CHAPTER SIXTEENTH
AFTER TWENTY GOLDEN YEARS

After twenty years have passed away, it is safe to ask if events have been all that they promised to be; and one morning in August of 1857, it was twenty years since Kate Atheling became Lady Exham. She was sitting at a table writing letters to her two eldest sons, who were with their tutor in the then little known Hebrides. Lord Exham was busy with his mail. They were in a splendid room, opening upon a lawn, soft and green beyond description; and the August sunshine and the August lilies filled it with warmth and fragrance. Lady Exham was even more beautiful than on her wedding day. Time had matured without as yet touching her wonderful loveliness, and motherhood had crowned it with a tender and bewitching nobility. She had on a gown of lawn and lace, white as the flowers that hung in clusters from the Worcester vase at her side. Now and then Piers lifted his head and watched her for a moment; and then, with the faint, happy smile of a heart full and at ease, he opened another letter or paper. Suddenly he became a little excited. “Why, Kate,” he said, “here is my speech on the blessings which Reform has brought to England. I did not expect such a thing.”

“Read it to me, Piers.”

“It is entirely too long; although I only reviewed some of the notable works that followed Reform.”

“Such as–”

“Well, the abolition of both black and white slavery; the breaking up of the gigantic monopoly of the East India Company, and the throwing open of our ports to the merchants of the world; the inauguration of a system of national education; the reform of our cruel criminal code; the abolition of the press gang, and of chimney sweeping by little children, and such brutalities; the postal reform; and the spread of such good, cheap literature as the Penny Magazine and Chambers’s Magazine . My dear Kate, it would require a book to tell all that the Reform Bill has done for England. Think of the misery of that last two years’ struggle, and look at our happy country to-day.”

“Prosperous, but not happy, Piers. How can we be happy when, all over the land, mothers are weeping because their children are not. If this awful Sepoy rebellion was only over; then!”

“Yes,” answered Piers; “if it was only over! Surely there never was a war so full of strange, unnatural cruelties. I wonder where Cecil and Annabel are.”

“Wherever they are, I am sure both of them will be in the way of honour and duty.”

There was a pause, and then Piers asked, “To whom are you writing, dear Kate?”

“To Dick and John. They do not want to return to their studies this winter; they wish to travel in Italy.”

“Nonsense! They must go through college before they travel. Tell them so.”

The Duke had entered as Piers was speaking, and he listened to his remark. Then, even as he stooped to kiss Kate, he contradicted it. “I don’t think so, Piers,” he said decisively. “Let the boys go. Give them their own way a little. I do not like to see such spirited youths snubbed for a trifle.”

“But this is not a trifle, Father.”

“Yes, it is.”

“You insisted on my following the usual plan of college first, and travel afterwards.”

“That was before the days of Reform. The boys are my grandsons. I think I ought to decide on a question of this kind. What do you say, my dear?” and he turned his kindly face, with its crown of snowy hair, to Kate.

“It is to be as you say, Father,” she answered. “Is there any Indian news?”

“Alas! Alas!” he answered, becoming suddenly very sorrowful, “there is calamitous news,–the fort in which Colonel North was shut up, has fallen; and Cecil and Annabel are dead.”

“Oh, not massacred! Do not tell us that !” cried Kate, covering her ears with her hands.

“Not quite as bad. A Sepoy who was Cecil’s orderly, and much attached to him, has been permitted to bring us the terrible news, with some valuable gems and papers which Annabel confided to him. He told me that Cecil held out wonderfully; but it was impossible to send him help. Their food and ammunition were gone; and the troops, who were mainly Sepoys, were ready to open the gates to the first band of rebels that approached. One morning, just at daybreak, Cecil knew the hour had come. Annabel was asleep; but he awakened her. She had been expecting the call for many days; and, when Cecil spoke, she knew it was death. But she rose smiling, and answered, ‘I am ready, Love.’ He held her close to his breast, and they comforted and strengthened one another until the tramp of the brutes entering the court was heard. Then Annabel closed her eyes, and Cecil sent a merciful bullet through the brave heart that had shared with him, for twenty-five years, every trial and danger. Her last words were, ‘Come quickly, Cecil,’ and he followed her in an instant. The man says he hid their bodies, and they were not mutilated. But the fort was blown up and burned; and, in this case, the fiery solution was the best.”

