"Pay off the man, sir, and say you will not go back to the station, but bid me good day before he starts, and set off walking to the station further on. When he is well out of sight, come back. We have a nice covered trap and a good horse here. Munslow can drive you to Hollingsby by a shorter road than the train takes, and you can send a message to Mountain from a post-office on the way. You will get nicely home when it is dusk."
This plan was adopted. Kenneth, weary with so much journeying, slept on the road, and was given into Geraldine's arms, too drowsy to be roused, so was put to bed at Monk's How.
Mr. Torrance had never doubted that Kathleen would be like wax in his hands, and said to himself, "I shall settle the business easily enough over the breakfast-table. My lady may think she will beat me, but when she has slept upon the matter she will listen to reason. When I have secured the cash, the boy shall come back, and she will be so delighted to have him that she will forget all else, as she has done many a time before, after our quarrels were over."
Mr. Torrance had reached his dressing-room when he came to this mental conclusion. He was feeling wretchedly ill, and unfit for anything but rest. He caught sight of his face in the glass, and was startled by its colour. He walked unsteadily across the floor, and was fain to sit down before undressing.
"This dizziness again. The old doctor's warning will come true, if I go on in the way I have done lately. I must turn over a fresh leaf, or—"
A servant passing the door heard a fall, and listened. There was no further movement, but a sound of heavy, unnatural breathing reached her, and she ran hastily downstairs to call for help. She met her mistress at the foot of the stairs, and told her that she was afraid Mr. Torrance must be ill.
Kathleen told the girl to follow her, hastened to the dressing-room, and found her husband lying senseless and motionless on the floor. The only sign of life was the stertorous breathing which had attracted the girl's attention, and caused her to give the alarm.
The doctor was soon on the spot, and confirmed the fear which had taken possession of Kathleen.
"Yes, it is apoplexy," he said. "Mr. Torrance's father died of it, but later in life. He was careful of himself, and lived by strict rules, which I could not induce your husband to do, though it was his only chance, and he knew it."
Kathleen's distress can be better imagined than described. Trouble is always intensified at such times by the knowledge that we have parted on other than kindly terms with the one who now lies stricken and helpless. If the sufferer ever held the dearest place in our hearts, our own wrongs seem to vanish, and through the mist of past years of trial we see him, not as the author of our sorrows, but as he was when he won our girlish love. So it was with Kathleen, and sad indeed were the few days which followed her husband's seizure. She was ever praying for, and longing to see a look of recognition, to hear him whisper her name, or give signs of possible restoration.
Only once came a gleam of consciousness, and the sufferer's eyes wandered, as if in search of something. Kathleen bent over him, and whispered, "Do you know me, John?—Kathleen." A slight murmur, and she caught one word, "Adela." It was a last effort. Mr. Torrance relapsed into unconsciousness, and a few hours later Kathleen was a widow. The only thought of which he had been capable was not given to her who had given him all, or to their child. It had gone back to his first love—the only real affection of his life, and that a sadly selfish one.
"He never truly loved me," thought Kathleen. "He married my fortune, and I married and almost worshipped an ideal being, the creature of my own imagination, until the scales fell from my eyes, and I knew. Yet how happy we might have been, with so many blessings to make life and home bright and free from the anxious cares which spoil so many wedded lives!"
Many particulars of her husband's past were mercifully hidden from Kathleen, but his embarrassments could not be concealed. All the ready money was gone, and ten thousand pounds obtained by mortgaging the estates had followed, and arrangements were in progress for a similar advance. The fact that some difficulty had occurred to retard their completion had moved Mr. Torrance to try and extort from Kathleen the sum saved for her boy. As her former guardian, Aylmer Matheson was the fittest person to act on her behalf, and as far as possible he saved her trouble and anxiety in business matters. Ralph also proved a comfort in the first period of her sorrow. He was full of loving thought, and all that was best in his character showed itself towards her and the brother, of whom he had formerly been unreasonably jealous.
