The Pit Town Coronet Volume Iii Part 5

"s.h.i.+rtings," he said at last, "you will remember?"

"I will see to it, be a.s.sured of that," replied his friend, Lord Spunyarn. And then Haggard motioned the old earl to his side, and addressed him with considerable effort.

They had dragged forward a couple of oaken benches, and had placed them one under either end of the hurdle upon which Haggard lay. There was a dead silence in the great entrance hall, only broken by a loud succession of regular ticks, caused by Haggard's life blood, which in great drops fell upon the tesselated pavement below with a monotonously dreadful sound.

"Good-bye, my lord," he said simply, as with an effort he stretched out his hand, which was affectionately grasped by the trembling fingers of the old n.o.bleman. "I am going," he continued, "but you have the boys, my boys."

"Perhaps it's not so bad as you think, Reginald. a.s.sistance will be here shortly. We will move you out of this at once."

"There won't be time, Lord Pit Town. Take care of Lucius."

The dying man's eyes fell upon his wife, and a smile pa.s.sed over his pale face. "Georgie," he gasped out with an effort, "say you forgive me and I shall die easier."

"Reginald," she whispered, "I have nothing to forgive, but," she added through her sobs, "there is something I must tell you."

"I know it, Georgie. I have known it all along. Kiss me, dear," he added with an effort, and with the kiss his spirit pa.s.sed away.

Reginald Haggard was dead, stricken down ere he could succeed to the t.i.tle and estates which would have been his in the ordinary course of nature; but as the aged earl turned away from the body of the man who had been his heir, his eye fell upon the two young men, and motioning to Lucius he said in a broken voice, "Give me your arm, boy; you're all I have left in the world now."

All sign of grief left Lucius Haggard's face at this public notification of his change of position. He drew himself up proudly, and deferentially led the old man away. But young George Haggard didn't hear the words; he stood staring at his dead father, like a man in a dream.

"Is there no hope?" he said to those who crowded round the hurdle upon which the body lay. The ominous tick of the falling blood had ceased now, and as if in answer to the young fellow's question, the dead man's jaw fell, disclosing the white teeth. Then George Haggard turned to his mother, and at a sign from Spunyarn he led her from the spot.

As soon as Mrs. Haggard found herself alone, she gave way to her natural grief. The hero of her girlish dreams had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from her suddenly, so suddenly that she could hardly realize that he was actually gone from her for ever. She had continued to idolize the man and to remain unaware of his many deficiencies and failings, from the very moment he had first courted her in the rose garden at King's Warren until his death. He had been a fairly good husband to her, as husbands go, and she had never ceased to love him with a trusting affection. But bewildered as she was by the suddenness of her affliction, she could not help pondering over the strange communication he had made to her upon his death-bed.

"_I have known it all along!_" What had he known all along? Had he known that Lucius, instead of being his own son was but the b.a.s.t.a.r.d child of Lucy Warrender? Surely not. What could he mean, if he had known it all along, by his solemn adjuration to old Lord Pit Town to take care of Lucius. There could be but one interpretation to that, surely that he looked upon the boy as his eldest son, his heir, his first-born child.

Why had her husband asked her to forgive him on his death-bed? Forgive him what? He had not bade good-bye to either of the young fellows, but then death had probably come upon him unawares. Could it possibly be that her dead husband, man of the world as he was, could have deliberately, for the mere sake of her cousin's honour, sacrificed the future of his only son designedly, and without that son's consent? That supposition was beyond even Georgina Haggard's credulity.

There was a mystery in the matter, a mystery she could not fathom. The more she thought over it, the more difficult she found it to attempt to arrive at any possible solution. Was it merely that he feared that George, being really his only child, that at the boy's death without heirs the Pit Town t.i.tle and the Pit Town wealth should descend to some remote branch of the family, and so perhaps he may of a purpose have placed the second good young life between the old lord and his distant relatives? But that was hardly likely, for such a contingency could never happen till George was in his grave; and Haggard himself, be it remembered, was a wealthy man.

What then was Lucy Warrender's son to him?

Could it be that he had a stronger, a dearer interest in the child? But she thrust it from her as an unworthy thought; and she strove to banish the phantom she had unwittingly conjured up, by letting her mind return once more to its natural grief, in the thought of her awful bereavement, her sudden widowhood.

Reginald Haggard's death and Reginald Haggard's funeral were a nine days' wonder in the neighbourhood of Walls End Castle. Hundreds of people clad in black attended the ceremony. The old lord, the two young men and Lord Spunyarn were the mourners. The shooting party had been broken up on the day of the accident. A short obituary notice had appeared in the _Times_, and the penny papers had made capital of what they termed "The Shocking Accident in the Shooting Field," while the leader writers had earned their daily three guineas by more or less ingenious strings of the usual plat.i.tudes.

