Mr. Ralph Chichelee had hopes—intentions, rather, would perhaps be a better word; but then other people had intentions also, so perhaps it is scarcely fair to mention his in particular.
Phemie was still beautiful enough to attract admiration—still young enough to love and be loved—still fascinating enough to choose a second husband and rule over a new home. The prospect opened out before Phemie by Captain Stondon’s death seemed to society like a vision of fairyland. She might marry an earl. The Duke of Seelands had inquired particularly who she was one day when he beheld her driving from the Disley Station. How would Phemie like the strawberry leaves? Norfolk began forthwith to wonder, while the man who had loved her so well was lying dead in one of the pleasant rooms at Marshlands. Concerning “that young man Aggland” the gossips had also something to say; they marvelled if, instead of marrying for rank, Phemie’s uncle would trap her into wedding her cousin. Where would she live? What would she do? She possessed a fine property of her own, and doubtless Captain Stondon had done well pecuniarily by his wife.
Was not this a dainty dish for a county to feast on and speculate over? while the flavouring was supplied by an all-devouring curiosity to know who was the next heir male. Remote relations, unheard of before, came from the uttermost parts of the earth to claim the property. Stondons who had gone down in the world—Stondons who had gone up in the social scale—arrived at Disley when the news of Captain Stondon’s death was noised abroad. There was no near heir, and every man of the connection consequently claimed to be next-of-kin. Who would be master? What would Phemie do? Whom would Phemie marry? What a pity she had no children—what a sad thing it was Mr. Basil Stondon had gone abroad! These were the questions and remarks everybody made and everybody asked.
As for Phemie, she grieved for her dead husband with a sorrow which was neither conventional nor circumscribed. The best friend woman ever possessed he had been to her through all the years of her married life.
Through that part of her existence when she may be said to have lived he had stood beside her.
In sickness, in sorrow, in prosperity, he had thought of her, and of her only. No one in the after time could ever be so fond or proud of her as he had been; no one could ever step in and fill his place. She had never had to think for herself—to take any trouble which his love could keep from her; he had been true and faithful and tender, and the return she had made would have broken the heart of the man who now lay so still and stiff, could he have known it.
“Better so,” she thought, “better so. I would rather see him thus”—and she kissed the cold brow and lips—“than imagine his grief, could he have guessed what I was—I whom he trusted—too well, too well!” And she wept through the hours beside his coffin till her friends forcibly removed her.
“I never loved him enough—I never knew till now how much I loved him,” were the contradictory sentences she kept constantly repeating; and then Miss Derno, who could guess so well wherein the worst sting of this death lay, drew the poor weary head on to her breast and rested it there.
“And I was once very unjust to you,” Phemie went on, sobbing out her confession. “There was a time when I thought I did not like you, and it was wicked of me to misjudge you as I did. You forgive me, dear, don’t you? and you will not ask me why I misjudged you?”
“I forgive and I will not ask. Shall we be friends now—true friends for evermore?” And she bent down till her curls swept Phemie’s face, and then the poor trembling lips touched hers, and the widow broke out sobbing more passionately than ever.