A county election was going on. The man whom Mr. Brewer hoped to see elected was a guest at Beremouth. An old, grey-haired, worldly, statesmanlike man. A man who petted Claudia, and admired her; and who suddenly woke up one day to a thought--a question--a species of amusing suggestion, which grew into a [{25}] profound wonder, and then even warmed into a hope--surely that pretty bright young heiress liked him, had a fancy to be the second Lady Greystock. It was a droll thought at first, and he played with it; a flattering fancy, and he encouraged it. He was an honest man. He knew that he was great, clever, learned. Was there anything so wonderful in a woman loving him? He settled the question by asking Claudia. And she promised to be his wife with a real and undisguised gladness. Her spirit and her determination were treading the life out of her heart. She was sincere in her gladness. She thought she could welcome any duties that took her away from life at Beremouth, and gave her place and position elsewhere.
Mary suspected much, and feared everything. But Claudia felt and knew too much to speak one word of the world of hope and joy and love that had gone away from her. She declared that she liked her old love, and gloried in his grey hairs, and in the great heart that had stooped to ask for hers.
Now what are we to say of Horace Erskine? Was he wholly bad? First, he had never loved Claudia with a real devotion. He had admired her; she had loved him. He had gambled--green turf and green cloth--gambled and recklessly indulged himself till he had got upon the way to ruin, and had begun the downward path, and was glad to be stopped in that slippery descent by a marriage with an heiress. There was a sparkle, an originality, about Claudia. It was impossible not to be taken with her. But Claudia with only that fortune was of no use to him. He knew she was brave and true-hearted; so he boldly asked her to guard his name--in fact, to give him up, and not injure his next chance with a better heiress by telling the truth. He told her the truth; that he wanted money, and money he must have. She would not tell him that the worst part of her trial was the loss of her idol. It was despising him that broke her heart. But because he had been her idol she would never injure him--never tell.
So the day came, and at Marston church she married Sir Geoffrey Greystock, "Mother-Mary" wondering; Mr. Brewer believing, in the innocence of his heart, that the fancy for Horace Erskine had been a bit of the old wilfulness. "The last bit--the last," he said, as he spoke of it to her that very day, making her chilled heart knock against her side as he spoke, and kissed her, and sent her with blessings from the Beremouth that she had married to get away from.
To get away--it had more to do with her marrying than any other thought. To get away from the house, the spreading pastures, the bright garden, and above all from the old deer pond in the park--the most beautiful of all the many lovely spots that nature and art, and time and taste, had joined to create and adorn Beremouth. The old deer pond in the park! Sheltered by ancient oak; backed by interlacing boughs of old hawthorn trees; shadowed by tall, shining, dark dense holly, that glowed through the winter with its red berries, and contrasted with the long fair wreaths of hawthorn flowers in the sweet smiling spring. There, in this now dreaded place, Horace Erskine had first spoken of love; and there how often had he promised her the happiness that had gone out of her life--for ever. In the terrible nights, when her broken-hearted pains were strongest, this deer pond in the park had been before her closed eyes like a vision. In its waters she saw in her sleep her face and his, so happy, so loving, so trusting, so true. Then the picture in that water changed, and she watched it in her feverish dreams with horror, but yet was obliged to gaze, and the truth went out of his face, and the terror came into hers. And, worse and worse, he grew threatening--he was cold--he had never loved--he was killing her; and she fell, fell from her height of happiness; no protecting [{26}] arm stayed her, and the dark waters opened, and she heard the rushing sound of their deadly waves closing over her, as she sunk--sunk--again and again, night after night Oh, to get away, to get away! And she blessed Sir Geoffrey, and when he said he was too old to wait for a wife she was glad, for she had no wish to wait. Change, absence, another home, another life, another world--these things she wanted, and they had come. Is it any wonder that she took them as the man who is dying of thirst takes the longed-for draught, and drains the cup of mercy to the dregs?
It was a happy day to marry. Mr. Brewer had not only an excuse, but a positively undeniable reason for being bountiful and kind. For once he could openly, and as a matter of duty, make the sad hearts in Marston--and elsewhere--sing for joy. His blessings flowed so liberally that he had to apologize. It was only for once--he begged everybody's pardon, but it could never happen again; he had but this one child, and she was a bride, and so if they would forgive everything this once! And many a new life of gladness was begun that day; many a burden then lost its weight; many a record went up to the Eternal memory to meet that man at the inevitable hour.
Little Mary was the loveliest bridesmaid the world ever saw; standing alone like an angel by her dark sister's side. She was the only thing that Claudia grieved to leave. She was glad to flee away from "Mother-Mary." She dreaded lest those sweet wistful eyes should read her heart one day; and she could not help rejoicing to get away from that honest, open-hearted father's sight. Her poor, wrecked, shrunken heart--her withered life, could not bear the contrast with his free, kind, bounteous spirit that gave such measure of love, pressed down and running over, to all who wanted it. Her old husband, Sir Geoffrey, resembled that great good heart in whose love she had learnt to think all men true, more than did her young lover Horace Erskine--she could be humble and thankful to Sir Geoffrey; a well-placed approval was a better thing than an ill-placed love. So with that little vision of beauty, Minnie Lorimer, by her side, Claudia became Sir Geoffrey's wife.
Four months past, the bride and bridegroom were entertaining a grand party at their fine ancestral home, and Mr. Brewer was the father of a son and heir. Horace Erskine read both announcements in the paper one morning, and ground his teeth with vexation. He went to his desk and took out three letters, a long lock of silky hair, a small miniature--these things he had begged to keep. Laughing, he had argued that he was almost a relation. His uncle had married "Mother-Mary's" sister. She had had no strength to debate with him. She had chosen to wear the mask of indifference, too, to him. He now made these things into a parcel and sent them to Sir Geoffrey Greystock without one word of explanation. When they were gone he wrote to his uncle, begged for some money, got it, and started for Vienna. The money met him in London, and he crossed to France the same day.
In the midst of great happiness the strong heart of good Sir Geoffrey stood still. His wife sought him. She found him in his chair in a fit. On a little table by his side was the parcel just received. Claudia knew all. She took the parcel into the room close by, called her dressing room, rung for help, but in an hour Sir Geoffrey was dead; and Claudia had burnt the letters and the lock of silky hair.
The business of parliament, the excitement attendant on his marriage with that beautiful girl, the entertainment of that great house full of company--these reasons the world reckoned up, and found sufficient to answer the questions and the wonderings on Sir Geoffrey's death. But when those solemn walls no longer knew their master, Claudia, into whose new life the new things held but an [{27}] unsteady place, grew ill. First of all, sleepless nights: how could she sleep with the sound of those waters by the deer pond in her ears? How could she help gazing perpetually at the picture on the pond's still surface: Horace and Sir Geoffrey, and herself not able to turn aside the death-stroke, but standing, fettered by she knew not what, in powerless misery, only obliged to see the changing face of her husband till the dead seemed to be again before her, and Horace melted out of sight, and she woke, dreading fever and praying against delirium? She was overcome at last. Terrible hours came, and "Mother-Mary's" sweet face mingling with some strong, subduing, life-endangering dream, was the first thing that seemed to bring her back to better things, and to restore her to herself.