Love's Bitterest by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth - HTML preview

CHAPTER XLIX
 BROTHER AND SISTER

Meanwhile there was another member of the family circle fully as much perplexed as was Wynnette, though upon another subject.

The Earl of Enderby could not reconcile all his knowledge—his lifelong knowledge of Angus Anglesea, his schoolmate at Harrow; his classmate at Oxford, his brother-in-arms in India, the brave, tender, faithful friend and comrade of many years and many lands—with this thief, forger, bigamist, described under his name by Elfrida Force and all her family.

“Elf,” he said to her one day, as the two sat tête-à-tête in the library—all the other members of the family circle having gone out for a stroll on the top of the cliffs—“Elf, my dear, I have had some trials in my time—not the least among them, my inherited malady, dooming me to an early death and barring me from marriage——”

“Oh, Francis, don’t say that! Medical science has reached such perfection, you may be restored to health; and you are yet not middle-aged—you may marry and be happy,” said the lady, almost in tears.

“No, Elf! No, dear! It is impossible! But it is not of my infirmities I wish to speak now. I would rather never mention them—much rather forget them, if that were possible! I only meant to say that of all the trials I have ever suffered, that of hearing such news of Anglesea as you have told me is the most painful! I cannot forget it! I think of it constantly, by day and by night.”

“I am very sorry that we had to tell you, Francis.”

“Elf! You knew Anglesea in those early days when we both came down to spend our holidays at Brighton with you.”

“Yes; I remember.”

“You knew him then. Could you have believed such villainies of him?”

“No, not then.”

“Nor could I then, nor can I now. I wish the man were in England. I would go to him and make these charges face to face, and put him on his defense. I shall never rest until I put him on his defense.”

“Do you not believe what we have told you and proved to you—that this man is a thief, a forger and a bigamist, even on his own showing?”

“I believe that you believe it, my dear. And I believe as much of it as I can believe in the absence of the accused. And when a man is accused of crime he should be present and be put upon his defense. I wish to charge Anglesea to his face with these felonies and to hear what he has to say.”

Elfrida Force looked so coldly on her brother in answer to these words that he hastened to say:

“See here, my dear. Consider how I loved and trusted that man from my youth up. He was older than myself. He was my mentor, my guide, philosopher and friend. I could no more have doubted his honor than I could have doubted yours.”

The lady winced.

“Think of it, my dear. Do you wonder that I am sorely perplexed at what I hear of him? Or that I wish to hear what he has to say for himself? Suppose any one—Anglesea, for instance, before I had heard a word against him, when I loved and trusted him most—had come to me and said: ‘Your sister, whom you love and honor so much, has forfeited both love and honor——’ Elfrida! Heavens! What is the matter?” suddenly exclaimed the earl, as the lady sank back pallid and fainting in her chair.

“It is——Go on,” said the sister, recovering herself with an effort. “Nothing is the matter. You were saying that if Anglesea had come to you with slanders of your sister——What would you have done?”

“I should have knocked him down and kicked him out, first of all, as a preliminary to challenging him. Be sure I should not have believed his story told behind your back. And I am certain you would not wish me to be less just to Anglesea than to you.”

“Very well. I do not believe he will ever dare to show his face in England again; but if he should, and you should meet him, make the charge that we have made and see how he will meet it. Of course he will deny all and accuse his accusers of conspiracy.”

“It is all very painful and very perplexing, but do not think otherwise than that I will stand by you and yours, Elfrida, under all circumstances.”

“I am quite sure that you will, dear Francis,” replied the lady; and their talk drifted to other topics.

“I shall miss you very much, sister, when you go abroad,” he said at length.

“But I shall not go, Francis. I shall remain with you. I have been over the continent so often that I do not care to see it again,” replied the lady.

“What do you say, Elfrida? You will not go on this tour with your husband and children? You will stay here with your invalid brother? That is good news to me, but what will your husband say to such a plan?”

“Of course I had a talk with Mr. Force before making up my mind. We talked it over last night. He thinks just as I do—that it is best for me to stay with you.”

“He is very kind; very, very kind. But you will both give up much for the sake of a poor, sick man.”

“No, indeed. I really do not care for the continental tour, I have made it so often.”

“But there are so many changes since you made it last.”

“Yes, there is gas instead of lamplight in all the cities; railway trains instead of diligences on all the highways; and sons on the thrones of their fathers. I am content to know of these things. I do not care to see them.”

“But Mr. Force? He will miss you.”

“Dear brother, our honeymoon was passed twenty-two years ago. Young love has matured to old love, or rather to love that never can know age nor absence. It is not necessary that we should always be looking into each other’s eyes to make sure that we are happy in our union.”

“Yet I dare say you never tried it. I dare swear you were never apart from each other for twenty-four hours in your married life.”

“No; we never were.”

