CHAPTER XXIX.
AFTER FOUR YEARS.
Four years have passed since Sir Ronald took Lady Hermione home to Aldenmere. May blossoms are falling now, and the white acacia is all in bloom. England holds no fairer picture than Aldenmere in its spring dress. The golden laburnums droop their long tresses, the purple lilacs are all in flower, the tufted limes send forth sweetest odors, and birds sing joyously in the green trees.
A long French window that opens onto the lawn is thrown back, and the sound of laughing voices mingles with the birds’ songs. Looking into that room, you would hardly recognize the gentleman seated near the open window—Sir Ronald Alden has so greatly changed. No shadow now lingers on his face, his eyes are unclouded, nothing but laughter and love lingers in their depths; the weird, haggard expression that had distorted his handsome, patrician features has left no trace. He had been singing some childish trifle to the little ones at his knee—the music of children’s voices was no longer mute at Aldenmere—and he was enjoying the perplexed wonder and admiration in each little face. Sir Ronald was neither vain nor singular in believing that two more beautiful children had rarely been seen. The eldest—the son and heir—Harry, the future lord of Aldenmere, a princely boy, with the dark Alden face, was perhaps nearest to his father’s heart; then came the little girl, baby Clare, who had Lady Hermione’s bright, tender face and fair hair. “Little children all his own,” as Sir Ronald was never weary of thinking. He who had been so desolate and lonely, so loveless and joyless, was crowned now by this most precious gift. Little children who worshiped him, who hung on his least word, who thought him the cleverest and most mighty of men; little ones whom he could train to carry on the honors of his house, to uphold the glories of his race, those glories that in his hand had so nearly fallen away. As they laughed and sung around him, he was hardly less happy than they. Only the keenest observer could have told that every now and then there went from the depths of his heart a most bitter sigh, or that the words of a prayer were on his lips, words that will never die until the blue heavens shrivel up as grass. “Lord have mercy on me!” One thing Lady Hermione noticed; it was that there was nothing her husband seemed so solicitous over as curbing and correcting Harry’s temper. The little heir of Aldenmere was a princely boy, his only fault being what was commonly known in the house as the “Alden temper.” He showed signs of that before he could either walk or talk.
“He must be corrected,” said Sir Ronald, when he saw how self-willed even such a baby could be; but Lady Alden had smiled and said:
“It is only the Alden spirit, Ronald; surely you will not blame him for that?”
Sir Ronald’s face had flushed darkly; for the first and only time in his life he spoke harshly to his worshiped wife.
“He had better die,” he said, “than grow up with that temper unchecked.”
Then, seeing his wife’s grieved, shocked look, he said:
“Whether the annals of our race speak truthfully or not I cannot tell, but I know this, Hermione, there has never yet been an Alden to whom this temper or spirit has not brought unutterable woe. Let us shield our boy from this curse of his race.”
And she, like the good, tender, submissive wife that she was, knelt down by his side and clasped her white arms around his neck.
“Have I vexed you, dear?” she asked. “I know you are right, and I will try to cure little Harry.”
“Less woman than angel,” he called her in his own thoughts, and he was not far wrong. The sweet and gentle submission, the tender and reverent homage she paid to him, were the crown of her pure and perfect womanhood. He looked at her sometimes wondering that so peerless a creature could have learned to love him. On this May morning, while the pink and white hawthorn shone in the hedges, and the mavis sang in the trees, he was inwardly wondering at his own bliss. Then, where the sunbeams fell upon her, sat his beautiful and beloved wife, bright, winsome, and happy, the pride and ornament of his home. The four years that had passed since he brought her home, a bride, seemed each one to have added fresh beauty to her, and near her sat the friend who of late years had been to him as a brother, Kenelm Eyrle. But Kenelm does not look bright this morning; his eyes are heavy as with long watching, and in his face were the old lines of sorrow, distinctly marked. “Now, papa,” cried little Harry, “sing one more song, about the queen in the garden—you know,” and Sir Ronald trolled off, in a rich, hearty voice, the famous old nursery song; it was but the prologue to a tragedy, after all.
“Sin’ to me,” lisped little Clare, and Lady Alden laughed at the peculiar English. Yet, pretty as the children’s prattle was, no smile came to the face of their guest. “You look very grave, Kenelm,” said Sir Ronald, at last; “are you not well this morning?”
“Yes, I am well,” was the half-indifferent reply, “in body, but not in mind.”
“A mind diseased knows no cure,” said Lady Alden. “What has distressed you, Mr. Eyrle?”
“A dream. I stand six foot high in my boots, and have nerves strong as steel; yet a dream has shaken me; my whole soul has trembled at it.”
Perhaps, had Lady Alden, “whose chief book was her husband’s look,” seen the expression of Sir Ronald’s face, she would not have prolonged the conversation; as it was, she turned her bright, beautiful face eagerly to him.
“A dream!” she said. “I am such a believer in dreams, Mr. Eyrle—tell me yours.”
“It is not fit for a bright May morning,” he said; “it is full of horror.”
“And you are brooding over it until you are making yourself quite ill,” said Lady Alden. “Now, Mr. Eyrle, be advised; never nurse a sorrow; tell Sir Ronald, if you do not trust me, what has distressed you. He will explain your dream away.”
Neither Lady Hermione, intent on comforting, nor Kenelm, wrapped in gloomy thoughts, noticed how Sir Ronald had drawn the little ones to him, as though to seek hope and shelter.
“Ronald, you have greater powers of persuasion than have fallen to my lot,” said Lady Alden. “Try to cheer Mr. Eyrle.”
Kenelm raised his eyes. She saw that they were heavy with unshed tears.
“I am like Banquo’s ghost,” he said. “I only bring gloom to you. My dream was of my lost love, Lady Alden, and you are right in thinking it haunts me. I ought to beg your pardon for speaking of gloomy subjects that must be distasteful to you, but it seems a strange thing that whenever I sleep or visit here, I dream of Clarice.”
Lady Hermione’s face grew even more beautiful in its softened tenderness and compassion.
“It is not strange,” she replied, gently, “you loved her so dearly, and Aldenmere is filled with memories of her. Tell us your dream.”
“I dreamed,” he replied, “that she came to the door of my room, opened it, and stood there, just as I saw her last, her white dress covered with flowers. She called me by my name, ‘Kenelm—Kenelm Eyrle!’ The dream was so weird, Lady Alden, I thought, at first, she was really there. Then I remembered she was dead, and my heart began to beat strangely. ‘Kenelm,’ she said, ‘you are sleeping quietly here at Aldenmere, and I lie in my grave unavenged!’ I cried out to her that my life was spent in the vain effort to trace her murderers and bring them to justice. ‘Yet you sleep!’ she said, sadly, and the next moment she had disappeared. Lady Alden, all the description that ever I could give would never tell you how those words touched me. I have heard the saddest notes from an æolian harp, but they were not so sad as the voice which said to me: ‘Yet you sleep!’ Oh, Lady Alden, pardon me; I cannot bear even to remember it,” and, abruptly enough, Kenelm Eyrle rose and quitted the breakfast-room, leaving Sir Ronald and Lady Hermione looking anxiously at each other.