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Henry Ancrum: A Tale of the Last War in New Zealand, Volume 2

Chapter XX

page 235

Chapter XX.

Malcolm Butler entered the house. How familiar each step of the way was to him. How often had he ascended those stairs to meet Edith in the drawing-room, full of the sweet conviction that one day she must be his—his wife—his very own! and now how changed was everything. It was true that Edith as yet knew nothing, but he could not delay—he could not now trust to time: he must make her decide at once, that very day, before there was a chance of her hearing that Henry Ancrum still lived. It was with the greatest difficulty that be re-page 236strained his feelings; it was with the greatest difficulty that he could assume the appearance of calmness; but at last by a great effort he was able to do so, and entered the room with almost his usual quiet cat-like manner. Edith was standing at the other end of it, pale and motionless. He advanced towards her, but paused halfway, struck by the extreme pallor of her countenance and the despairing look in those large beautiful eyes.

What a contrast they formed! what a picture they would have made! There stood the man agitated by passions he now strove in vain to conceal: the passion of love, as he would have called it, but which in his case might have deserved a lower name—the passion of fear that after all his plans, his schemes, and machinations his intended victim might yet escape him—the passion of hate against page 237Henry Ancrum for having as it were risen from the grave to thwart him. There stood the woman, pale and despairing, with the well-known chill feeling creeping over her, as if dark shapes were hovering near—that prescience of approaching evil; but still calm as if appearing to gain a sort of fortitude from despair itself.

"Edith," said Malcolm Butler at length, "I have come to speak to you seriously. You know how deeply, how fondly I love you; you know that my whole soul is bound up in you; you know that mine is no temporary feeling, but a passion that is interwoven with my very existence. Can you not trust your happiness to such a love? Can you not consent to be my wife?"

"Oh, Major Butler! I——"

"Major Butler!" said Malcolm, losing all self-control, "can you not call by his page 238Christian name a man who has saved your life? who——" (He was going on wildly, but she interrupted him.)

"Yes," she said; "that is what makes it so hard! You have, I believe, saved my life and that of my parents; but, oh, you do not understand that a woman who has once loved a man, who has taken him to her heart of hearts, feels that it would be as it were profanation, even when she has lost him, to give herself to another. Besides, Henry Ancrum may yet live."

"Yet live!" burst in Malcolm; "he is dead—I tell you he is dead. And know, ungrateful woman! that besides having saved your father's life, I hold him entirely in my power; he has over-speculated, he wanted a sum of ready money, and I lent it to him. The time of payment is overdue; one word of mine, and he is a bank-page 239rupt. To him I think this would be nearly as bad as death."

"Oh," said Edith, throwing herself on her knees, "have mercy on me—do have mercy on me! How can I commit this sin? for it is a sin to marry one man when you love another. How can I commit this sin, even to save a father, if Henry Ancrum is alive?—if he should return?"

"But I tell you he is dead!" screamed Malcolm Butler. "I got a letter this morning saying so, and mentioning the names of persons who had seen the body."

In his wild excitement he put his hand into his pocket and took out the letter he had received; his intention was only to have shown that he had a letter, and then to put it back again, but owing to his agitation the letter dropped from his hand to the floor.

page 240

Edith never understood why it was, but a sudden impulse prompted her to seize upon the letter, and she did so. The first words she saw were those showing that Henry Ancrum was alive, and had escaped.

"Demon!" she cried, springing to her feet. "Why have you deceived me? Now I know you. Henry Ancrum is alive!"

An expression passed over Malcolm Butler's face such as she had never seen there before. Now she understood her dark forebodings—now she understood the chill feeling of terror she had so often experienced—now the funereal shapes seemed closing round her.

All he said was—

"You shall never be another's!" and he rushed towards her.

