CHAPTER XVII.
The mighty orb of gladness spreads its divine halo over many a harrowed home—it encircles the great expanse of foreign adventure and home-hoarded enterprise, and wields its awakening influence against the burthened boroughs of bigotry and lightened land of liberty to a sense of gilded surprise.
The laurels of separation were twining their oily leaves and speedily constructing a crown for the brow of Sir John Dunfern. After returning from Chitworth College, and ordering the last few finishing touches to be made in his will, he grew more drooped and heartless every year, and seemed almost indifferent to life’s ploughing changes.
He felt acutely the information imparted to him by President O’Sullivan regarding the wife he now for ever despised, and who unlawfully belonged to Oscar Otwell. He even felt more severely the effect of such on account of his beloved boy, who was steadily endeavouring to increase his slight store of knowledge under the watchful eye of the most scholarly personage of the day.
He knew ere long—owing to his present state of health, brought to such a low ebb by the mother of his son—that he would be obliged to open to Hugh the book of nature as it stood past and present, and instruct him in its disagreeable pages.
The thought of opening up the past, with its stains of dissipation, perhaps acted on the mind of Sir John more severely than the reality. Yet he must brave himself for the trial when opportunity offered, lest it might be too late.
The time for Hugh Dunfern’s fourth summer vacation was close at hand. The boy’s genial manner, affability, and frankness, gained for him hosts of friends at Chitworth College, and equally numerous were the sharers in his sorrow on receiving a telegram a very short time before his summer holidays commenced to the effect that his father had taken suddenly ill, and asking him to delay as little as he possibly could during his journey to Dunfern Mansion, which must commence immediately.
The poor, sorrow-stricken boy, who was deeply attached to his father, was quite overcome with grief. Bidding “Good bye” to all his college companions, and taking affectionate leave of his masters and President O’Sullivan, he left the much-loved seat of learning, never more to compete in its classes of clever instruction and high moral bearing—never again to watch with craving eye the distribution of letters, and rejoice on observing his father’s crested envelope being gently reached him by the President; and no more to share in the many innocent games of youth, at some of which he was an unequalled expert.
The dull hum of voices in the hall of his home met his anxious ear on the eve of his home-coming, and told a tale without further inquiry. Meeting the three most eminent London physicians—namely, Doctors Killen, Crombie, and Smiley, in the library, where they held a long consultation, Hugh was nerved somewhat before entering the chamber of death with words of truth regarding his father’s hopeless condition; and, on moving quietly to his father’s bed, how the lad of tender years was struck with awe at the bleached resemblance of what used to be a rosy, healthy father!
Perceiving his son’s bent and weeping form hang over him with meekest resignation, Sir John cast aside the bedclothes, and, extending his hand, caught firm hold of his son’s. Hugh spoke not a word, by order of the doctors, lest his father, who was now bereft of speech, would feel the pain of not being able to reply in return.
The suffering patient lingered on in this dumb condition for six weeks, when suddenly he regained speech partly, but only for some hours—a great dispensation of the Almighty, no doubt, in answer to the silent prayers of the invalid. It was first noticed by Madam Fulham, who proved a mighty help to Sir John since his wife’s flight.
On entering the chamber of sickness one morning with a new bottle of medicine, sent direct from London, Sir John raised himself slightly on his left elbow and made inquiry about his son.
With hurried and gladdened step was Madam Fulham seen to glide from the presence of her master, and hasten to find Hugh, who was noticed to pace the topmost corridor in agony.
On observing his father had regained speech after his paralytic attack had somewhat abated, how great was his son’s delight! Drawing forth a chair to the bedside of the august patient, Hugh, quite unprepared, received the awful intelligence of his mother’s conduct and life from the lips of the afflicted, who, in broken accents, related the tale of trouble which for years had kept him a prisoner to its influence.
Taking his son’s hand in his, Sir John Dunfern, after audibly, yet a little indistinctly, offering up a prayer of thanks to Him Who never overlooks the words of the just, for His great mercy in again enabling him to regain his sense of speech, of which he so lately had been deprived, began:—
“My much-loved and faithful son, I, your father, am now stricken down in the middle almost of manhood, and am sensitive to the fact that a short space of time—yea, a short space too—must inevitably elapse until I shall be ordered from this temporary abode, which now to me seems only a floating speck of shelter in the great ocean of time. I am more than thankful that recovery of speech has been granted me for many reasons, which, I fear, my strength cannot permit to be fully explained. However, my great wish to acquaint you of my miserable married career shall, I trust, not be barred from your knowledge by any further visitation of Kingly Power.
“You are aware, my son, that this mansion which soon shall own me no more has been the scene of my frolicking boyhood, my joyful manhood, and, I must now tell you, the undying trouble of a blighted married life.
