Not so Uncle Tom! He missed—sorely missed—the light of his eyes, the joy of his heart, and felt guiltily anxious with regard to her future. Mounted on Kitty, a notable Irish mare, he rode over to Sharsley every few weeks; when the master of the house happened to be at home these excursions had the effect of emphasising his apprehensions. The tone in which Blagdon addressed his wife, his rudeness, and the ferocity of his sarcasms made the thin blood of the old soldier mount to his face; and yet the host mended his manners when Letty’s uncle was present. Fenchurch was such a starched-up old cock;—and that a man of his age would ride forty miles just to see a relative, awakened Blagdon’s amusement and surprise.
“The old boy looks bad—he’s breaking!” he abruptly remarked to his wife one afternoon after her uncle had ridden away.
Letty had observed a change; the hale little officer now looked worn and grey; he had grown thin, and lost his cheery manner; when Hugo noticed anything of that sort, it must be woefully apparent! However, she made no answer, and winked back her tears, and her husband resumed:
“I’m surprised Mrs. Fen has not done for him long ago, with her jaw and her managing, and her damned hatchet face. Thank God she doesn’t show it here!” and with this congratulation on his lips, Blagdon departed.
By and by the forty-mile ride proved too much for Kitty; so said her master; he sent her a night before to a half-way village inn (where, according to the landlady, Queen Elizabeth had slept the night before her head was cut off!), drove there himself next day, and rode her on to Sharsley.
These visits seemed to afford him the greatest pleasure, though it was evident to Letty that they entailed an extraordinary effort. Each time she saw her uncle, she noted, with a sinking heart, a waning of his spirits and a wasting of his frame. He would never admit that he was ailing—and in this make-believe he was nobly supported by his wife. He had a horror of not being able to do what he had always done, and the iron will of his Dorothy, and his own frantic clinging to activity, compelled the poor, frail body to shoot and hunt as usual. The few hours he spent with Letty when he found her alone, were truly a joy and comfort to both. On these occasions, they never spoke of Hugo; but Cara the baby was exhibited, praised, and played with, and her mother made amazing efforts to seem gay. She realised, that Uncle Tom believed her to be unhappily married, and that this conviction was breaking his heart; and she strove very anxiously to play the part of a gay and contented young woman, who does not object to being a grass widow, or to be left by herself for months (to him she spoke of weeks), but the farce was a failure; the unsuccessful actress read this in her uncle’s haggard eyes, and in the long, significant pressure of his hand, ere he wished her good-bye, and sadly rode away.
And one June afternoon Kitty and the Colonel rode away, never to return, for a week later Colonel Fenchurch was found sitting in his chair in the smoking-room, with Letty’s last letter in his stiffening hand, quite dead. The poor little Colonel had not much to bequeath, but by a recent will he left forty pounds a year to his beloved niece Lettice Blagdon—and not all the Fenchurch pictures, diamonds, and heirlooms, could console his bereaved widow for this unnecessary legacy.
“So cruel to me!” she imparted in confidence to her intimates; “and so preposterous—as if Letty had not more money than she can spend!”
But possibly the dead man had his reasons; perhaps he had been granted the far-sighted vision which is given to those who are nearing the border-land.
His relict affected not only overwhelming grief, but the direst poverty. After the funeral, and when matters were being wound up, she endeavoured to sell a couple of hunters to Hugo.