“And her children?” whispered Kate.

“The boys are at Rugby. The little girl died some weeks ago.”

The Duke was much affected. He had loved Annabel truly, and her tragic death powerfully moved him. “The Duchess,” he said, “had wept herself ill; and he had promised her to return quickly.” But as he went away, he turned to charge Piers and Kate not to disappoint his grandsons. “They are such good boys,” he added; “and it is not a great matter to let them go to Italy, if they want to–only send Stanhope with them.”

No further objection was then made. Kate had learned that it is folly to oppose things yet far away, and which are subject to a thousand unforeseen influences. When the time for decision came, Dick and John might have changed their wishes. So she only smiled a present assent, and then let her thoughts fly to the lonely fort where Cecil and Annabel had suffered and conquered the last great enemy. For a few minutes, Piers was occupied in the same manner; and when he spoke, it was in the soft, reminiscent voice which memory–especially sad memory–uses.

“It is strange, Kate,” he said, “but I remember Annabel predicting this end for herself. We were sitting in the white-and-gold parlour in the London House, where I had found her playing with the cat in a very merry mood. Suddenly she imagined the cat had scratched her, and she spread out her little brown hand, and looked for the wound. There was none visible; but she pointed to a certain spot at the base of her finger, and said, ‘>Look, Piers. There is the sign of my doom,–my death-token. I shall perish in fire and blood.’ Then she laughed and quickly changed the subject, and I did not think it worth pursuing. Yet it was in her mind, for a few minutes afterwards, she opened her hand again, held it to the light, and added, ‘An old Hindoo priest told me this. He said our death-warrant was written on our palms, and we brought it into life with us.’”

“You should have contradicted that, Piers.”

“I did. I told her, our death-warrant was in the Hand of Him with whom alone are the issues of life and death.”

“She was haunted by the prophecy,” said Kate. “She often spoke of it. Oh, Piers, how merciful is the veil that hides our days to come!”

“I feel wretched. Let us go to Atheling; it will do us good.”

“It is very warm yet, Piers.”

“Never mind, I want to see the children. The house is too still. They have been at Atheling for three days.”

“We promised them a week. Harold will expect the week; and Edith and Maude will rebel at any shorter time.”

“At any rate let us go and see them.”

“Shall we ride there?”

“Let us rather take a carriage. One of the three may possibly be willing to come back with us.”

Near the gates of Atheling they met the Squire and his grandson Harold. They had been fishing. “The dew was on the grass when we went away; and Harold has been into the water after the trout. We are both a bit wet,” said the Squire; “but our baskets are full.” And then Harold leaped into the carriage beside his father and mother, and proudly exhibited his speckled beauties.

Mrs. Atheling had heard their approach, and she was at the open door to meet them. Very little change had taken place in her. Her face was a trifle older, but it was finer and tenderer; and her smile was as sweet and ready, and her manner as gracious–though perhaps a shade quieter than in the days when we first met her. Her granddaughter Edith, a girl of eight years, stood at her side; and Maude, a charming babe of four, clung to her black-silk apron, and half-hid her pretty face in its sombre folds. To her mother, Kate was still Kate; and to Kate, mother was still mother. They went into the house together, little Maude making a link between them, and Edith holding her mother’s hand. But, in the slight confusion following their arrival, the children all disappeared.

“They were helping Bradley to make tarts,” said Mrs. Atheling, “when I called them, and they have gone back to their pastry and jam. Let them alone. Dear me! I remember how proud I was when I first cut pastry round the patty pans with my thumb,” and Mrs. Atheling looked at Kate, who smiled and nodded at her own similar memory.

They were soon seated in the large parlour, where all the windows were open, and a faint little breeze stirring the cherry leaves round them. Then the Squire began to talk of the Indian news; and Piers told, with a pitiful pathos, the last tragic act in Cecil’s and Annabel’s love and life. And when he had finished the narration, greatly to every one’s amazement, the Squire rose to his feet, and, lifting his eyes heavenward, said solemnly,–

“I give hearty thanks for their death, so noble and so worthy of their faith and their race. I give hearty thanks because God, knowing their hearts and their love, committed unto them the dismissing of their own souls from the wanton cruelty of incarnate devils. I give hearty thanks for Love triumphant over Death, and for that faith in our immortality which could command an immediate re-union, ‘Come quickly, Cecil!’

