CHAPTER VI
NEWS FROM COL. ANGLESEA
“What is it, my dear?” inquired her father, as Odalite, with trembling fingers, tore off the envelope and opened the paper.
“It—it is—it is postmarked Angleton,” she faltered.
“Angleton! Give it to me!” peremptorily exclaimed Abel Force, reaching his hand and taking the sheet from his daughter, who yielded it up and then covered her eyes with her hands, while her father examined the paper and her mother looked on with breathless interest.
“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed Abel Force, as his eyes were riveted on a paragraph he had found there.
“What—what is it?” demanded Elfrida Force, in extreme anxiety, while Odalite uncovered her eyes, and gazed with eager look and lips apart.
“A scoundrel has gone to his account! The earth is rid of an incubus! Listen! This is the Angleton Advertiser of August 20th, and it contains a notice of the death of Angus Anglesea.”
“Anglesea—dead!” exclaimed mother and daughter, in a breath, and in tones that expressed almost every other emotion under the sun, except sorrow.
“Yes, dead and gone to—his desserts!” exclaimed Abel Force, triumphantly; but catching himself up short, before he ended in a word that must never be mentioned, under any circumstances. “Here is a notice of his death.”
“Read it,” said Mrs. Force, while Odalite looked the eager interest, which she did not express in words.
Abel Force read this paragraph at the head of the death list:
“DIED.—On Monday, August 10th, at Anglewood Manor, in the forty-fourth year of his age, after a long and painful illness, which he bore with heroic patience and fortitude, Col. the Hon. Angus Anglesea.”
“Dead!” muttered Elfrida Force, thoughtfully.
“Dead!” echoed Odalite, gravely.
“Yes! dead and—doomed!” exclaimed Abel Force, catching himself up before he had used an inadmissible word.
“Then, thank Heaven, I am free! Oh! I hope it was no sin to say that!” exclaimed Odalite.
Her father stared at her for a moment, and then said:
“My dear, you were always free!”
“I could not feel so while that man lived,” she said.
“Why, what claim could the husband of another woman set up on you?” demanded Mr. Force, in surprise.
“None whatever,” replied Elfrida Force, answering for her daughter; “but after all that she has gone through, it is perfectly natural that a delicate and sensitive girl, like Odalite, should have felt ill at ease so long as her artful and unscrupulous enemy lived, and should feel a sense of relief at his departure.”
“I suppose so,” said Abel Force, who was scanning the first page of the Angleton paper. “And I suppose, also, that none of us exactly share ‘the profound gloom’ which, according to this sheet, ‘has spread like an eclipse over all the land, on the death of her illustrious son.’ The leading article here is on the death of Anglesea, with a brief sketch of his life and career, and such a high eulogium as should only have been pronounced upon the memory of some illustrious hero, martyr, Christian, or philanthropist. But, then, this Angleton paper was, of course, his own organ, and in his own interests, and in those of his family, or it would never have committed itself to such fulsome flatteries, even of the dead, whom it seems lawful to praise and justifiable to overpraise.”
“Read it, Abel,” said Mrs. Force.
“Yes, do, papa, dear,” added Odalite.
Mr. Force read:
“THE GREAT SOLDIER OF INDIA IS NO MORE
“A profound gloom, a vast pall of darkness, like some ‘huge eclipse of sun and moon,’ has fallen upon the land at the death of her illustrious son. Col. the Hon. Angus Anglesea died yesterday at his manor of Anglewood.
“The Hon. Angus Anglesea was born at Anglewood Manor, on November 21, 181—. He entered Eton at the early age of twelve years and Oxford at seventeen. He graduated with the highest honors, at the age of twenty-two. He succeeded his father on December 23, 182—. His tastes led him to a military career, and he entered the army as cornet in the Honorable East India Company’s service, in his twenty-fifth year. His distinguished military talents, his heroism and gallantry, his invaluable services during the Indian campaign, are matters that have passed into national history; and become so familiar to all that it would be impertinent to attempt to recapitulate them here.
“Col. Anglesea married, firstly, on October 13, 184—, Lady Mary Merland, eldest daughter of the sixth Earl of Middlemoor; by whom he has one son, Alexander, born September 1, 184—, now at Eton. Her ladyship died August 31, 185—. Col. Anglesea married, secondly, December 20, 185—, Odalite, eldest daughter of Abel Force, Esq., of Mondreer, Maryland, United States, by Lady Elfrida Glennon, eldest daughter of the late Earl of Enderby, who survives him. There is no issue by the second marriage.”
Abel Force finished reading, dropped the paper and stared at his wife and daughter, who were also staring at him. All three seemed struck dumb with astonishment at the audacity of the last paragraph.
“Who is responsible for that?” demanded Mrs. Force, who was the first to find her voice.
“The reckless braggart who has gone to the devil, I suppose! No one else could be,” said Abel Force, indignantly.
“You are right. No one but Anglesea could have been the originator of such a falsehood.”
