CHAPTER XLI
THE EARL’S PERPLEXITY
A footman was lighting the lamps in the hall when the party entered.
“Are all well in the house, Prout?” inquired Mr. Force.
“All well, sir. My lord is taking his afternoon nap. The ladies are not down yet. The first dinner bell has just rung,” replied the man.
“Mamma and the girls are dressing for dinner, papa. I will just run up and see,” said Wynnette, flying up the stairs.
“Then we had better go to our rooms at once, Le, and get some of the dust of travel off us before we go to dinner,” said Mr. Force, as he followed Wynnette upstairs, though in a more leisurely fashion. Perhaps he was willing to put off, even for a few minutes, the painful task of communicating his discouraging news to Odalite.
When Mr. Force reached his apartment he found Wynnette standing in the middle of the room, under the hands of her mother’s ebony maid, Gipsy, who was helping her off with her duster.
“Where is your mother, my dear?” he inquired.
“Oh, they are all gone down to the drawing room. Prout was mistaken in thinking that they were not there. But, papa, I am not sorry! Bad news will keep; because being already spoiled, it cannot spoil any more. And now we must hurry and dress, or the porridge will be cold—I mean dinner will be kept waiting,” and saying this, Wynnette caught up her hat and duster, and, followed by Gipsy, passed into her own room, which she occupied jointly with Odalite.
Mr. Force used such dispatch in dressing that he was the first one of the three returning travelers who entered the drawing room.
He found no one present but Mrs. Force, Odalite, Elva and Rosemary.
Mrs. Force hurried to meet him, while Odalite stood pale and waiting, and the two younger girls looked eagerly expectant.
“What news? What news?” anxiously inquired the lady. “Prout has just told us of your return! What news? Oh, why don’t you answer, Abel?”
“My dear, because I have no good news to tell you,” he gravely replied.
Mrs. Force let go the hand she had seized and sank down upon the nearest sofa.
Odalite turned away and bowed her head upon her hands.
Rosemary and Elva were both too much awed by the grief of their elders even to come forward and greet the returned father and friend.
Nor did Mr. Force even observe the omission. His mind was absorbed by thoughts of his daughter’s distress.
Mrs. Force was the first one to break the painful silence.
“Then it was all true as to the date of Anglesea’s first wife’s death?” she inquired, in a faint voice.
“The date on Lady Mary’s tombstone is August 25, 18—,” gloomily replied Mr. Force.
“Then the man’s marriage with Mrs. Wright on the first of the same August is invalid?”
“As a matter of course.”
“And the ceremony begun, but not completed, with our daughter in the following December gives Anglesea a shadow of a claim on Odalite?”
“A shadow of a claim only; yet a sufficiently dark and heavy and oppressive shadow. And now, dear Elfrida, let us talk of something else,” said Mr. Force, gravely.
“First, tell me about that fraudulent obituary notice in the Angleton Advertiser. Did you find out how it was effected?” inquired the lady.
“Yes. On the evening of the twentieth of August, after the last copy of the paper had been printed, and the whole edition sent off to its various subscribers, the editor and proprietor, one Purdy, went home, leaving the type undistributed on the press, and his pressman, one Norton, in charge of the office. There was, besides, the editor’s young son, whom Norton sent away. Later in the evening this Norton distributed the type on the first two columns of the first page, and then was joined by Angus Anglesea, who had furnished the manuscript for the false obituary notice, and had bribed the printer to set it up and print it off. So then several copies of the paper were thrown off, in all respects like unto the regular edition of the day, with the exception of the first two columns, in which the false obituary notice and memoir were substituted for the report of an agricultural fair, or something of the sort. And these last fraudulent copies were mailed at different times to me. You see the motive! It was to entrap and humiliate us. The same night, or the next morning, Norton absconded with the bribe he had taken from Anglesea.”
“You know this to be true?”
“As well as I can know anything that I have not been an eye and ear witness to. I will tell you how I unraveled the mystery when we have more time. I wish to speak to Odalite now, my dear,” said Abel Force.