“That is why you talk so glibly of a separation for months. You had better not try it, Elfrida. You had better go with your husband and party, or make them stay here with you.”

“Not so, Francis. I will not leave you, now that I have come to you after so many years of separation. And, on the other hand, I will not keep the other members of our family party from their travel. It is necessary that young people should have the advantage of this continental tour, and it is desirable that they should have the protection of their father, as well as of their cousin. So I must stay here, and they must go. If Mr. Force or myself should grow lonesome during the season of separation he can come here to me. Neither Abel nor myself should feel the slightest hesitation in leaving our young girls in the care of their cousin, Leonidas.”

“My dear, you have some strange, new, and, I suppose, American ideas of the liberty allowable to young people.”

“To our own young people, who certainly may be trusted with liberty,” replied Elfrida Force, with a smile.

“Well, of course—of course. I am human and selfish enough to be very glad that you are to stay with me instead of going with your party.”

The brother and sister then talked of some details relating to the intended tour, until the tête-à-tête was broken into by the return of the walking party.

It was the first of July that the tourists, consisting of Abel, Leonidas, Odalite, Wynnette and Elva Force and Rosemary Hedge, set out from Enderby to London, en route for Dover and Paris.

They were to have a three months’ travel over the continent, and were to return on the first of October, unless they should receive advices from the earl to meet him and his sister at Baden-Baden, where he often went in the autumn for the benefit of his health.

And with this understanding, and with the promise of an incessant fire of letters from both sides, the friends parted.

Leonidas, it should have been explained, on account of his six years active service at sea—serving double turns, as he put it—had got a six months furlough, beginning from the first of May. He would, therefore, not be due at the navy department to report for orders until the first of November.

When the large party had left the castle, life at Enderby settled down to the calmest, not to say the dullest, routine.

Elfrida Force spent her time in waiting on her invalid brother, reading the old black-letter tomes in the library, and in writing letters to her absent family and reading their letters to herself. Sometimes she walked or rode abroad, but always in company with her brother.

Sometimes the Vicar of Enderby came and dined with them, and played a game of chess in the evening with the earl. Two or three times a week the village doctor looked in to see his chronic patient, and once, on his advice, a telegram to London brought down a titled court physician to see the invalid.

Beyond these no company came to Enderby, and no visits were made by the earl or his sister.

The castle was too remote and too difficult of approach for mere visits of ceremony; and the sick earl was too much of a recluse to encourage or enjoy the visits of his neighbors. So the lives of the brother and sister, in the absence of their relatives, passed in almost monastic seclusion.

And so July, August and half of September passed.

It was on the sixteenth of the last-mentioned month that the village practitioner, after a long visit and talk with his patient, sent a telegram to the London physician, who came to Enderby by the night’s express.

The result of the consultation by the sofa of the invalid patient was this—that the earl must depart for Baden-Baden as soon as possible.

Preparations were immediately made for departure.

Among other precautions, Elfrida Force did not forget Wynnette’s dear dog. She made a visit to the kennels, where Joshua had found friends among his canine as well as his human companions, and there she spoke with the grooms and gave them some money in advance and promised them more on her return if she should find Joshua well and hearty.

“I think if anything were to happen to the dog my daughter Wynnette would almost break her heart,” she said.

“Bless ’ee, my lady, nothing shall happen the brute but good treatment. He’s a dog as any one might grow fond on; and as for we, why, we fairly dotes on him, my lady. And so do him on we. Look, my lady! Hi! Joshway!”

The dog came bounding from some distant spot and jumped upon the groom with every demonstration of joy until he saw his mistress, when the old love and loyalty immediately asserted itself, and he sprang from the groom to the lady.

Elfrida Force caressed him to his heart’s content, and then to divert his attention she emptied a small basket of cold meat that she had brought for the purpose, and while he was busy with a well-covered beef bone she patted his head and slipped away.

On the morning of the same day the earl sent off a telegram to Mr. Force, at the Hotel d’Angleterre, St. Petersburg, merely saying: “We leave to-morrow for Baden-Baden. Write to us at the Hotel d’Amerique.”

Late in the evening he received the following answer:

“We shall join you at the Hotel d’Amerique.”

The earl handed the telegram to his sister, saying:

“I told you the bridegroom would be impatient. The bridal honeymoon was sweet, no doubt. But what was that to be compared to the honeymoon of the silver wedding, eh, Elf?”

She was about to retort by asking him what he could know about it; but remembering in time the pathos of her brother’s life, and not quite knowing what else to say, she remarked that the twenty-fifth anniversary of her wedding was yet three years off. And then she kissed her brother and bade him good-night.

Fraught with destiny, the Civil War brought great changes and brought with misery final happiness to the Forces, as will be related in the third and final volume of this series, under the title of “When Shadows Die.” This is published in uniform style and price with this volume.

THE END