CHAPTER XXXVII
THE TOMB’S EVIDENCE
They crossed the churchyard again and entered the carriage. Jonah mounted the box.
“Noo drive the gentlefolks to t’ east o’ t’ park, and roond by the musselman. I’ll cut across through t’ brush and speak to t’ keeper, and meet you there. It will be all roight, maister.”
With this the sexton struck off through the bushes that stood between the church and the manor house.
The old carriage left the churchyard by the way it had come and entered once more upon the lane, and turning eastward, drove on between green hedges for about a quarter of a mile, when it reached a massive gate of oak and iron, guarded by a porter’s lodge of stone in the same strong style of building as the sexton’s cottage at the churchyard wall.
A tidy woman come out of the lodge, and seeing the old carriage, with Jonah on the box, she smiled and nodded, and at once opened wide the gates.
“Any one at the manor house, Mistress Dillon?” inquired Jonah.
“Noa, lad; none but t’ housekeeper and t’ servants,” replied the woman, courtesying to “the gentlefolks” as the old carriage passed through the gate and entered the long avenue leading through the park to the house.
This avenue was shaded by rows of gigantic old oak trees on each side, whose branches met and intermingled overhead, so arching the way with a thick roof of foliage.
“Oh, what a beautiful—what a majestic vista!” exclaimed Wynnette, with more enthusiasm than she usually bestowed upon any object.
“It is very fine,” said her father. “There is nothing finer in their way than these old English parks.”
Presently the carriage turned with the avenue in a curve, and suddenly drew up before the manor house, which until that moment had been concealed by the lofty trees around it.
Anglesea Manor was a huge oblong building of some gray stone, supported at its corners by four square towers, each further strengthened by four turrets, all of which added to the architectural beauty of the edifice. There were three rows of lofty windows in the front. The lowest row was divided in the middle by massive oaken doors, opening upon a stone platform reached by seven stone steps.
“Oh-h-h!” breathed Wynnette, as she gazed on the fine old house. “To think that such a palace as this should be the inheritance of such a villain as he!”
The driver turned and looked at her with astonishment and some indignation. Then checking himself, he said, in perfect simplicity:
“Oo! you don’t know, young leddy, I reckon—this place belongs to our landlord, Col. Angus Anglesea.”
Then drawing up his horse, he inquired:
“Will you get out and go through the house, sir?”
“For Heaven’s sake, uncle, no—not yet. Let us go directly to the mausoleum, and see the date that is on the tomb, and solve this doubt that is intolerable,” pleaded Le.
“Very well, my dear boy; very well. Kirby, drive at once to the mausoleum. We will see the house later,” said Mr. Force.
The man touched his hat and started his horse.
They turned into a grass-grown road winding in and out among magnificent oaks that seemed the growth of many centuries, and that were probably once parts of the primeval forest of Britain.
Presently they came upon the mausoleum. It stood between two fine oak trees, and in front of a third, which formed its background. It was built in the form of a Grecian temple and surrounded by a silver-plated iron railing.
The carriage stopped and our tourists got out.
Le pushed on impetuously, opened the little gate, and stepped up to read the inscription on the marble. He read it attentively, stopped, gazed at it, read it again, and then turned away in silence.
“What is it, Le?” anxiously inquired Abel Force.
“It is—read it, uncle,” replied the young man, breaking down and turning away.
Mr. Force entered the inclosure and read the inscription on the mausoleum:
MARY,
Beloved Wife of ANGUS ANGLESEA,
Died August 25, 18—,
AGED 49.
Mr. Force turned away without a word.
Wynnette entered the inclosure, read the inscription and came out in perfect silence.
The driver of the old carriage and the sexton of the church, who had only just now kept his promise and come up to join the party, stood a little apart, not understanding the emotion of the strangers, attributed it all to sympathy with the bereaved husband.
“Oo, ay, maister, it was a sorrowful day when her leddyship departed this loife,” said Jonah Kirby, shaking his head—“a sorrowful day! I was at t’ funeral, as in duty bound. T’ squoire were first mourner, and hed to be present, though he were far from fit to stand. Laird Middlemoor, his feyther-in-law, hed to hold him up. I never saw t’ squoire from the day of t’ funeral until the day he took t’ train for Lunnun, when he were going abroad to furrin pairts. And then he had gone away to nothing but skin and bone! He came back about a year ago; but he couldn’t abear the place, and went away again. Ah, poor gentleman!”
Le and his uncle looked at each other in wonder. Was this Angus Anglesea of whom the man was speaking? who had reared this monument to the memory of his “beloved wife”? Was this Angus Anglesea, whom every one praised? And yet, who had gone abroad and deceived, betrayed, and robbed and deserted the poor Californian widow? And how, indeed, could he have married the Californian woman in St. Sebastian, on the first of August, as Le had unquestionable evidence that he had done, and be present at the death of his wife in the English manor house on the twenty-fifth of the same month, as these people declared that he had been; and, again, meet the Force family at Niagara early in the following September? It might have been just possible by almost incredibly rapid transits.
“Had Col. Anglesea been abroad just before his wife’s death?” inquired Abel Force of the driver, who knew more about the affairs of Anglewood than the sexton, because the former had always lived at Angleton, and the latter had only lately come to the parish.
“Oo, ay, maister, thet was the pity o’ ’t. The squoire hed been away a month or more. He coom home only a week before her leddyship deed. And he went away again after t’ funeral. He coom back again a year ago, but he couldn’t abear to stay. So he put up t’ musselman to her memory and went his way again. Ah, poor gentleman! He were a good gentleman, and a wise and a brave one!”
“I cannot make it out,” murmured Abel Force.
“The man is drawing a long bow, papa! that’s all there is in it—I mean he is telling romances in praise of his landlord. There cannot be a word of truth in what he says,” said Wynnette.
Le said nothing. He seemed utterly crushed by the blow that had fallen on him.
The carriage driver seemed not to hear or understand the murmured talk between the father and daughter, but when it ceased he touched his hat and asked:
“Wull I drive you to t’ manor house, noo, maister?”
“Yes, if you please,” returned Mr. Force, as he helped Wynnette to climb up into the dilapidated “trap.”
“And what do your honor think o’ t’ musselman, maister?” inquired the sexton, coming up and taking off his cap.
“It is a very fine specimen of both architecture and sculpture,” replied Mr. Force.
The sexton smiled satisfaction, bowed and withdrew.
“I am puzzled, Le, and I think by going through the manor house I may come to understand things better,” whispered Mr. Force to his young companion.
But Le was too much depressed to answer, or to take any further interest in the events of the day.
They turned and drove back through the beautiful park to the front of the manor house, where the carriage drew up.