England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Families -- Fiction; Murder -- Fiction
“I think it is. The whole house is full of ghosts. I felt their breath
upon my cheek as soon as we came into the place. They will not mind us,
Leonard, nor would they hurt you if they could. Let us walk round the
room.” She looked at the music. “It is Gluck’s ‘Orpheo’; the song,
‘Orpheo and Euridice.’ She must have been singing it the day before--the
day before----” Her eyes turned to the work-table. “Here she was sitting
at work the day before--the day before---- Look at the dainty work--a
child’s frock.” She took up the open book; it was Paschal’s “Pensées.”
“She was reading this the day before--the day before----” Her eyes
filled with tears. “The music--no common music; the book--a book only
for a soul uplifted above the common level; the dainty, beautiful
work--Leonard, it seems to reveal the woman and the household. Nothing
base or common was in that woman’s heart--or in the management of her
house; they are slight indications, but they are sure. It seems as if I
knew her already, though I never heard of her until to-day. Oh, what a
loss for that man!--what a Tragedy! what a terrible Tragedy it was!” Her
eyes fell upon the letter; she took it up. “See!” she said. “The letter
was begun, but never finished. Is it not sacrilege to let it fall into
other hands? Take it, Leonard.”
“We may read it after all these years,” Leonard said, shaking the dust
of seventy years from it. “There can be nothing in it that she would
wish not to be written there.” He read it slowly. It was written in
pointed and sloping Italian hand--a pretty hand belonging to the time
when women were more separated from men in all their ways. Now we all
write alike. “‘My dearest....’ I cannot make out the name. The rest is
easy. ‘Algernon and Langley have gone off to the study to talk business.
It is this affair of the Mill which is still unsettled. I am a little
anxious about Algernon: he has been strangely distrait for this last two
or three days; perhaps he is anxious about me: there need be no anxiety.
I am quite well and strong. This morning he got up very early, and I
heard him walking about in his study below. This is not his way at all.
However, should a wife repine because her Lord is anxious about her?
Algernon is very determined about that Mill; but I fear that Langley
will not give way. You know how firm he can be behind that pleasant
smile of his.’ That is all, Constance. She wrote no more.”
“It was written, then, the day before--the day before---- Keep the
letter, Leonard. You have no other letter of hers--perhaps nothing at
all belonging to the poor lady. I wonder who Langley was? I had a
forefather, too, whose Christian name was Langley. It is not a common
name.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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