Coralie, Charlotte Mary Brame [list of ebook readers .txt] 📗

ever beheld. 'I am going to have a white pony,' he said to me, and I kissed him, Edgar, with all my heart. Coralie inquired very minutely after you, and asked me if I owed her any ill-will for what she had done. I said no, not in the least, and that I hoped little Sir Rupert would live to make her very happy. I am not quite sure, but I think there were tears glistening in her eyes when she drove away."

Some weeks afterward I received the following letter from Mrs. Trevelyan:

"My Dear Edgar--Once again, I address you--once again, setting
pride and all things aside, I offer you Crown Anstey. You have been
away some time now, and know how different is your present hard
life from the happy, luxurious one you led here. Your engagement
with Miss Thesiger is, of course, broken off. I hear she has a
wealthy suitor--Lord Abberley. It will be a good match for her.
Edgar, you will find no one in the world so true to you as myself.
See, I forgot all the past. Once more I offer you my love, my hand,
and with it, until my son is of age, Crown Anstey. I never intended
you to give it up as you have done. I always wished to offer
yourself and your sister an income sufficient for your maintenance.
I have not done so before because I hoped that poverty would seem
so hateful to you you would gradually come to think better of my
offer. Is it so, Edgar? Will you recognize my love, my fidelity, my
devotion at last? One word and all your troubles cease, you are
back again in the beautiful old home, and I am happy. Only one
word. From your ever loving, devoted

CORALIE."

I need not repeat my answer. It was, No! I was no more free, no more inclined to return to Crown Anstey than I had been to remain there.

After that there was a long silence. Agatha told me herself all about Lord Abberley; that he had been very kind to her, was very fond of her, but she had told him our story, and he had most generously forborne to press his suit.

Time was doing much for me; every hour was golden in its acquisition of blanks in my life were filled by books. God sent every one the same comfort I had.


CHAPTER XIV.


It was just three years since I had left Crown Anstey. Lord Winter told me I should have some weeks to myself, but he was so incessantly occupied I never liked to ask for them.

I had never seen or heard anything of Crown Anstey since I left it. At Harden Manor all was the same, unchanged and unaltered.

One morning, when I went into the library, a letter lay waiting for me. I saw that it was Coralie's handwriting, and my first impulse was to burn it unread. Why should she write to me again? Her letters only pained me. I threw it aside and began to work--in the busy occupation of the morning I forgot all about it.

I did not open it until evening. It was from Coralie, but it only held these few words:

"Edgar--My boy--my beautiful boy--is dying. Come to me; for if I
lose him I shall die, too. In my distress I would rather have you
near me than any one else.

CORALIE TREVELYAN."

Was it true, or was it an invention? Poor little Rupert dying! Why, no one had even told me he was ill. Perhaps I had better go. No mother could be so cold and so wicked as to feign death for her only child.

Lord Winter raised no objections.

"It was not very convenient," he said, but of course he "must bow to necessity."

I was in time to catch the mail train. Eight o'clock found me the next morning in London, and, without waiting for rest or refreshment, I started at once for Crown Anstey.

It was only too true. I found my old home full of the wildest confusion; women were weeping and wringing their hands--the whole place was in disorder.

I was shown into the library, and in a few minutes Coralie came to me. I hardly recognized her; her face was white, her eyes were dim with long watching and bitter tears.

"I knew you would come," she said. "He is dying, Edgar; nothing in the world can save him. Come with me."

I followed her to the pretty chamber where little Sir Rupert lay. Yes, he was dying, poor child! He lay on the pretty, white bed; a grave-faced doctor was near; the nurse, Sarah Smith, sat by his side.

His mother went up to him.

"No better! No change!" she cried, wringing her hands. "Oh, my God! must I lose him? Must he die?"

He was my unconscious rival; his little life stood between me and all I valued most, yet I knelt and prayed God, as I had never prayed before, that He would spare him. I would have given Crown Anstey twice over for that life; but it was not to be.

"Do not disturb him with cries," said the doctor to his mother; "he has not long to live."

She knelt by his side in silence, her face colorless as that of a marble statue, the very picture of desolation, the very image of woe.

So for some minutes we sat; the little breath grew fainter and more feeble, the gray shadow deepened on the lovely face.

"Mamma!" he cried. "I see! I see!"

She bent over him, and at that moment he died.

I can never forget it--the wild, bitter anguish of that unhappy woman, how she wept, how she tore her hair, how she called her child back by every tender name a mother's love could invent.

It was better, the doctor said, that the first paroxysm of grief should have full vent. All attempts at comfort and consolation were unavailing. I raised her from the ground, and when she saw my face she cried:

"Oh, Edgar! Edgar! it is my just punishment!"

I did my best to console her. I told her that her little child would be better off in heaven than were he master of fifty Crown Ansteys. But I soon found that my words fell on deaf ears; she was unconscious.

"I do not like the look of Mrs. Trevelyan," said the doctor. "I should not be surprised to find that she has caught the fever herself. If so, in her present state of agitation, it will go hard with her."

He was right; before sunset Coralie lay in the fierce clutches of the fever, insensible to everything.

I do not like dwelling on this part of the story; it is so long, long since it all happened, but the memory of it stings like a sharp pain.

Clare came to nurse her, and everything that human science and skill could suggest was done to save her. It was all in vain.

We buried the little child on the Tuesday morning, when the sun was shining and the birds were singing in the trees, and on the Saturday they told us his mother could not live.

It was early on the dawn of the Sunday morning when they sent for me. She was dying, and wished to speak to me.

I went into her room. Clare knelt by her side. She turned her white face to me with a smile.

"Edgar," she said, "I am glad you have come. I want to--to die in your arms. Bend down to me," she whispered. "I want to speak to you. Will you forgive me? I can see now how wrong I was, how wicked to love you so much, and how wicked to tell you so. Will you forgive me, and now that I am dying say one kind word to me, and tell me you can respect me in death?"

I pillowed that dying head on my arm, and told her I should only remember of her what had been kind and good.

"You will only remember that I loved you, Edgar, not that I was unwomanly and wicked?"

"I will forget everything, except that you were my dear cousin and dear friend."

"You will marry Agatha," she said, faintly, "and bring her home here. I hope you will be happy; but, oh! Edgar--Edgar--when she is your wife, and you are so happy together, you will not forget me; you will stroll out sometimes when the dew is falling to look at my grave and say, 'Poor Coralie! how well she loved me--so well--so dearly!' You will do that, Edgar?"

My tears were falling warm and fast on her face.

"Are these your tears? Then you care a little for me. Ah, then, I am willing to die!"

And so, with her head pillowed on my arm, and a smile on her lips, she died.

We buried her by the side of Miles Trevelyan. After life's fitful fever she sleeps well.

From the first hour of her illness the doctor had no hope for her. I learned afterward that for some time before the child took the fever she had been ailing and ill.

It was such a strange life. Thinking over it afterward, it seemed to me more like romance than reality.

A year passed before the dream of my life was fulfilled and Agatha came to Crown Anstey. I need not to say how happy we were.

Lady Trevelyan is the most beloved and popular lady in the county; our children are growing up good and happy; we have not a care or trouble in the world, and the sharpest pain I have is the memory of Coralie.

[The end.]

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Publication Date: 09-16-2010

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