“There is nothing to cry about,” he added, as he resumed his seat. “Death must come to all of us. It came mercifully to these two. It did not separate them; they went together. Somewhere in God’s Universe they are now, without doubt, doing His Will together. Let us give thanks for them.”

After a little while, Kate and her mother went away. They had many things to talk over about which masculine opinions were not necessary, nor even desirable. And the Squire and Piers had, in a certain way, a similar confidence. Indeed the Squire told Piers many things he would not have told any one else,–little wrongs and worries not worth complaining about to his wife, and perhaps about which he was not very certain of her sympathy. But with Piers, these crept into his conversation, and were talked away, or at least considerably lessened, by his son-in-law’s patient interest.

This morning their conversation had an unconscious tone of gratified prophecy in it. “Edgar is in a lot of trouble,” he said; “but then he seems to enjoy it. His hands gathered in the mill-yard yesterday and gave him what they call, ‘a bit of their mind.’ And their ‘mind’ isn’t what you and I would call a civil one. Luke Staley, a big dyer from Oldham, got beyond bearing, and told Edgar, if he didn’t do thus and so, he would be made to. And Edgar can be very provoking. He didn’t tell me what he said; but I have no doubt it was a few of the strongest words he could pick out. And Luke Staley, not having quite such a big private stock as Edgar, doubled his fist, to make the shortage good, almost in Edgar’s face; and there would have, maybe, been a few blows, if Edgar had not taken very strong measures at once,–that is, Piers, he knocked the fellow down as flat as a pancake. And then all was so still that, Edgar said, the very leaves rustling seemed noisy; and he told them in his masterful way, they could have five minutes to get back to their looms. And if they were not back in five minutes, he promised them he would dump the fires and lock the gates, and they could go about their business.”

“And they went to their looms, of course?”

“To be sure they did. More than that, Luke Staley picked himself up, and went civilly to Edgar and said, ‘That was a good knock-down. I’m beat this time, Master;’ and he offered his hand, blue and black with dyes, and Edgar took it. My word! how his grandfather Belward would have enjoyed that scene. I am sorry he is not alive this day. He missed a deal by dying before Reform. Edgar and he together could keep a thousand men at their looms–and set the price, too.”

“What did the men want?”

“A bit of Reform, of course,–more wage and less work. I am not much put out of the way now, Piers, with the mill. I get a lot of pleasure out of it, one road or another. Did I ever tell you about the Excursion Edgar gave them last week?”

“I have not heard anything about it.”

“Well, you see, Edgar sent all his hands and their wives and sweethearts to the seaside, and gave them a good dinner; and they had a band of music to play for them, and a little steamer to give them a sail; and they came home at midnight, singing and in high good humour. Edgar thought he had pleased them. Not a bit of it! Two nights after they held a meeting in that Mechanics Hall Mrs. Atheling built for them. What for? To talk over the jaunt, and try and find out, ‘ What Master Atheling was up to .’ You see they were sure he had a selfish motive of some kind.”

“I don’t believe he had a single selfish motive; he is not a selfish man,” said Piers.

“I wouldn’t swear to his motives, Piers. Between you and me, he wants to go to Parliament again.”

“He ought to be there; it is his native heath, in a manner.”

“Well, as I said, one way or another, I get a lot of pleasure out of these men. There is a truce on now between them and Edgar; but, in the main, it is a lively truce.”

“Edgar seems to enjoy the conditions, also, Father.”

“Well, he ought to have a bit of something that pleases him. He has a deal of contrary things to fight. There is his eldest son.”

“Augustus?”

“Yes, Augustus.”

“What has Augustus done?”

“He will paint pictures and make little figures, and waste his time about such things as no Atheling in this world ever bothered his head about,–unless he wanted his likeness painted. The lad does wonders with his colours and brushes, and I’ll allow that. He brought me a bit of canvas with that corner by the fir woods on it, and you would have thought you could pull the grass and drink the water. But I did not think it right to praise him much. I said, ‘Very good, Augustus, but what will you make by this?’”