“Your mother’s name was Irene Iddesleigh, the orphan daughter, I understand, of one Colonel Iddesleigh, of Flixton, in this county. Her father and mother both died about the same time, leaving their daughter absolutely unprovided for. She was taken to an orphanage at the early age of three years, and there remained for a period of eight more, when, through the kindness of one Lord Dilworth, of Dilworth Castle, of whose existence I have already acquainted you, she was brought under his charge, and remained as his adopted daughter until, unfortunately, I brought her here as my wife.
“I cannot help informing you that she was the most beautiful and prepossessing young lady I ever met, and, on making her acquaintance at a ball given by Lord and Lady Dilworth, at Dilworth Castle, not far distant, as you know, I became so intoxicated with her looks of refinement and undoubted beauty that I never regained sobriety until she promised to become my wife!
“The beginning of our married career was bright enough, I dare say, for some weeks only, when she grew very strange in her manner towards me. So remarkably strange, that I was reluctantly compelled to demand an explanation. Being satisfied with her false apologies, used as a way out of her difficulty, I remained content. She still continued nevertheless to maintain the same cold indifference towards me until your birth.
“Knowing that a son was born to me, who, if spared, would still keep up the good old name of Dunfern, I became altogether a foreigner to her past conduct, and it was only when recovering from her illness, after your birth, that I caught hold of the trap of deception she had laid since long before our marriage.
“She was found out to be the idolized of one man named Oscar Otwell, who occupied the position of tutor to her during her years of adoption; and not even did her love in return for him cease when I claimed her as my lawful wife, but continued, so far as I know, until now!
“I was therefore obliged through her mal-practices to shut her in from the gaze of outsiders, and also from my own. I chose Room No. 10 of this building as her confined apartment. You were only a child then of some two months, and, since, I have never beheld her face, which was false as it was lovely.
“My rage was boundless on the day I ordered her into my presence in that room, and, labouring under the passion of a jealous husband, I told her I would confine her within its walls so long as she existed.
“Over a year passed along, every month of which I grew more and more repentant, until the second Christmas of her seclusion, when I fully resolved to free her once more; at the same time, never again to share in my society or companionship.
“But, behold! the mischievous hand of her maid, Marjory Mason, whose services I retained after her imprisonment, was busy working its way for her escape, which she nimbly succeeded in effecting, exactly on the morning of Christmas Day, by stealing from the room of Rachel Hyde, Madam Fulham’s predecessor, the key of her door, and thereby released your mother. Ah! my son, from that hour my life has been a worthless coin, the harp of hideous helplessness struck forth its tunes of turmoil, trouble, and trial, and poured its mixed strains of life and death so vividly in my ear, that since I have, in a measure, been only a wanderer between their striking sounds of extremes.
“I shortly afterwards learned she took refuge in Audley Hall, a residence on the estate of its present owner—the Marquis of Orland, and situated some twenty miles distant, and, horrifying to relate, had been living with Oscar Otwell!
“The dreadful news of her conduct irritated me so that I only, in my last will and testament, bequeathed to her what would grant the ordinary comforts of life, provided I predeceased her. This reference to her remained until I accompanied you to Chitworth College, when President O’Sullivan revealed to me in silent friendship the fact of which I was wholly unaware, viz.—that she had long since sailed for America, at the same time handing me a New York Herald sent him by Otwell, and there I beheld the announcement of her marriage with him who ruined my life, and who has been the means of driving me into the pit of tearful tremor, out of which I never more shall climb.
“On returning home from Chitworth College I at once blanked the reference to her in my will, and never more wished to behold the face that swore to me such vows of villainy; the face that blasted my happiness for life; the mother of you, whom I now earnestly implore never to acknowledge, and who possesses every feature she outwardly bore.
“It may be yours to meet her face to face ere she leave this tabernacle of torment; but, my child, for my sake avoid her cunning ways and works, and never allow her shelter underneath this roof she dishonoured and despised. And I trust God in His great mercy shall forgive her errors, and grant you the blessing of a Father of Love.”
Sir John Dunfern now lay back exhausted on his pillow, and muttered quietly “Thank God.”
Next morning the Angel of Death was seen to spread its snowy wings over his wasted form, and convey the departed spirit into that region of bliss where sorrow, sighing, sin, and suffering are cast for ever from its rooms of glory.
Thus passed away another link of a worthy ancestral chain, who, during his tender years of training, had been guided by the charitable Christian example of a mother of devotion, and who was, during the brighter battle of her son’s creeping years of care and caution, summoned before the Invisible Throne of purity, peace, and praise everlasting, shrouded in hopes of sunshine concerning his future happiness, which, never after his marriage, was known to twinkle in Dunfern Mansion.
