WHEREIN IS INSINUATED THE HIGHEST COMPLIMENT TO WOMAN EVER PAID TO
HER SEX BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS WORK.
Lady Montfort has arrived at Clare Cottage. She is shown by Bridget
Greggs into a small room upon the first floor; folding-doors to some
other room closely shut--evidences of sickness in the house;--phials on
the chimneypiece--a tray with a broth-basin on the table--a saucepan on
the hob--the sofa one of those that serve as a bed, which Sleep little
visits, for one who may watch through the night over some helpless
sufferer--a woman's shawl thrown carelessly over its hard narrow
bolster;--all, in short, betraying that pathetic untidiness and
discomfort which says that a despot is in the house to whose will order
and form are subordinate;--the imperious Tyranny of Disease establishing
itself in a life that, within those four walls, has a value not to be
measured by its worth to the world beyond. The more feeble and helpless
the sufferer, the more sovereign the despotism--the more submissive the
servitude.
In a minute or two one of the folding-doors silently opened and as
silently closed, admitting into Lady Montfort's presence a grim woman in
iron grey.
Caroline could not, at the first glance, recognise that Arabella Fossett,
of whose handsome, if somewhat too strongly defined and sombre
countenance, she had retained a faithful reminiscence. But Arabella had
still the same imposing manner which had often repressed the gay spirits
of her young pupil; and as she now motioned the great lady to a seat, and
placed herself beside, an awed recollection of the schoolroom bowed
Caroline's lovely head in mute respect.
MRS. CRANE.--"You too are changed since I saw you last,--that was more
than five years ago, but you are not less beautiful. You can still be
loved;--you would not scare away the man whom you might desire to save.
Sorrow has its partialities. Do you know that I have a cause
to be grateful to you, without any merit of your own. In a very dark
moment of my life--only vindictive and evil passions crowding on me--your
face came across my sight. Goodness seemed there so beautiful--and, in
this face, Evil looked so haggard! Do not interrupt me. I have but few
minutes to spare you. Yes; at the sight of that face, gentle
recollections rose up. You had ever been kind to me; and truthful,
Caroline Lyndsay--truthful. Other thoughts came at the beam of that
face, as other thoughts come when a strain of unexpected music reminds us
of former days. I cannot tell how, but from that moment a something more
like womanhood, than I had known for years, entered into my heart.
Within that same hour I was sorely tried galled to the quick of my soul.
Had I not seen you before, I might have dreamed of nothing but a stern
and dire revenge. And a purpose of revenge I did form. But it was not
to destroy-it was to save! I resolved that the man who laughed to scorn
the idea of vows due to me--vows to bind life to life--should yet sooner
or later be as firmly mine as if he had kept his troth; that my troth at
least should be kept to him, as if it had been uttered at the altar.
"Hush, did you hear a moan?--No! He lies yonder, Caroline Lyndsay--mine,
indeed, till the grave us do part. These hands have closed over him, and
he rests in their clasp, helpless as an infant." Involuntarily Caroline
recoiled. But looking into that careworn face, there was in it so wild a
mixture of melancholy tenderness, with a resolved and fierce expression
of triumph, that, more impressed by the tenderness than by the triumph,
the woman sympathised with the woman; and Caroline again drew near,
nearer than before, and in her deep soft eyes pity alone was seen. Into
those eyes Arabella looked, as if spellbound, and the darker and sterner
expression in her own face gradually relaxed and fled, and only the
melancholy tenderness was left behind. She resumed:
"I said to Guy Darrell that I would learn, if possible, whether the poor
child whom I ill-used in my most wicked days, and whom you, it seems,
have so benignly sheltered, was the daughter of Matilda--or, as he
believed, of a yet more hateful mother. Long ago I had conceived a
suspicion that there was some ground to doubt poor Jasper's assertion,
for I had chanced to see two letters addressed to him--one from that
Gabrielle Desinarets whose influence over his life had been so baleful
--in which she spoke of some guilty plunder with which she was coming to
London, and invited him again to join his fortunes with her own. Oh, but
the cold, bloodless villany of the tone!--the ease with which crimes for
a gibbet were treated as topics for wit!" Arabella stopped--the same
shudder came over her as when she had concluded the epistles abstracted
from the dainty pocketbook. "But in the letter were also allusions to
Sophy, to another attempt on Darrell to be made by Gabrielle herself.