There was a door opening into the verandah; at the end of the verandah was a flight of steps leading to the ground in page 241front of the house. Edith rushed through the door to seek the only mode of escape which appeared left to her. But one swifter than her was in pursuit. She was seized. She screamed and struggled violently. Poor bird! vain struggle! A sparrow in the grip of a hawk would have been safer. But at this moment another actor appeared on the scene.

A woman, tall, strong, with flashing eyes and dishevelled hair, rushed upon Malcolm Butler, and seizing him by the throat, screamed in his ear—

"Would you destroy another woman as you did me?"

He turned. Was it possible?—Gertrude Chesney!

He let go his hold of Edith Mandeville, and staggered against the verandah railings.

page 242

The railings, originally strong, were worn and decayed with age; they gave way beneath his weight. He made a desperate effort to save himself by clutching at Gertrude Chesney; he seized hold of her dress, and tried to recover his balance. But in vain; he only insured his own fate by pulling her down on top of himself. Down they fell, a distance of about twenty feet.

Edith, trembling, approached the edge of the verandah, and looked over. What a sight met her eye! Malcolm Butler was lying motionless; Gertrude Chesney was stunned, but slowly recovering her feet. In a few moments she said—

"Malcolm, get up. Don't stay there—don't; you are only trying to frighten me." Then she cried, "Oh, he is hurt; I am sure he is hurt!" Then approaching nearer, and seeing his face, from which page 243all trace of colour had departed, she screamed, "Oh, he is dead—he is dead! and I have killed him! I who loved him so!"

It was too much for her; it was too much for human nature to bear, and she fell fainting beside the man who, whatever his faults, she had always so fondly loved.

Edith rushed wildly to the stables; there she found the groom who had taken Malcolm Butler's horse. She told the man to mount the animal and gallop to Drury for a doctor. The man started immediately. She then ran to the garden, where she found the women-servants, and sent them to summon the men-servants and farm-labourers.

When they arrived, Malcolm Butler was borne into the house and laid on a bed on the ground floor.

page 244

Very shortly after, her mother came in, and ere long her father, who had arrived in Drury just at the moment when the doctor was summoned, came in with him.

Up to this time Malcolm Butler had lain perfectly motionless and evidently quite insensible.

After a short examination, the doctor gave it as his opinion that there was no hope. Malcolm Butler in falling had evidently struck his head against a stone and fractured his skull, the injury being increased by the weight of another body falling on the top of him. He might pass away in his present state of insensibility and give no sign, or he might recover consciousness just before his decease; but of life there was no hope.

How anxiously they watched by his bedside. It would be vain to try and depict page 245the anguish and misery of Gertrude Chesney when she recovered from her swoon; but now she was like a brave woman, trying to be calm, and to be useful, if possible, to the dying man she loved so well.

For a long time they watched without seeing any change, but at last, when night had long fallen, the patient's limbs began to quiver and move slightly. He appeared to be struggling back to consciousness, although his features wore the appearance of death. At last, his eyes opened; they rested on Gertrude Chesney.

"Gertrude," he said, with difficulty—"I—I have wronged you—but I have wronged others. Henry—Ancrum—lives. I—I wronged him—you know; tell them—tell the truth. Tell Edith—Edith."

It was his last word ! A convulsion shook his frame, and his soul departed for ever page 246from the scene where he had worked so much evil.

Our readers will easily imagine that as the immediate cause of Malcolm Butler's death was known exclusively to Edith Mandeville and Gertrude Chesney, there having been no other person present, the outside world only heard what was, strictly speaking, the bare truth—namely, that his death had been caused by the breaking of the verandah rails against which he was leaning.

His body was removed to Auckland and buried with, military honours; his remains were followed to the grave by the garrison. The solemn tones of that most melodious of melancholy marches, the Sicilian Mariners' Hymn, came wailing (rising and falling) through the air, mixed with the measured booming of the drum. The graveyard is reached; the awful words page 247are said, "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes;" the three volleys are fired in the air; and the remains of what once was Malcolm Butler are committed to the earth till "the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised."