Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes

by George Manville Fenn

So while the sailor had wooed and won, Septimus Hardon had nursed his love for years, hardly realising the passion he had harboured, till one night when, after a woodside ramble, he stood leaning upon a stile, and glancing down with bitterness at his uncouth form. The shadows were growing deeper, when, hearing approaching footsteps, he entered the wood, where before him lay many a dark mossy arcade—fit places for the sighs of a sorrowful heart; and he thought as he entered one that he could wander here in peace for a while; but the next instant the hot blood flushed up into his face, making his veins throb as he stood with clenched hands gazing through the thin screen of leaves at Mary, leaning lovingly upon his friend’s arm, and listening with downcast eyes to his words.

The listener could hardly see the looks of those who passed, but their words seemed to ring through the stillness of the summer eve, each one falling with a heavy impact upon his ear, and vibrating through his frame, as if a sharp blow had been struck upon sonorous metal. For a moment a wild fury seemed to blind him, and he stood trembling with passion till the footsteps died away; when, half wild with agony, he dashed headlong, deeper and deeper into the wood, crashing through the light hazels, tripping over the tortuous roots; and at last, stumbling over a fallen bough, he fell heavily, and lay insensible in the calm depths of the wood. But thought soon dawned upon him again, and he lay and shuddered as the anguish of heart came slowly creeping back; for he now thoroughly understood his fate, and knew that the bright dreamy structures in which his imagination had revelled had crumbled before him into bitter dust.

Time sped on, and after another voyage Tom Grey was back, and standing with his hand upon Septimus Hardon’s shoulder.

“Come? Why, of course, my boy; what should we do without you? Mary begs that you won’t refuse; and, Sep, old fellow, I shall expect you to be her bodyguard when I’m far away at sea.”

Septimus Hardon was standing opposite to a tall pier-glass in his father’s drawing-room when these words were spoken; and he glanced at himself, and then, sighing bitterly, wondered whether, had he been as other men, he would have been chosen. But the next moment the thought was crushed down, and he was returning the frank, handsome sailor’s honest grasp.

Septimus Hardon nursed his love, but he hid it, buried it in the deepest recesses of his heart; and no one knew of the secret held by the bridegroom’s friend, who held by one of the pews when a swimming came upon him in the church, and he would have fallen had not Tom Grey grasped his arm. But that soon passed, and the stricken man added his congratulations to those of the friends assembled to follow the couple, in whose path flowers were strewn—the couple joined together till death did them part.

And that was soon—soon to the loving wife—soon to the husband whose journeyings were upon the great deep; but years passed first, during which quiet, vacillating Septimus Hardon was the faithful friend of his schoolfellow’s wife, and the patient slave of her bright-eyed child, at whose bidding he was always ready to attend, even to the neglect of his father’s book.

Then came the day when, after whispering of hope, for many months, Septimus learned that his fears were but too well founded, and that his friend’s ship had gone down with all on board.

A bitter trial was his to break the fatal tidings to the widow, and he stood trembling as she, the woman he had for long years worshipped in secret, reviled him and cursed him in her madness for the news—the blasting news that he had brought upon her home.

Then two years glided away, when the widow, passing through many a phase of sorrow, sickness, and misery, sat hoping on that he whom she mourned would yet return, and all the while ignorant of the hand that supplied her wants, or of the good friend with so great a love for fancy-work that she sent order after order, liberally paid for by the hands of Septimus Hardon. The beauty of the past slowly faded, so that she became haggard and thin; a lasting illness seemed to have her in its grasp; but still faithful to his trust, true to the love he bore her, Septimus Hardon set at naught the frowns of his father and the sneers of his cousins, while he devoted himself to the alleviation of the widow’s sufferings, and kept her from the additional stings of want, for she had been left totally unprovided for by her young and hopeful husband.