Lord Spunyarn was Haggard's sole executor. The will was opened, and commenced with a confirmation of the terms of his marriage settlement; it then proceeded to give a further legacy to his wife of half his property for her lifetime, and he made his "dear son, George Haggard,"

his residuary legatee; "my son, Lucius Haggard," the doc.u.ment continued, "being otherwise provided for as the heir to the entailed estates of Lord Pit Town."

It was all plain sailing, and the will was a very natural one for a man in Haggard's position to make.

Lord Spunyarn, who was still staying on at the Castle, waited for twenty-four hours after the funeral, and then he demanded a private interview with his friend's widow.

"I am sorry to trouble you, dear Mrs. Haggard, about business matters,"

he said as he entered the little boudoir which years ago had been devoted by the old lord to young Mrs. Haggard's use, "but I am compelled to worry you with a long and painful conversation on family matters. My dear lady," he continued, "I should have been the very last person to trouble you with the communication which I am about to make, had it not been my friend's dying wish and command."

"Sit down, Lord Spunyarn, sit down," she said, "nothing you can have to tell me can be more painful than the suspense, suspicion, and anxiety of mind which I have endured for the last few days. Tell me the worst at once. I have nothing to forgive my husband. When on his death-bed he asked for my forgiveness, I feared that there was something dreadful to come; but I fully and freely forgave him, Lord Spunyarn, and whatever you may have to tell, it will not alter my affection for his memory."

"Dear Mrs. Haggard," said the philanthropist, with a little sigh, "the matter concerns the future, as well as the past; the secret has been well kept, and my poor friend has done his duty in providing for his son George, and for you. I must tell you that at one time I had my suspicions, but the thing seemed in itself so monstrous, so improbable, that I put it from me as an unworthy thought. When your late husband whispered those last words to me as he was dying, he informed me that I was his executor, and told me to examine a little red box that I should find at his banker's, and then to tell you everything. I obtained the box; I have examined it, and it is here." As he said the words, he placed a little red morocco box upon the table.

CHAPTER V.

A LITTLE RED BOX.

I don't think Lord Spunyarn could have really found it cold in Mrs.

Haggard's boudoir in the second week of September; perhaps it was for the sake of collecting his ideas that he busied himself with the fire and added another toy log to the flickering embers upon the dainty hearth; then he sat down, and staring straight at the little red morocco box upon the table, he began.

"I think it may perhaps spare your feelings a little, dear Mrs. Haggard, if I tell you that from what my poor friend said, and from the contents of this box, I have become aware of the secret of Lucius's birth." He never took his eyes off the box for one instant, or he would have seen as he said the words that the widow's face grew white as the lawn cuffs upon her wrists.

She interrupted him suddenly.

"It is not I who have betrayed the secret. I have guarded it faithfully for twenty years, G.o.d forgive me," she added with a sigh. "But what could I do? I was bound to s.h.i.+eld my cousin, even if I had not sworn to her to do so; for she would not take my word for it, Lord Spunyarn. No hint of it has ever pa.s.sed my lips. Conceive my astonishment when my dying husband told me that he was aware of the fact, for I suppose it was that he meant, when he said to me, with almost his last breath, that he had 'known it all along.'"

"Yes," said her husband's old friend, still staring at the little red box, "and then?"

"And then he died, Lord Spunyarn," she said with a sigh; "but he had asked me to forgive him, and to take care of Lucius."

"And did you forgive him, dear madam?"

"Of course I forgave him."

"And you forgive him still?"

"Certainly, though what it was he wished me to forgive I cannot tell."

But Lord Spunyarn never looked at her; he only stared at the box upon the table. "I'm glad you forgave him," he said, "fully and freely."

"Fully and freely," she echoed.

"Mrs. Haggard, you had much to forgive. When you promised to take care of Lucius, had you any idea whose son he was?"

"No, Lord Spunyarn, nor have I now; poor Lucy would never tell me that, and I never pressed her, for it did not concern me."

"It concerned you very nearly, dear madam."

Their eyes met, and those of the widow were filled with mingled astonishment and horror.

"No, Lord Spunyarn; do not tell me that Lucius's father was----" and her eyes flashed with indignant rage.

"It is best to get it over--_he was your husband_!"

There was a dead silence of some seconds.

"Go on, Lord Spunyarn," said the widow in a hollow voice; "then I am guiltless at least of deceiving him for years. It is horrible!" But she shed no tear.