Kathleen's goodness to the once lonely boy bore fruit after many days, and gave her a dutiful son in the manly youth, outwardly so like his father, but happily unlike him in other respects. Ralph was now nearly eighteen, and for several years past had improved greatly both in character and appearance. That he grieved deeply for the loss of his father goes without saying.
Mr. Torrance had left no valid will. One had been prepared by his instructions in an hour of compunction, or, perhaps, when the doctor's warnings, and the memory of Kathleen's unbounded trust, had moved him to do what conscience told him was only just. But it had never been signed. A superstitious feeling, a change of mood, or the determination to hold his power as a sort of weapon over his wife's head, had kept Mr. Torrance from completing his will, which, without his signature, was only so much waste paper.
Ralph did not at first realize his position.
"Shall you stay at the Hall, mother?" he asked. "It will seem large and lonely for you, and, from what Mr. Matheson says, the income will be too small to keep the same establishment. Still, it has always been your home."
"You forget, Ralph dear. It is not mine now, it is yours. The property was not settled on me. It became your father's absolutely, by my deed of conveyance, and you, his elder son, are his heir."
"You cannot be in earnest, mother. It would be horribly wicked in me to allow it. I shall give it straight back to you, and after you it ought to go to Kenneth, that is, if you wished him to have it, for the property is yours, first of all, to keep or to give. I am sorry, so sorry, mother dear, that it is sadly lessened, and you can only live very plainly here."
"I should not wish to live here in any case, Ralph. I could not if I would. And you, dear boy, have no power, however much you may wish it, to give my old home back to me. You are barely eighteen, and until you are of age you can do nothing. Three years hence—"
"I shall be of age, and I will do what is right by you and my brother," interposed Ralph, quickly.
He kissed her tenderly, and Kathleen smiled through glad tears, and returned the caress. She would not say anything to cast a doubt on his sincerity. Indeed, she fully believed in it; but who could tell whether he would feel the same when the power to make restitution was really in his hands?
"If I were to die in the meanwhile," said Ralph, after a pause, "I suppose the property would come to Kenneth, as my heir?"
"I have never thought of such a possibility, and with all my heart I pray that God will spare both my dear sons to be my comfort. I shall hope for more than one staff for my old age. In the meanwhile, I am thankful that matters have been so arranged that Mr. Matheson and I will be joint guardians of you two infants. Your father had appointed us in that unsigned will, and his wish has been carried out in this respect by consent of the court."
When Kathleen used the word "infants" she stretched herself on tiptoe, and smiled up in Ralph's face, for, though she was considerably above middle height, she was much below that of her tall stepson.
"One of your infants looks down on you in stature, mother," said Ralph; "but in all else he looks up to his guardian. How glad I am that you and Mr. Matheson should be joined in this trust! With neither mother nor father of my very own, I yet have both in you and him."
After Ralph's departure, Kathleen left the Hall with her little son. It cost her something to turn her back on the home of a lifetime, but so many sorrowful memories were now associated with it, that even had she been able to remain, she would not have done so. She had arranged to make her home with her aunt and Geraldine at Monk's How. Mrs. Ellicott was in failing health, the house was large enough, little Kenneth would help to brighten the place, and the elders would be mutually sources of comfort to each other.
Kathleen's income would suffice for the modest wants of herself and her boy. A tenant had offered to take the Hall furnished, on a three years' lease, and was willing to engage such of the servants as chose to stay, except the coachman.
"He needn't say, 'except the coachman,'" remarked Mountain. "I am too old to begin under another master. I serve Miss Kathleen as was, or I retire into private life, with a cottage and a cow or two. But, seeing that Mrs. Ellicott's man is leaving to go to a livelier place, she has offered me his, and I mean to take it. It's likely enough I shall drive my own young lady as long as I can hold the reins, for, though I shall be coachman to the old one, it's all in the family."
By some mysterious arrangement, the particulars of which no one seemed to know, Polly was transferred to Monk's How along with Mountain. Kathleen asked no curious questions, but as she patted the glossy coat of her old favourite, she was contented to owe this pleasure to the kind thought of a friend. She was not likely to mount the pretty creature, but, as every one said, "Polly was equally good to ride or drive, and looked just perfect always."