“Well?”

“Well, Piers, the lad talked about his ideals, and said Art was its own reward, and a lot of rubbishy nonsense. But I never expected much from a boy called Augustus. That was his mother’s whim; no Atheling was ever called such a name before. He wants to go to Italy, and his father wants him in the mill. Edgar is finding a few things out now he didn’t believe in when he was twenty years old. The point of view is everything, Piers. Edgar looks at things as a father looks at them now; then, he had an idea that fathers knew next to nothing. Augustus is no worse than he was. Maybe, he will come to looms yet; he is just like the Curzons, and they were loom lovers. Now Cecil, his second boy, has far better notions. He likes a rod, and a horse, and a gun; and he thinks a gamekeeper has the best position in the world.”

“Mrs. Atheling sets us all an example. She is always doing something for the people.”

“They don’t thank her for it. She brings lecturers, and expects them to go and hear them; and the men would rather be in the cricket field. She has classes of all kinds for the women and girls; and they don’t want her interfering in their ways and their houses. I’ll tell you what it is, Piers, you cannot write Reform upon flesh and blood as easy as you can write it upon paper. It will take a few generations to erase the old marks, and put the new marks on.”

“Still Reform has been a great blessing. You know that, Father.”

“Publicly, I know it, Piers. Privately, I keep my own ideas. But there is Kate calling us, and I see the carriage is waiting. Thank God, Reform has nothing to do with homes. Wives and children are always the same. We don’t want them changed, even for the better.”

“You do not mean that?”

“Yes, I do,” said the Squire, positively. “My wife’s faults are very dear to me. Do you think I would like to miss her bits of tempers, and her unreasonableness? Even when she tries to get the better of me, I like it. I wouldn’t have her perfect, not if I could.”

Then Piers called for his son; but Harold could not be found. The Squire laughed. “He has run away,” he said. “The boy wants a holiday. I’ll take good care of him. He isn’t doing nothing; he is learning to catch a trout. Many a very clever man can’t catch a trout.” Then Piers asked his little daughters to come home with him; and Edith hid herself behind the ample skirts of her grandfather’s coat, and Maude lifted her arms to her grandmother, and snuggled herself into her bosom.

“Come, Piers, we shall have to go home alone,” Kate said.

“You have Katherine at home,” said the Squire.

And then Kate laughed. “Why, Father,” she said, “you speak as if Katherine was more than we ought to expect. Surely we may have one of our six children. The Duke thinks he has whole and sole right in Dick and John; and you have Harold and Edith and Maude.”

“And you have Katherine,” reiterated the Squire.

When they got back to Exham Hall, the little Lady Katherine was in the drawing-room to meet them. She was the eldest daughter of the house, a fair girl of fifteen with her father’s refined face and rather melancholy manner. Piers delighted in her; and there was a sympathy between them that needed no words. She had a singular love for music, though from what ancestor it had come no one could tell; and it was her usual custom after dinner to open the door a little between the drawing-room and music-room, and play her various studies, while her father and mother mused, and talked, and listened.

This evening Piers lit his cigar, and Kate and he walked in the garden. It was warm, and still, and full of moonshine; and the music rose and fell to their soft reminiscent talk of the many interests that had filled their lives for the past twenty golden years. And when they were wearied a little, they came back to the drawing-room and were quiet. For Katherine was striking the first notes of a little melody that always charmed them; and as they listened, her girlish voice lifted the song, and the tender words floated in to them, and sunk into their hearts, and became a prayer of thanksgiving.

And while Kate’s face illuminated the words, Piers leaned forward, and took both her hands in his, and whispered with far tenderer, truer love than in the old days of his first wooing.

And if any thought of The Other One entered his mind at this hour, it came with a thanksgiving for a life nobly redeemed by a pure, unselfish love, and a death which was at once sacrificial and sacramental. 26i3TEwWckZnTs4K+01ORltVI49WLKsEXRTEeknr+MInuSCl/NPYh6ucZYNFI8oq