“And here is no mention made at all of the real second marriage and of the real widow; whom, by the way, he must have married within a few weeks after the death of his wife. Yet! let us see! Great Heaven! unless there is a misprint, there has been an infamous crime committed, and a heinous wrong done to that Californian widow, whose marriage with Col. Anglesea was registered to have taken place on August 1, 185—, full six weeks before the death of Anglesea’s wife, which took place on August 25th! And in that case—yes, in that case the diabolical villain had the legal right, if not the moral right, to marry our daughter! Great Heaven! how imperfect are the laws of our highest civilization, when men have the legal right to do that which is morally wrong!”
“Oh! oh! I will never acknowledge the validity of that marriage ceremony! I will never call myself that man’s widow, or wear a thread of mourning for him!” exclaimed Odalite, who could be very brave now that her mother’s great enemy was dead, and her mother forever safe from his malignity.
“You need not, my dear. Nor need the poor Californian woman ever suspect that any darker wrong than the robbery of her money has been done her. Why, either, should we be so excited over this discovery? It is no new villainy that has come to light. It is simply that he really wronged the Californian widow instead of you. The man is dead. Let us not harbor malice against the dead. He can harm us no more,” said Abel, in his wish to soothe the excited feelings of his wife and daughter. But ah! he knew nothing of the greater cause those two unhappy ladies had had for their detestation of their deadly enemy.
But now he was gone forever, and they were delivered from his deviltries. It was
“The thrill of a great deliverance”
that so deeply moved them both. All felt it, even Mr. Force, who soon arose and went out for a walk to reflect coolly over the news of the morning.
Elfrida and Odalite went into the house and tried to occupy themselves with the question of luncheon and other household matters, but they could not interest themselves in any work; they could think of nothing but of the blessed truth that a great burden had been lifted from their hearts, a great darkness had passed away from their minds.
Late in the afternoon Wynnette, Elva and Rosemary came in from school.
Odalite told them that Col. Anglesea was dead, and showed them the paper containing the notice of his death and the sketch of his life.
At first the children received the news in silent incredulity, to be succeeded by the reverential awe with which the young and happy hear of death and the grave.
Wynnette was the first to recover herself.
“Oh! Odalite, I am glad, for your sake, that you are freed from the incubus of that man’s life. I hope it is no sin to say this, for I cannot help feeling so,” she said.
“I hope the poor sinner truly repented of his iniquity and found grace even at the eleventh hour,” breathed the pitiful little Elva.
“I don’t know,” sighed quaint little Rosemary, folding her mites of hands with sad solemnity. “I don’t know. It is an awful risk for any one, more particularly for a man like Col. Anglesea.”
“‘The vilest sinner may return,’ you know,” pleaded Elva.
“Yes, he may, but he don’t often do it,” said Wynnette, putting in her word.
“Let me read the notice of his death and the sketch of his life,” suggested Odalite, for she had only shown them the paper containing these articles.
“Yes, do, Odalite,” said Wynnette.
Odalite read the brief notice, and then she turned to the sketch and said:
“This is longer, and I need not read the whole of it, you know.”
“No. Just pick out the plums from the pudding. I never read the whole of anything. Life is too short,” said Wynnette.
The other two girls seemed to agree with her, and so Odalite began and read the highly inflated eulogium on Col. Anglesea’s character and career.
The three younger ones listened with eyes and mouths open with astonishment.
“Why, they seem to think he was a good, wise, brave man!” gasped little Elva.
“That’s because they knew nothing about him,” exclaimed Wynnette.
“Isn’t there something in the Bible about a man being a good man among his own people, but turning into a very bad man when he gets into a strange city where the people don’t know who he is?” inquired Rosemary, very gravely.
“I believe there is, in the Old Testament somewhere, but I don’t know where,” answered Elva.
“That was the way with Anglesea, I suspect. He was a hypocrite in his own country; but as soon as he came abroad he cut loose and kicked up his heels—I mean he threw off all the restraints of honor and conscience,” explained Wynnette.
Odalite resumed her task, and read of Anglesea’s birth, his entrance into Eton, and afterward at Oxford, his succession to his estates, his entrance into the army, his marriage to Lady Mary Merland, the birth of his son, and the death of his wife.
There she stopped. She did not see fit to read the paragraph relating to herself; and to prevent her sisters from seeing it, she rolled up the paper and put it into her pocket.
They did not suspect that there had been any mention made of his attempted marriage to Odalite, far less that it had been recorded there as an accomplished fact; but they wondered why his marriage to the lady of ‘Wild Cats’ had not been mentioned.
“And is there not a word said about his Californian nuptials?” demanded Wynnette.
“No, not a word,” replied Odalite.
“Ah! you see, he wasn’t proud of that second wife! She wasn’t an earl’s daughter!”
“I wonder how Mrs. Anglesea will take the news of her husband’s death, when she hears of it,” mused Elva.
“Ah!” breathed Wynnette.
Their talk was interrupted by the entrance of their father, who had just come in from his long walk.
“Oh, papa!” exclaimed Wynnette, “we have just heard the news! Oh! won’t Le be glad when he hears it?”
“My dear children,” said Mr. Force, very solemnly and also a little inconsistently, “we should never rejoice at any good that may come to us through the death or misfortune of a fellow creature.”
“But, oh, papa! in this case we can’t help it.”
“There’s the dinner bell,” said Abel Force, irrelevantly.