Anne Hereford. Mrs. Henry Wood
you have latterly been against him!"
"Who caused me to be incensed? Why, you."
"There was no real cause. Were it the last words I had to speak, Edwin"--and she burst into tears--"were I dying, I would assert it. I never cared for George Heneage in the way you fancy."
"I fancy! Had I fancied that, I should have flung George Heneage out of my house long ago," was his rejoinder, spoken calmly. "But now, hear me, Selina. It has been your pleasure to declare so much to me. On my part, I declare to you that Heneage, and Heneage only, killed Philip King. Dispossess your mind of all dark folly. You must be insane, I think, to take it up against your husband."
"Did you see Heneage fire?" she asked, after a silence.
"No. I should have known pretty surely that it could only be Heneage, had there been no proof against him; but there were Philip's dying words. Still, I did not see Heneage at the place, and I have never said I did. I was pushing home through the wood, and halted a second, thinking I heard voices: it must have been Philip talking to the child: at that very moment a shot was fired close to me--close, mind you--not two yards off; but the trees are thick just there, and whoever fired it was hid from my view. I was turning to search, when Philip King's awful scream rang out, and I pushed my head beyond the trees and saw him in the act of falling to the ground. I hastened to him, and the other escaped. This is the entire truth, so far as I am cognizant of it."
It might have been the truth; and, again, it might not. It was just one of those things that depend upon the credibility of the utterer. What little corroboration there was, certainly was on Mr. Edwin Barley's side: only that he had asserted more than was true of the dying words of Philip King. If these were the simple facts, the truth, why have added falsehood to them?
"Heneage could have had no motive to take the life of Philip King," argued Mrs. Edwin Barley. "That he would have caned him, or given him some other sound chastisement, I grant you--and richly he deserved it, for he was the cause of all the ill-feeling that had arisen in the house--but, to kill him! No, no!"
"And yet you would deem me capable of it!"
"I am not accusing you. But when you come to speak of motives, I cannot help seeing that George Heneage could have had none."
"You have just observed that the author of the mischief, the bad feeling which had sprung up in the house, was Philip King; but you are wrong. The author was you, Selina."
No answer. She put up one of her hot hands, and shaded her eyes.
"I forgive you," he continued. "I am willing to bury the past in silence: never to recur to it--never henceforth to allude to it, though the boy was my relative and ward, and I liked him. But I would recommend you to bear this tragical ending in mind, as a warning for the future. I will not tolerate further folly in my wife; and your own sense ought to tell you that had I been ambitious of putting somebody out of the world, it would have been Heneage, not Philip. Heneage has killed him, and upon his head be the consequences. I will never cease my endeavours to bring him to the drop. I will spare no pains, or energy, or cost, until it is accomplished. So help me Heaven!"
He rose with the last solemn word, and put the chair back in its place. On his way to the door he turned, speaking in a softer voice.
"Are you better this evening, Selina?"
"Not any. It seems to me that I grow worse with every hour."
"I'll send Lowe up to you. He is somewhere about."
"Oh, aunt, aunt!" I said, going forward with lifted hands and streaming eyes, as he left the chamber, "I was here all the time! I saw Mr. Edwin Barley coming in, and I hid behind the window-curtain. I never meant to be a listener: I was afraid to come out."
She looked at me without speaking, and her face, hot with fever, grew more flushed. She seemed to be considering; perhaps remembering what had passed.
"I--I----don't think there was anything very particular said, that you need care; or, rather, that I need," she said at length. "Was there?"
"No, Selina. Only----"
"Only what, child? Why do you hesitate?"
"You think it might have been Mr. Edwin Barley. I wish I had not heard that."
I said, or implied, it was as likely to have been he as the other. "Anne," she suddenly added, "you possess thought and sense beyond your years: what do you think?"
"I think it was Mr. Heneage. I think so because he has run away, and because he looked so strangely when he was hiding. And I do not think it was Mr. Edwin Barley. When he told you how it occurred just now, and that it was not he, his voice sounded as though he were speaking truth."
"Oh, dear!" she moaned, "I hope it was so! What a mercy if that Philip King had never come near the house!"
"But, Selina, you are sorry that he is dead?"
"Sorry that he is dead? Of course I am sorry. What a curious child you are! He was no favourite of mine; but," she cried, passionately clasping her hands, "I would give all I am worth to call him back to life."
But I could not be reconciled to what I had done, and sobbed on heavily, until lights and Mr. Lowe came in together.
CHAPTER V.
ANOTHER DREAM.
"If ever I heard the like of that! one won't be able to open one's lips next before you, Miss Hereford. Did I say anything about her dying, pray? Or about your dying? Or my dying? Time enough to snap me up when I do."
Thus spoke Jemima, with a volubility that nearly took her breath away. She had come to my room in the morning with the news that Mrs. Edwin Barley was worse. I burst into tears, and asked if she were going to die: which brought forth the above rebuke.
"My thoughts were running upon whether we servants should have mourning given us for young Mr. King," resumed Jemima, as if she were bent upon removing unpleasant impressions from my mind. "Now just you make haste and dress yourself, Miss Hereford--Mrs. Edwin Barley has been asking for you."
I made haste; Jemima helped; and she ushered me to the door of the sickroom, halting to whisper a parting word.
"Don't you begin crying again, Miss. Your aunt is no more going to die than I am."
The first words spoken by Mrs. Edwin Barley were a contradiction to this, curious coincident that it may seem. She was lying very high on the frilled white pillows, no cap on, her cheeks hectic, and her lovely golden hair failing around her head. A large bright fire burned in the grate, and a small tray, with a white cloth and cup on it, stood on the table near.
"Child," she began, holding out her hand to me, "I fear I am about to be taken from you."
I did not answer; I did not cry; all tears seemed scared away then. It was a confirmation of my secret, inward fears, and my face turned white.
"What was that you said to me about the Keppe-Carews never dying without a warning? And I laughed at you! Do you remember? Anne, I think the warning came to me last night."
I glanced timidly round the room. It was a luxurious bed-chamber, costly furniture and pretty toilette trifles everywhere. The crimson silk curtains were drawn closely before the bay-window, and I could see Selina clearly in the semi-light.
"Your mamma told you she had a dream, Anne. Well, I have had a dream. And yet I feel sure it was not a dream, but reality, reality. She appeared to me last night."
"Who? Mamma?"
"Your mamma. The Keppe-Carew superstition is, that when one is going to die, the last relative, whether near or distant, who has been taken from them by death, comes again to give them notice that their own departure is near. Ursula was the last who went, and she came to me in the night."
"It can't be true," I sobbed, shivering from head to foot.