And he crossed to where his daughter stood, put his arm around her waist, drew her to his heart, and said:
“Cheer up, my darling girl. You shall be as safe from all future persecution by that scoundrel as if he were in the convict settlement of Norfolk Island—where he ought to be. Try to forget all about him, my dear, and remember only how much we all love you, and how much we are anxious to do for your happiness.”
Odalite put her arms around her father’s neck, and kissed him in silence, and smiled through her tears.
Rosemary and Elva now came up, and put out their hands to welcome the travelers home.
Le came in, and almost in silence shook hands with his aunt and the two younger girls, and then took the hand of Odalite, pressed it, dropped it, and turned away to conceal his emotion.
Lastly entered the earl, leaning on the arm of his secretary.
He smilingly greeted the returning travelers, and hoped that they had had a pleasant journey.
Fortunately the announcement of dinner prevented the necessity of a reply. The earl gave his arm to his sister, smiling warmly, as he said:
“But it is you who must support me, my dear.”
And they led the way to the dining room.
Almost immediately after dinner, when the party returned to the drawing room, Lord Enderby excused himself, and retired to his own apartments, attended by his secretary and his valet.
Mr. and Mrs. Force, and the young people, remained in the drawing room, where Mr. Force gave a more detailed account of his journey into Lancashire, his researches at Anglewood, and all the circumstances that led to the detection of the perpetrators of the obituary fraud.
“That is the way—or, rather, one way—in which false evidence can be manufactured,” he said, in conclusion.
It was late before the excited family party retired to rest.
It was not until after breakfast the next morning, when the young people had gone to take a walk on the edge of the cliff, and the three elders were seated together in the library of the castle, that Mr. Force told Lord Enderby the story of his journey into Lancashire, and its results.
The poor earl looked the image of distress and perplexity; his face, that was always pale, grew paler; his frame, that was always infirm, grew shaky; and his voice, always weak, became tremulous, as he said:
“I am amazed beyond all measure. I am grieved to the very soul. And—I am all but incredulous. Angus Anglesea, my comrade in India! My ‘brother-in-arms,’ as I used fondly to call him. Angus Anglesea, the very soul of truth and honor. Not overwise or prudent, but brave and good to his heart’s core. I have not seen him for years, it is true; but I had lost no faith in or affection for him. Circumstances have separated us; but neither coldness nor distrust had estranged us. And now you tell me, Force, that this man has radically, fundamentally changed his very nature—his very self—that the man of pure truth, honor and heroism has turned into an utter villain—a thief, a forger, a bigamist, an unequaled scoundrel!”
The earl paused and groaned as in pain.
“I am sorry to grieve you, my lord, but I have brought unquestionable proofs of the charges that I have made,” said Mr. Force.
“I admit the proofs; but, great heavens, that a man could so change in so few years! My comrade in India! My friend, whom I loved as a brother! Who could have thought it of him? Elfrida, you knew him in your youth. Could you have believed this of him?”
“Not when I first met him in your company, my brother; but then I was a very young girl, scarcely fifteen years of age, and the judgment of such a girl on the merits of a young man, especially when he is a young officer in a brilliant uniform, and with a more brilliant military record, is not infallible, you know,” replied Mrs. Force, evasively.
“Yet you could not have believed this infamy of him.”
“No, certainly not,” replied the lady, more to soothe the nervous invalid than to express her own convictions.
“Believe me, I am deeply grieved to have been the instrument of giving you so much pain. I would not have told you had I not deemed it my duty to do so; nor even under that impression had I supposed it would have distressed you so much.”
“My dear Force, you were right to tell me, though the hearing gives me sorrow—sorrow and perplexity, for I cannot reconcile the story you have told and proved with all my previous knowledge of Anglesea. I wonder, has he become insane? I did hear that he had been terribly affected by the death of his wife, whom he adored. I was in Switzerland at the time, and when I returned to England, in the autumn, I heard that he had gone abroad. I think, perhaps, he may have become insane.”
“Perhaps so,” said Mr. Force, but he mentally added: “As much insane as, and no more, than every criminal is insane—morally insane, but not, therefore, irresponsible.”
“Force,” said the earl, “whatever may have been the cause of Anglesea’s fall, your daughter Odalite must be released from her bonds.”