“I don’t blame you, Ned,” said Frank. “You are as innocent of any intention of harm to me as the unborn babe, but I love her too well to stay in the old country. I am off. I don’t want her ever to know. You will promise me, won’t you, that you will never tell her why I have skulked off and dropped my responsibilities on to your shoulders? Promise me that, at least, will you not?”
Edward Wynford promised his brother, and the brother went away.
In the former generation father and son had agreed to break off the entail, and although there was no intention of carrying this action into effect, and Frank, as eldest son, inherited the great estates of Wynford Castle, yet at his father’s death he was in the position of one who could leave the estates to any one he pleased.
During his last interview with his brother he said to him distinctly:
“Remember, if Lady Frances has a son I wish him to be, after yourself, the next heir to the property.”
“But if she has not a son?” said Edward.
“In that case I have nothing to say. It is most unlikely that I shall marry. The property will come to you in the ordinary way, and as the entail is out off, you can leave it to whom you please.”
“Do not forget that at present you can leave the estate and the Castle to whomever you please, even to an utter stranger,” said Edward, with a slight smile.
To this remark Frank made no answer. The next day the brothers parted – as it turned out, for life. Edward married Lady Frances, and they went to live at Wynford Castle. Edward heard once from Frank during the voyage, and then not at all, until he received a letter which must have been written a couple of months before his brother’s death. It was forwarded to him in a strange hand, and was full of extraordinary and painful tidings. Frank Wynford had died suddenly of acute fever, but before his death he had arranged all his affairs. His letter ran as follows:
“My dear Edward, – If I live you will never get this letter; if I die it reaches you all in good time. When last we parted I told you I should never marry. So much for man’s proposals. When I got to Tasmania I went on a ranch, and now I am the husband of the farmer’s daughter. Her name is Isabel. She is a handsome woman, and the mother of a daughter. Why I married her I can not tell you, except that I can honestly say it was not with any sense of affection. But she is my wife, and the mother of a little baby girl. Edward, when I last heard from you, you told me that you also had a daughter. If a son follows all in due course, what I have to say will not much signify; but if you have no son I should wish the estates eventually to come to my little girl. I do not believe in a woman’s administration of large and important estates like mine, but what I say to myself now is, as well my girl as your girl. Therefore, Edward, my dear brother, I leave all my estates to you for your lifetime, and at your death all the property which came to me by my father’s will goes to my little girl, to be hers when you are no longer there. I want you to receive my daughter, and to ask your wife to bring her up. I want her to have all the advantages that a home with Lady Frances must confer on her. I want my child and your child to be friends. I do no injustice to your daughter, Edward, when I make my will, for she inherits money on her mother’s side. I will acquaint my wife with particulars of this letter, and in case I catch the fever which is raging here now she will know how to act. My lawyer in Hobart Town will forward this, and see that my will is carried into effect. There is a provision in it for the maintenance of my daughter until she joins you at Castle Wynford. Whenever that event takes place she is your care. I have only one thing to add. The child might go to you at once (I have a premonition that I am about to die very soon), and thus never know that she had an Australian mother, but the difficulty lies in the fact that the mother loves the child and will scarcely be induced to part with her. You must not receive my poor wife unless indeed a radical change takes place in her; and although I have begged of her to give up the child, I doubt if she will do it. I cannot add any more, for time presses. My will is legal in every respect, and there will be no difficulty in carrying it into effect.”
This strange letter was discovered by Frank Wynford’s widow a month after his death. It was sealed and directed to his brother in England. She longed to read it, but restrained herself. She sent it on to her husband’s lawyer in Hobart Town, and in due course it arrived at Castle Wynford, causing a great deal of consternation and distress both in the minds of the Squire and Lady Frances.
Edward immediately went out to Tasmania. He saw the little baby who was all that was left of his brother, and he also saw that brother’s wife. The coarse, loud-voiced woman received him with almost abuse. What was to be done? The mother refused to part with the child, and Edward Wynford, for his own wife’s sake and his own baby daughter’s sake, could not urge her to come to Castle Wynford.
“I do not care twopence,” she remarked, “whether the child has grand relations or not. I loved her father, and I love her. She is my child, and so she has got to put up with me. As long as I live she stays with me here. I am accustomed to ranch life, and she will get accustomed to it too. I will not spare money on her, for there is plenty, and she will be a very rich woman some day. But while I live she stays with me; the only way out of it is, that you ask me to your fine place in England. Even if you do, I don’t think I should be bothered to go to you, but you might have the civility to ask me.”
Squire Wynford went away, however, without giving this invitation. He spoke to his wife on the subject. In that conversation he was careful to adhere to his brother’s wish not to reveal to her that that brother’s deep affection for herself had been the cause of his banishment. Lady Frances was an intensely just and upright woman. She had gone through a very bad quarter of an hour when she was told that her little girl was to be supplanted by the strange child of an objectionable mother, but she quickly recovered herself.
“I will not allow jealousy to enter into my life,” she said; and she even went the length of writing herself to Mrs. Wynford in Tasmania, and invited her with the baby to come and stay at Wynford Castle. Mrs. Wynford in Tasmania, however, much to the relief of the good folks at home, declined the invitation.
“I have no taste for English grandeur,” she said. “I was brought up in a wild state, and I would rather stay as I was reared. The child is well; you can have her when she is grown up or when I am dead.”
Years passed after this letter and there was no communication between little Evelyn Wynford, in the wilds of Tasmania, and her rich and stately relatives at Castle Wynford. Lady Frances fervently hoped that God would give her a son, but this hope was not to be realized. Audrey was her only child, and soon it seemed almost like a dim, forgotten fact that the real heiress was in Tasmania, and that Audrey had no more to do in the future with the stately home of her ancestors than she would have had had she possessed a brother. But when she was sixteen there suddenly came a change. Mrs. Wynford died suddenly. There was now no reason why Evelyn should not come home, and accordingly, untutored, uncared for, a passionate child with a curious, wilful strain in her, she arrived on New Year’s Day at Castle Wynford.
Evelyn Wynford’s nature was very complex. She loved very few people, but those she did love she loved forever. No change, no absence, no circumstances could alter her regard. In her ranch life and during her baby days she had clung to her mother. Mrs. Wynford was fierce and passionate and wilful. Little Evelyn admired her, whatever she did. She trotted round the farm after her; she learnt to ride almost as soon as she could walk, and she followed her mother barebacked on the wildest horses on the ranch. She was fearless and stubborn, and gave way to terrible fits of passion, but with her mother she was gentle as a lamb. Mrs. Wynford was fond of the child in the careless, selfish, and yet fierce way which belonged to her nature. Mrs. Wynford’s sole idea of affection was that her child should be with her morning, noon, and night; that for no education, for no advantages, should she be parted from her mother for a moment. Night after night the two slept in each other’s arms; day after day they were together. The farmer’s daughter was a very strong woman, and as her father died a year or two after her husband, she managed the ranch herself, keeping everything in order, and not allowing the slightest insubordination on the part of her servants. Little Evelyn, too, learnt her mother’s masterful ways. She could reprimand;