CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE TOWERS.
The Towers, Kenelm Eyrle’s inheritance, was a large estate. Perhaps the prettiest and most picturesque part of it was that called Dower House, a large, open, healthy, airy house, standing by itself, close to the Holme Woods. The Dower House had been, in former generations, a retreat for the widowed ladies of the family, but of late there had been no widows, and the place had gone somewhat to decay. It was quite isolated; there was no other dwelling near it, no cheerful path led to a highway, no neighboring chimneys peeped from between the trees. It was isolated, solitary, secluded—the very spot where one might live and die unseen and unknown.
Kenelm Eyrle had more than once looked at the large closed, solitary place, and thought how sad it was that it should go to decay. There were no widowed Ladies Eyrle to seek refuge there now, and the really good, substantial property was rapidly going to ruin. Owing to the size of his estate, and his own peculiar ideas, Kenelm had always employed a land agent, a gentleman of intelligence and shrewdness, who made The Towers one of the best paying estates in the country. If Mr. Gordon had any fault to find with his employer it was for the little interest he took in anything.
“I do not believe he would care,” said Mr. Gordon one day, “if we found a gold mine on the property. He would raise his eyebrows one-quarter of an inch and say, ‘Indeed!’ As for being pleased or excited over it—nothing of the kind.”
To Mr. Gordon a man who did not care for money was simply a blot on creation.
“I have sometimes been so successful,” he would say, “in different works on the estate, that Mr. Eyrle has found himself a thousand pounds the richer for it! But he never cared; he never seemed pleased. If, as has seldom happened, we have been unsuccessful, and have lost, it was just the same.”
But Mr. Gordon, like the sensible man that he was, had suggested one thing—it was the letting of the Dower House. “I know you dislike the idea of strangers about the property,” he said, “but it seems to me a sin to let such a beautiful place as that go to ruin.”
Mr. Eyrle smiled the melancholy smile that was so habitual with him.
“Go and live there yourself,” he replied, and Mr. Gordon gravely assured him that if he were not married there was no place he would prefer to it.
“Mrs. Gordon likes life. No spot suits her so well as the High street, Leeholme, or city upon it. The Dower House should not be empty. But, Mr. Eyrle, let me find a tenant for it.”
“It must be a tenant who does not bore me,” said Kenelm, indifferently, and he thought no more of the matter, until one morning he received a letter signed “J. Payton,” evidently written by a lady.
That letter interested him strangely.
“I have seen the advertisement respecting the Dower House, and, if it be not taken, I should like to have the lease of it. I have never seen it, but am told that it is a place where one may live unseen and die unknown. I want such a home.”
A strange, abrupt letter, he thought to himself, yet one that interested him, and he drove over to Leeholme, to see Mr. Gordon. The agent, who was by no means a man of sentiment, read the letter with very different ideas.
“Evidently a lady with a mystery. If it depended on me, I should say ‘no’ to such a tenant. There is nothing like straightforward, plain honesty. I dislike all mystery. Still, do as you like, Mr. Eyrle.”
And Mr. Eyrle, with the usual fatality of his sex, did as he liked. He desired Mr. Gordon to let Mrs. Payton have the Dower House on her own terms.
“You only want to save the property,” he said; “you do not want to make ever so much money out of it.”
But Mr. Gordon, although he listened with respect, did as he liked. He had an interview with a lady who represented Mrs. Payton, and from her demanded what he thought a reasonable rent. It was most cheerfully agreed upon.
“Money is not of much consequence to Mrs. Payton,” said the gray-haired lady. “The only thing she cares for is peace and solitude.”
The agent smiled to himself, thinking how wonderful it was that landlord and tenant should have such very similar opinions.
The Dower House was put into repair, and Mr. Eyrle, speaking of it one day, asked:
“Did the lady call upon Gordon? What was she like?”
“Very sensible, elderly and gray-haired,” he replied. But it did not occur to him to mention that this was not the veritable tenant, only her representative.
Mr. Eyrle heard when they arrived, and then, after the usual comfortable manner of his sex, thought no more of them.
One May morning, shortly after Sir Ronald Alden had left home, Kenelm received a letter. He recognized the handwriting as that of his tenant, Mrs. Payton. It was a letter any tenant might have addressed to a landlord—simply asking permission to have a large bay window thrown out of the drawing-room.
“Of course,” he said to himself, “she may have bay windows all over the house, if she likes,” and his consent was so heartily given in his own mind he neglected to write and assure her of it. Thereupon came a second letter, and Kenelm’s heart reproached him.
“She will think I have neglected her,” he said, “and I had no such thought. I must go over, I suppose, and apologize.”
He went. The wind was blowing from the pine woods, the lilac and laburnum were all in flower, the mavis was singing in the trees, all nature was gay and smiling. His heart went back, with a dreary, discontented sigh to the thought of Clarice in her grave, shut out forever from all the fair loveliness of earth and sky. The grounds about the Dower House were very pleasant. He thought to himself as he walked through them that one might be very happy there. He was shown into a cool, shady, fragrant parlor, where the vases were filled with great boughs of laburnums and plumes of lilac; there an elderly lady was seated, who rose at his approach, and bowed to him.
“Mrs. Payton, I believe,” he said.
She looked in his face with a frank smile.
“Oh, no,” she replied. “I am Mrs. Payton’s representative. I know of no better word.”
He smiled, too, at her frank simplicity.
“I have the honor to be Mrs. Payton’s landlord,” he continued, “and she wrote to me respecting a bay window she wished to add to the drawing-room.”
Again she glanced at him with the kindliest smile.
“And I hope, Mr. Eyrle,” she said, “you are going to be good-natured and let her have it. When one looks at nothing but trees and flowers it is hardly possible to have enough of them.”
“Mrs. Payton may alter every window in the house if she chooses,” he said, earnestly. “I have but one hope, and that is that she will make the Dower House comfortable for herself.”
“That is kind, for the chances are that she will never leave it,” said Miss Hansen, with a deep-drawn sigh, and then there fell upon them a most uncomfortable silence. Mr. Eyrle was the first to break it.
“Is Mrs. Payton an invalid?” he asked.
“No; oh, no! I do not know that she has ever had a day’s ill-health.”
“Then, if she pleases, I will see her,” he continued, and Miss Hansen looked at him quite aghast.
“See Mrs. Payton?” she repeated. “She never sees any one, Mr. Eyrle. I live with her to save her from that kind of thing. If you are going to be very kind over the windows, could you not transact the business with me?”
But a sudden determination had come over Mr. Eyrle. He would see the mysterious tenant who cared for nothing but trees and flowers. He looked at Miss Hansen with a good-natured smile.
“I think,” he said, “that I shall prefer seeing the lady herself.”
He was amused at the smile that brightened the honest, fearless eyes looking at him.
“I am sure if you ask I shall not be denied.”
“Well, I will ask; but if you do obtain an interview it will be the first granted to either stranger or friend.”
And the little lady rolled up her knitting and walked slowly out of the room.