hall of his home met his anxious ear on the eve of his home-coming, and told a tale without further inquiry. Meeting the three most eminent London physicians—namely, Doctors Killen, Crombie, and Smiley, in the library, where they held a long consultation, Hugh was nerved somewhat before entering the chamber of death with words of truth regarding his father’s hopeless condition; and, on moving quietly to his father’s bed, how the lad of tender years was struck with awe at the bleached resemblance of what used to be a rosy, healthy father!
Perceiving his son’s bent and weeping form hang over him with meekest resignation, Sir John cast aside the bedclothes, and, extending his hand, caught firm hold of his son’s. Hugh spoke not a word, by order of the doctors, lest his father, who was now bereft of speech, would feel the pain of not being able to reply in return.
The suffering patient lingered on in this dumb condition for six weeks, when suddenly he regained speech partly, but only for some hours—a great dispensation of the Almighty, no doubt, in answer to the silent prayers of the invalid. It was first noticed by Madam Fulham, who proved a mighty help to Sir John since his wife’s flight.
On entering the chamber of sickness one morning with a new bottle of medicine, sent direct from London, Sir John raised himself slightly on his left elbow and made inquiry about his son.
With hurried and gladdened step was Madam Fulham seen to glide from the presence of her master, and hasten to find Hugh, who was noticed to pace the topmost corridor in agony.
On observing his father had regained speech after his paralytic attack had somewhat abated, how great was his son’s delight! Drawing forth a chair to the bedside of the august patient, Hugh, quite unprepared, received the awful intelligence of his mother’s conduct and life from the lips of the afflicted, who, in broken accents, related the tale of trouble which for years had kept him a prisoner to its influence.
Taking his son’s hand in his, Sir John Dunfern, after audibly, yet a little indistinctly, offering up a prayer of thanks to Him Who never overlooks the words of the just, for His great mercy in again enabling him to regain his sense of speech, of which he so lately had been deprived, began:—
“My much-loved and faithful son, I, your father, am now stricken down in the middle almost of manhood, and am sensitive to the fact that a short space of time—yea, a short space too—must inevitably elapse until I shall be ordered from this temporary abode, which now to me seems only a floating speck of shelter in the great ocean of time. I am more than thankful that recovery of speech has been granted me for many reasons, which, I fear, my strength cannot permit to be fully explained. However, my great wish to acquaint you of my miserable married career shall, I trust, not be barred from your knowledge by any further visitation of Kingly Power.
“You are aware, my son, that this mansion which soon shall own me no more has been the scene of my frolicking boyhood, my joyful manhood, and, I must now tell you, the undying trouble of a blighted married life.
“Your mother’s name was Irene Iddesleigh, the orphan daughter, I understand, of one Colonel Iddesleigh, of Flixton, in this county. Her father and mother both died about the same time, leaving their daughter absolutely unprovided for. She was taken to an orphanage at the early age of three years, and there remained for a period of eight more, when, through the kindness of one Lord Dilworth, of Dilworth Castle, of whose existence I have already acquainted you, she was brought under his charge, and remained as his adopted daughter until, unfortunately, I brought her here as my wife.
“I cannot help informing you that she was the most beautiful and prepossessing young lady I ever met, and, on making her acquaintance at a ball given by Lord and Lady Dilworth, at Dilworth Castle, not far distant, as you know, I became so intoxicated with her looks of refinement and undoubted beauty that I never regained sobriety until she promised to become my wife!
“The beginning of our married career was bright enough, I dare say, for some weeks only, when she grew very strange in her manner towards me. So remarkably strange, that I was reluctantly compelled to demand an explanation. Being satisfied with her false apologies, used as a way out of her difficulty, I remained content. She still continued nevertheless to maintain the same cold indifference towards me until your birth.
“Knowing that a son was born to me, who, if spared, would still keep up the good old name of Dunfern, I became altogether a foreigner to her past conduct, and it was only when recovering from her illness, after your birth, that I caught hold of the trap of deception she had laid since long before our marriage.
“She was found out to be the idolized of one man named Oscar Otwell, who occupied the position of tutor to her during her years of adoption; and not even did her love in return for him cease when I claimed her as my lawful wife, but continued, so far as I know, until now!
“I was therefore obliged through her mal-practices to shut her in from the gaze of outsiders, and also from my own. I chose Room No. 10 of this building as her confined apartment. You were only a child then of some two months, and, since, I have never beheld her face, which was false as it was lovely.
“My rage was boundless on the day I ordered her into my presence in that room, and, labouring under the passion of a jealous husband, I told her I would confine her within its walls so long as she existed.
“Over a year passed along, every month of which I grew more and more repentant, until the second Christmas of her seclusion, when I fully resolved to free her once more; at the same time, never again to share in my society or companionship.
“But, behold! the mischievous hand of her maid, Marjory Mason, whose services I retained after her imprisonment, was busy working its way for her escape, which she nimbly succeeded in effecting, exactly on the morning of Christmas Day, by stealing from the room of Rachel Hyde, Madam Fulham’s predecessor, the key of her door, and thereby released your mother. Ah! my son, from that hour my life has been a worthless coin, the harp of hideous helplessness struck forth its tunes of turmoil, trouble, and trial, and poured its mixed strains of life and death so vividly in my ear, that since I have, in a measure, been only a wanderer between their striking sounds of extremes.
“I shortly afterwards learned she took refuge in Audley Hall, a residence on the estate of its present owner—the Marquis of Orland, and situated some twenty miles distant, and, horrifying to relate, had been living with Oscar Otwell!
“The dreadful news of her conduct irritated me so that I only, in my last will and testament, bequeathed to her what would grant the ordinary comforts of life, provided I predeceased her. This reference to her remained until I accompanied you to Chitworth College, when President O’Sullivan revealed to me in silent friendship the fact of which I was wholly unaware, viz.—that she had long since sailed for America, at the same time handing me a New York Herald sent him by Otwell, and there I beheld the announcement of her marriage with him who ruined my life, and who has been the means of driving me into the pit of tearful tremor, out of which I never more shall climb.
“On returning home from Chitworth College I at once blanked the reference to her in my will, and never more wished to behold the face that swore to me such vows of villainy; the face that blasted my happiness for life; the mother of you, whom I now earnestly implore never to acknowledge, and who possesses every feature she outwardly bore.
“It may be yours to meet her face to face ere she leave this tabernacle of torment; but, my child, for my sake avoid her cunning ways and works, and never allow her shelter underneath this roof she dishonoured and despised. And I trust God in His great mercy shall forgive her errors, and grant you the blessing of a Father of Love.”
Sir John Dunfern now lay back exhausted on his pillow, and muttered quietly “Thank God.”
Next morning the Angel of Death was seen to spread its snowy wings over his wasted form, and convey the departed spirit into that region of bliss where sorrow, sighing, sin, and suffering are cast for ever from its rooms of glory.
Thus passed away another link of a worthy ancestral chain, who, during his tender years of training, had been guided by the charitable Christian example of a mother of devotion, and who was, during the brighter battle of her son’s creeping years of care and caution, summoned before the Invisible Throne of purity, peace, and praise everlasting, shrouded in hopes of sunshine concerning his future happiness, which, never after his marriage, was known to twinkle in Dunfern Mansion.
