CHAPTER X.
COLONEL KELMSCOTT'S REPENTANCE.
Elma Clifford wasn't the only person who passed a terrible night
and suffered a painful awakening on the morning after the Holkers'
garden-party. Colonel Kelmscott, too, had his bad half-hour or so
before he finally fell asleep; and he woke up next day to a sense
of shame and remorse far more definite, and, therefore, more poignant
and more real than Elma's.
Hour after hour, indeed, he lay there on his bed, afraid to toss or
turn lest he should wake Lady Emily, but with his limbs all fevered
and his throat all parched, thinking over the strange chance that
had thus brought him face to face, on the threshold of his honoured
age, with the two lads he had wronged so long and so cruelly.
The shock of meeting them had been a sudden and a painful one. To
be sure, the Colonel had always felt the time might come when his
two eldest sons would cross his path in the intricate maze of London
society. He had steeled himself, as he thought, to meet them there
with dignity and with stoical reserve. He had made up his mind
that if ever the names he had imposed upon them were to fall upon
his startled ears, no human being that stood by and looked on should
note for one second a single tremor of his lips, a faint shudder of
surprise, an almost imperceptible flush or pallor on his impassive
countenance. And when the shock came, indeed, he had borne it, as
he meant to bear it, with military calmness. Not even Mrs. Clifford,
he thought, could have discovered from any undertone of his
voice or manner that the two lads he received with such well-bred
unconcern were his own twin sons, the true heirs and inheritors of
the Tilgate Park property.
And yet, the actual crisis had taken him quite by surprise, and
shaken him far more than he could ever have conceived possible. For
one thing, though he quite expected that some day he would run up
unawares against Guy and Cyril, he did NOT expect it would be down
in the country, and still less within a few miles' drive of Tilgate.
In London, of course, all things are possible. Sooner or later,
there, everybody hustles and clashes against everybody. For that
reason, he had tried to suggest, by indirect means, when he launched
them on the world, that the twins should tempt their fortune in India
or the colonies. He would have liked to think they were well out
of his way, and out of Granville's, too. But, against his advice,
they had stayed on in England. So he expected to meet them some
day, at the Academy private view, perhaps, or in Mrs. Bouverie
Barton's literary saloon, but certainly NOT on the close sward
of the Holkers' lawn, within a few short miles of his own home at
Tilgate.
And now he had met them, his conscience, that had lain asleep so
long, woke up of a sudden with a terrible start, and began to prick
him fiercely.
If only they had been ugly, misshapen, vulgar; if only they
had spoken with coarse, rough voices, or irritated him by their
inferior social tone, or shown themselves unworthy to be the heirs
of Tilgate--why then, the Colonel might possibly have forgiven
himself! But to see his own two sons, the sons he had never set
eyes on for twenty-five years or more, grown up into such handsome,
well-set, noble-looking fellows--so clever, so bright, so able, so
charming--to feel they were in every way as much gentlemen born as
Granville himself, and to know he had done all three an irreparable
wrong, oh, THAT was too much for him. For he had kept two of his
sons out of their own all these years, only in order to make the
position and prospects of the third, at last, certainly doubtful,
and perhaps wretched.
There was much to excuse him to himself, no doubt, he cried to his
own soul piteously in the night watches. Proud man as he was, he
could not so wholly abase himself even to his inmost self as to admit
he had sinned without deep provocation. He thought it all over in
his heart, just there, exactly as it all happened, that simple and
natural tale of a common wrong, that terrible secret of a lifetime
that he was still to repent in sackcloth and ashes,
It was so long before--all those twenty-six years, or was it
twenty-eight?--since his regiment had been quartered away down in
Devonshire. He was a handsome subaltern then, with a frank open
face--Harry Kelmscott, of the Greys--just such another man, he said
to himself in his remorse, as his son Granville now--or rather,
perhaps, as Guy and Cyril Waring. For he couldn't conceal from
himself any longer the patent fact that Lucy Waring's sons were
like his own old self, and sturdier, handsomer young fellows into
the bargain than Lady Emily Kelmscott's boy Granville, whom he
had made into the heir of the Tilgate manors. The moor, where the
Greys were quartered that summer, was as dull as ditch-water. No
society, no dances, no hunting, no sport; what wonder a man of his
tastes, spoiling for want of a drawing-room to conquer, should have
kept his hand in with pretty Lucy Waring?
But he married her--he married her. He did her no wrong in the end.
He hadn't that sin at least to lay to his conscience.
Ah, well, poor Lucy! he had really been fond of her; as fond as
a Kelmscott of Tilgate could reasonably be expected ever to prove
towards the daughter of a simple Dartmoor farmer. It began in
flirtation, of course, as such things will begin; and it ended, as
they will end, too, in love, at least on poor Lucy's side, for what
can you expect from a Kelmscott of Tilgate? And, indeed, indeed, he
said to himself earnestly, he meant her no harm, though he seemed
at times to be cruel to her. As soon as he gathered how deeply she
was entangled--how seriously she took it all--how much she was in
love with him--he tried hard to break it off, he tried hard to put
matters to her in their proper light; he tried to show her that
an officer and a gentleman, a Kelmscott of Tilgate, could never
really have dreamed of marrying the half-educated, half-peasant
daughter of a Devonshire farmer. Though, to be sure, she was a
lady in her way, too, poor Lucy; as much of a lady in manner and in
heart as Emily herself, whose father was an earl, and whose mother
was a marquis's eldest daughter.
So much a lady in her way, in deed, in thought, and all that--one
of nature's gentlewomen--that when Lucy cried and broke her heart
at his halting explanations, he was unmanned by her sobs, and did
a thing no Kelmscott of Tilgate should ever have stooped to do--yes,
promised to marry her. Of course, he didn't attempt in his own heart
to justify that initial folly, as lie thought it, to himself. He
didn't pretend to condone it. He only allowed he had acted like a
fool. A Kelmscott of Tilgate should have drawn back long before,
or else, having gone so far, should have told the girl plainly--at
whatever cost, to her--he could go no further and have no more to
say to her.
