Stella Fregelius (1904) by H. Rider Haggard

Author:H. Rider Haggard [Haggard, H. Rider]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Delphi Main Series
Publisher: Delphi Classics
Published: 2020-12-20T15:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIV

THE RETURN OF THE COLONEL

NEXT MORNING MORRIS and Stella met at breakfast as usual, but as though by mutual consent neither of them alluded to the events of the previous evening. Thus the name of Mr. Layard was “taboo,” nor were any more questions asked, or statements volunteered as to that journey, the toils of which Morris had suddenly discovered he was after all able to avoid. This morning, as it chanced, no experiments were carried on, principally because it was necessary for Stella to spend the day in the village doing various things on behalf of her father, and lunching with the wife of Dr. Charters, who was one of the churchwardens.

By the second post, which arrived about three o’clock, Morris received two letters, one from his father and one from Mary. There was something about the aspect of these letters that held his eye. That from his father was addressed with unusual neatness, the bold letters being written with all the care of a candidate in a calligraphic competition. The stamps also were affixed very evenly, and the envelope was beautifully sealed with the full Monk coat done in black wax. These, as experience told him, were signs that his father had something important to communicate, since otherwise everything connected with his letters was much more casual. Further, to speak at hazard, he should judge that this matter, whatever it might be, was not altogether disagreeable to the writer.

Mary’s letter also had its peculiarities. She always wrote in a large, loose scrawl, running the words into one another after the idle fashion which was an index to her character. In this instance, however, the fault had been carried to such an extreme that the address was almost illegible; indeed, Morris wondered that the letter had not been delayed. The stamps, too, were affixed anyhow, and the envelope barely closed.

“Something has happened,” he thought to himself. Then he opened Mary’s letter. It was dated Tuesday, that is, two days before, and ran:

“Dearest, — My father is dead, my poor old father, and now I have nobody but you left in the world. Thank God, at the last he was without pain and, they thought, insensible; but I know he wasn’t, because he squeezed my hand. Some of his last words that could be understood were, ‘Give my love to Morris.’ Oh! I feel as though my heart would break. After my mother’s death till you came into my life, he was everything to me — everything, everything. I can’t write any more.

“Your loving “Mary.”

“P.S. Don’t trouble to come out here. It is no good. He is to be buried to-morrow, and next day I am going ‘en retraite’ for a month, as I must have time to get over this — to accustom myself to not seeing him every morning when I come down to breakfast. You remember my French friend, Gabrielle d’Estree? Well; she is a nun now, a sub-something or other in a convent near here where they take in people for a payment.

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