CHAPTER IX.
The thickest stroke of sadness can be effaced in an instant, and substituted with deeper traces of joy. The heart of honest ages, though blackened at times with domestic troubles, rejoices when those troubles are surmounted with blessings which proclaim future happiness.
On the tenth day of June, following Lady Dunfern’s interview with her husband, she gave birth to a son and heir. This great event brought with it entire forgiveness on the part of Sir John of his wife’s recent conduct. It served for a short time only, a trivial portion too, to stifle the alienation which existed between them, and to heal the sore of evident separation that marred their happiness for months before.
The glad and happy father was only too eager now to snatch a smile from his wife’s face, and anxious was he to bury any little obstacle that may have existed in the past, and expel it for ever from its lurking corner of tempting repose. He saw that Lady Dunfern’s life was hanging by a flimsy hair, and who could, for an instant, depict the great despair of her husband when told that all hope must be abandoned!
The frantic father wrung his hands in a frenzy of momentary madness, and in spite of authoritative advice he timidly moved in the direction of the bed on which his beloved lay, and knelt beside it to fervently offer up a prayer “for the speedy recovery of her who was the chief object of his existence.” Raising himself up and clasping his darling in his arms, he whispered in her ear a word of encouragement, and gently laying her highly-heated head on the silken pillow he again prayed, in deepest and gravest earnestness, “that she might be spared only a little longer.”
No doubt his prayer was no sooner offered than answered, as she at this stage slightly rallied, and appeared somewhat strengthened. Day by day the still fond and loving husband sat by the bedside of the invalid until strong enough to battle fully against the weakening hand of her malady; and at the very time Sir John sat beside the bed of sickness, inwardly “showering blame upon himself for hindering his wife’s social enjoyment, and for which he believed he acted wrongly;” she, on the contrary, was outwardly pouring rebuke on her own head “for ever entering into a league of life-long punishment by marrying a man she simply abhorred, and leaving her noble and well-learned tutor, Oscar Otwell, whom she yet loved, to wander in a world of blighted bliss!”
Ah! to be sure! It was during these days of unremitting attention that he was afforded an opportunity of storing up a multitude of touchy remarks uttered by his wife when the relapse of raging fever reached its defiant height! She never ceased to talk in a most gentle manner of “Oscar Otwell,” “her darling and much-loved tutor.” She even expressed sorrow, in the course of her broken remarks, “at the false step she had taken to satisfy, not herself by any means, but Lady Dilworth!” She strongly protested her “hatred for him” who sat listening, with grave intensity, to every word that escaped her lips! She even spoke of “a cavity in her jewel-case in which was safely deposited a ring, given her by Oscar during her happy period of instruction under his guidance,” adding, in her painful discourse, that “she loved it as well as himself,” etc., etc.
These rambling statements when ended, in an instant caused Sir John’s resolutions, made by him so recently, to become worthless remarks; and if partly charged with jealousy before, he was doubly so now.
No onlooker could fail in the least to pity the sneered husband, whose livid countenance during the course of her remarks, rambling though they were, was a sight never to be forgotten. How he gazed with astonished indifference at the invalid so charged with deceit! She who acted the emblem of innocence at all times, and attempted to attach entire blame to her husband! She who partly promised peace in future to him who never again could enjoy it!
How his manner became so abrupt and his speech so scanty within such a short period was verily a proof of the belief he fostered relative to his wife’s statements, which were yet to her unknown.
The doctors in attendance endeavoured strongly to imprint upon Sir John the fact that “such remarks as those uttered by his wife should be treated with silence and downright indifference,” adding that “patients smitten with fever, of what kind soever, were no more responsible for their sayings than the most outrageous victim to insanity.”
Sir John listened attentively to their statements, but failed to be altogether convinced as to their truth. Wondering what sin could be attached to an act he felt was his duty to perform, he moved softly to the bedside of his wife, and being in a sleepy mood, he resolved to sift some of her remarks to the very bottom.
Entering the room she so often occupied, and taking from a chink in her dressing-table a key of admittance to the jewel-case she spoke of, he lost no time in viewing its valuable contents; and, in the very spot in which she vowed dwelt her tutor’s gift, there it lay! A golden band with pearl centre, and immediately underneath it there rested a note. At first he felt rather diffident about perusing its contents, but instinct so prompted his curiosity that he yielded to its tempting touch. It ran thus:—
“Hedley,
Berks,
July 3rd.
“Ever beloved Irene,
“I am after reading your gentle yet sorrowful epistle. You cannot possibly retract the step you so publicly have taken without incurring the malice of Lord and Lady Dilworth, who have sheltered you from every sorrow and care with which you otherwise were bound to come in contact.
“They received you into their elegant home, and shielded you, by so doing, from the tyrannical rule of Miss Lamont of ‘The Orphanage,’ in which you were placed for a period of eight years. They failed not to give you a thorough and practical education, which in itself would enable you to achieve independence, if necessary, or so desired.
“This you received under one whose heart now beats with raging jealousy and vehement hatred towards the object of Lady Dilworth’s choice, being well convinced, through your numerous letters to me lately, it never was yours.
“Dearest Irene, the thought of parting from you for ever is partly sustained with the hope of yet calling you mine! Through time you suggest an elopement, which as yet can only be viewed in the hazy distance; but it seems quite clear to me, dearest, and surely evident, that you abhor the very name of him who a month hence shall place you in a position considerably more elevated and lucrative than that which I now could bestow. But Irene, my beloved, my all! reluctantly I yield my precious treasure to him who, it may be this moment, is rejoicing at his capture.
“I shall ever remain forlorn, dejected, and ruined until such time as we suitably can accomplish the clearance of the cloud of dissatisfaction under which you are about to live. Please write by return.
“Ever your own
“Oscar.
“Miss Iddesleigh,
Dilworth Castle.”