To be sure, that would have killed the poor thing outright. But a
Kelmscott, you know, should respect his order, and shouldn't shrink
for a moment from these trifling sacrifices!
However, his own heart was better, in those days, than his class
philosophy. He couldn't trample on poor Lucy Waring. So he made a
fool of himself in the end--and married Lucy. Ah, well! ah, well!
every man makes a fool of himself once or twice in his life; and
though the Colonel was ashamed now of having so far bemeaned his
order as to marry the girl, why, if the truth must out, he would
have been more ashamed still, in his heart of hearts, even then,
if he hadn't married her. He was better than his creed. He could
never have crushed her.
Married her, yes; but not publicly, of course. At least, he respected
public decency. He married her under his own name, to be sure, but
by special licence, and at a remote little village on the far side
of the moor, where nobody knew either himself or Lucy. In those
days, he hadn't yet come into possession of the Tilgate estates;
and if his father had known of it--well, the Admiral was such
a despotic old man that he'd have insisted on his son's selling
out at once, and going off to Australia or heaven knows where, on
a journey round the world, and breaking poor Lucy's heart by his
absence. Partly for her sake, the Colonel said to himself now
in the silent night, and partly for his own, he had concealed the
marriage--for the time being--from the Admiral.
And then came that horrible embroilment--oh, how well he remembered
it. Ah me, ah me, it seemed but yesterday--when his father insisted
he was to marry Lady Emily Croke, Lord Aldeburgh's daughter; and
he dared not marry her, of course, having a wife already, and he
dared not tell his father, on the other hand, why he couldn't marry
her. It was a hateful time. He shrank from recalling it. He was
keeping Lucy, then his own wedded wife, as Mrs. Waring, in small
rooms in Plymouth; and yet he was running up to town now and again,
on leave, as the gay young bachelor, the heir of Tilgate Park--and
meeting Emily Croke at every party he went to in London--and braving
the Admiral's wrath by refusing to propose to her. What he would
ever have done if Lucy had lived, he couldn't imagine. But,
there! Lucy DIDN'T live; so he was saved that bother. Poor child,
it brought tears to his eyes even now to think of her. He brushed
them furtively away, lest he should waken Lady Emily.
And yet it was a shock to him, the night Lucy died. Just then, he
could hardly realize how lucky was the accident. He sat there by
her side, the day the twins were born, to see her safely through
her trouble; for he had always done his duty, after a fashion, by
Lucy. When a girl of that class marries a gentleman, don't you
see, and consents, too, mind you, to marry him privately, she can't
expect to share much of her husband's company. She can't expect
he should stultify himself by acknowledging her publicly before
his own class. And, indeed, he always meant to acknowledge her in
the end--after his father's death, when there was no fear of the
Admiral's cutting off his allowance.
But how curiously events often turn out of themselves. The twins
were born on a Friday morning, and by the Saturday night, poor Lucy
was lying dead, a pale, sweet corpse, in her own little room, near
the Hoe, at Plymouth. It was a happy release for him though he
really loved her. But still, when a man's fool enough to love a
girl below his own station in life--the Colonel paused and broke
off. It was twenty-seven years ago now, yet he really loved her.
He couldn't find it in his heart even then to indorse to the full
the common philosophy of his own order.
So there he was left with the two boys on his hands, but free, if
he liked, to marry Lady Emily. No reason on earth, of course, why
he shouldn't marry her now. So, naturally, he married her--after
a fortnight's interval. The Admiral was all smiles and paternal
blessings at this sudden change of front on his son's part. Why the
dickens Harry hadn't wanted to marry the girl before, to be sure
he couldn't conceive; hankering after some missy in the country,
he supposed, that silly rot about what they call love, no doubt; but
now that Harry had come to his senses at last, and taken the Earl's
lass, why, the Admiral was indulgence and munificence itself; the
young people should have an ample allowance, and my daughter-in-law,
Lady Emily, should live on the best that Tilgate and Chetwood could
possibly afford her.
What would you have? the Colonel asked piteously, in the dead of
night, of his own conscience. How else could he have acted? He said
nothing. That was all, mind you, he declared to himself more than
once in his own soul. He told no lies. He made no complications.
While the Admiral lived, he brought up Lucy's sons, quite privately,
at Plymouth. And as soon as ever the Admiral died, he really and
truly meant to acknowledge them.
But fathers never die--in entailed estates. The Admiral lived so
long--quite, quite too long for Guy and Cyril. Granville was born,
and grew to be a big boy, and was treated by everybody as the heir
to Tilgate. And now the Colonel's difficulties gathered thicker
around him. At last, in the fulness of time, the Admiral died, and
slept with his fathers, whose Elizabethan ruff's were the honour
and glory of the chancel at Tilgate; and then the day of reckoning
was fairly upon him. How well he remembered that awful hour. He
couldn't, he couldn't. He knew it was his duty to acknowledge his
rightful sons and heirs, but he hadn't the courage. Things had all
altered so much.
Meanwhile, Guy and Cyril had gone to Charterhouse as nobody's
wards, and been brought up in the expectation of earning their
own livelihood, so no wrong, he said casuistically, had been done
to THEM, at any rate. And Granville had been brought up as the
heir of Tilgate. Lady Emily naturally expected her son to succeed
his father. He had gone too far to turn back at last. And yet--
And yet, in his own heart, disguise it as he might, he knew he was
keeping his lawful sons out of their own in the end, and it was
his duty to acknowledge them as the heirs of Tilgate.
