Gerald Eversley was to leave Helmsbury that day. Before he left, Lady Venniker sent word that she would see him for a minute. He was taken into her bedroom. She was lying in bed, pale and anguished, as one who is not far from the portals of death. Her eyes were suffused with tears, but she held out her delicate hand to him, and he raised it to his lips.
‘My poor dear Gerald,’ she whispered; then after a pause, ‘she was too good for this world. His will be done.’ But even as she said the words, her voice was choked with weeping. Recovering herself by a strong effort she proceeded, ‘When she knew she was dying, she said, “Give Gerald this.”’ It was an ivory crucifix which had hung over her bed, the memorial of the Sorrow that is the solace of all sorrows.
It was evident that Lady Venniker’s strength was failing. ‘Kiss me,’ she said, ‘dear Gerald.’ He kissed her with such reverence as he might have kissed the brow of an angel. Then he went out.
An hour later a carriage rolled away from the gates of Helmsbury Hall. Two figures clad in deepest mourning were seated in it. They parted at the station. One journeyed alone to London. The other went back to the Hall.
Gerald Eversley never stayed again at Helmsbury. As soon as summer came the doctors decided that the only hope of saving Lady Venniker’s life lay in moving her before the cold months came to a southern clime. She died at Mentone in the autumn. Lord Venniker seemed unable to settle anywhere after her death. He travelled from place to place with his younger son. Harry was ordered with his regiment to India.
Helmsbury Hall was shut up. Lord Venniker could not live in it, and would not let it; he could not bear that the voice of strangers should be heard in the home of his joy and his bereavement.
Lady Venniker’s grave is beside her daughter’s in the little churchyard at Helmsbury. The villagers still lay fresh flowers upon them. Upon the headstone common to both are graven the words hallowed by so many sacred and pathetic memories:
‘They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.’
Every year, at some time in Passion Week, a lovely garland of choicest flowers was laid upon each grave. No one in Helmsbury knew whose were the hands that laid them. But it was told in the village that once a labourer, returning home from the next town long after midnight, saw in the distance what looked like the figure of a man dressed all in black kneeling by the graves, and in the morning the garlands were there.