Kathleen was only twenty-nine when she took up her abode with the Ellicotts, but a silver thread might be seen here and there, amidst the soft masses of her abundant hair. She smiled as she called attention to them.
"I have been growing old fast of late, aunty," she said to Mrs. Ellicott. "Ger does not change a bit, unless it is to look younger and fairer. I feel so staid and middle-aged beside her."
The trembling lip and a suspicious moisture in her eyes told that Kathleen was looking back on the saddest period of her life.
"You will grow younger again here, Kitty," replied Ger. "In this quiet home you will begin a new life, and in time it will be a bright and happy one."
But the cloud did not soon pass away from Kathleen's spirit. She seldom spoke of her husband, and her friends felt it to be the truest kindness to allude to the past as little as possible. They knew that, far and beyond all other causes of sorrow, the thought of Mr. Torrance's condition when the last dread summons came was the most terrible of all.
In time, however, the widowed Mrs. Torrance became more like the Kathleen Mountford of old, but there was no trace of the girlish self-will that had led her astray. The lessons she had learned through suffering had produced blessed and enduring results, which each day made more manifest. Mrs. Ellicott only lived a year after Mr. Torrance, and her gentle presence was greatly missed by all who knew her, especially by her daughter and niece.
During the three years of Ralph's minority, the Hollingsby Hall estates were well managed, and though not free from encumbrance when he came of age, all debts and a portion of the mortgage had been paid off. There were no special festivities on Ralph's twenty-first birthday, as every one—none more than himself—felt that such would have been out of place. Kathleen, however, laid aside her widow's dress, and wore a rich black silk with soft white lace at the wrists and throat, in honour of the occasion.
"Mother, how beautiful you look!" said Ralph, as he held her at arm's length, and surveyed her from head to foot. "You have really grown young again. I am so glad you have changed your style of dress."
"I did so in compliment to the heir's birthday," she replied. Then clasping her arms round him she kissed him tenderly and said, "I pray that God may abundantly bless you, my dear boy, and make you a useful, happy man. A true soldier and follower of Christ."
"That is just what I want to be, mother dear," said Ralph, after returning the embrace, and whilst still holding her in his strong arms. "You know that I promised to tell you to-day what profession I meant to follow, for I should dread the thought of an idle life. I used to talk of being a soldier, and then I gave up the idea. I still wish to be one, but to fight under the greatest of all Captains, and not with weapons forged by the hands of men. Do you know what I mean?"
"I think I do, dear. You wish to be a true soldier of Christ, and you think you can best serve Him by dedicating your life to the ministry."
"Yes. I have talked everything over with Mr. Matheson, and he approves, and says he believes I have made a right choice. You, too, will ask God's blessing upon it, I know."
Kathleen was delighted. She knew that Aylmer would not approve unless fully convinced of Ralph's sincerity and fitness for such a vocation.
The two were interrupted at the moment by the entrance of little Kenneth, who rushed to his brother, exclaiming, "See, Ralph. This is my birthday present, and I wish you many happy returns."
It was a simple little gift, but it had cost the child some self-denial, and Ralph praised and valued it accordingly, to the great satisfaction of the donor.
"Now, Kenneth," he said, "you shall take a present that I have got here and give it to mother."
"It's not mother's birthday," said the boy, taking the offered packet. "It is tied up, so p'r'aps you want her to keep it till her birthday comes."
"No, my boy. Mother must have it just now, and from your small hands. After all, it is not a gift. It is something of mother's very own which some one has taken care of, ready to be given back to her."
Kathleen guessed what the packet contained. It was a deed by which she would be restored to full possession of the Hall and the estates that had been her own before her marriage.
"I will not refuse your gift, Ralph," she said, "for a gift it is, inasmuch as the law gave it absolutely to you. But I know your nature too well to think that you could ever be happy if you kept it. You know also that I can experience no greater pleasure than in using all I have for the benefit of both my boys."