Nothing very clear; but a doubt did suggest itself--'Is she writing to
him about his own child?' The other letter was from the French nurse
with whom Sophy had been placed as an infant. It related to inquiries
in person, and a visit to her own house, which Mr. Darrell had recently
made; that letter also seemed to imply some deception, though but by a
few dubious words. At that time the chief effect of the suspicion these
letters caused was but to make me more bent on repairing to Sophy my
cruelties to her childhood. What if I had been cruel to an infant who,
after all, was not the daughter of that false, false Matilda Darrell!
I kept in my memory the French nurse's address. I thought that when in
France I might seek and question her. But I lived only for one absorbing
end. Sophy was not then in danger; and even my suspicions as to her
birth died away. Pass on:--Guy Darrell! Ah, Lady Montfort! his life
has been embittered like mine; but he was man, and could bear it better.
He has known, himself, the misery of broken faith, of betrayed affection,
which he could pity so little when its blight fell on me; but you have
excuse for desertion--you yourself were deceived; and I pardon him, for
he pardoned Jasper, and we are fellow-sufferers. You weep! Pardon my
rudeness. I did not mean to pain you. Try and listen calmly--I must
hurry on. On leaving Mr. Darrell I crossed to France. I saw the nurse;
I have ascertained the truth; here are the proofs in this packet. I came
back--I saw Jasper Losely. He was on the eve of seeking you, whom he had
already so wronged--of claiming the child, or rather of extorting money
for the renunciation of a claim to one whom you had adopted. I told him
how vainly he had hitherto sought to fly from me. One by one I recited
the guilty schemes in which I had baffled his purpose--all the dangers
from which I had rescued his life. I commanded him to forbear the
project he had then commenced. I told him I would frustrate that project
as I had frustrated others. Alas, alas! why is this tongue so harsh?--
why does this face so belie the idea of human kindness? I did but enrage
and madden him; he felt but the reckless impulse to destroy the life that
then stood between himself and the objects to which he had pledged his
own self-destruction. I thought I should die by his hand. I did not
quail. Ah! the ghastly change that came over his face--the one glance of
amaze and superstitious horror; his arm obeyed him not; his strength, his
limbs, forsook him; he fell at my feet--one side of him stricken dead!
Hist! that is his voice--pardon me!" and Arabella flitted from the room,
leaving the door ajar.
A feeble Voice, like the treble of an infirm old man, came painfully to
Caroline's ear.
"I want to turn; help me. Why am I left alone? It is cruel to leave me
so--cruel!"
In the softest tones to which that harsh voice could be tuned, the grim
woman apologised and soothed.
"You gave me leave, Jasper dear. You said it would be a relief to you to
have her pardon as well as theirs."
"Whose pardon?" asked the voice querulously.
"Caroline Lyndsay's--Lady Montfort's."
"Nonsense! What did I ever do against her? Oh--ah! I remember now.
Don't let me have it over again. Yes--she pardons me, I suppose! Get me
my broth, and don't be long!"
Arabella came back, closing the door; and while she busied herself with
that precious saucepan on the hob--to which the Marchioness of Montfort
had become a very secondary object--she said, looking towards Caroline
from under her iron-grey ringlets:
"You heard--he misses me! He can't bear me out of his sight now--me,
me! You heard!"
Meekly Lady Montfort advanced, bringing in her hand the tray with the
broth-basin.
"Yes, I heard! I must not keep you; but let me help while I stay."
So the broth was poured forth and prepared, and with it Arabella
disappeared. She returned in a few minutes, beckoned to Caroline, and
said in a low voice:
"Come in--say you forgive him! Oh, you need not fear him; a babe could
not fear him now!"
Caroline followed Arabella into the sick-room. No untidiness there; all
so carefully, thoughtfully arranged. A pleasant room, too--with windows
looking full on the sunniest side of the Vale of Health; the hearth so
cheerily clear, swept so clean--the very ashes out of sight; flowers--
costly exotics--on the table, on the mantelpiece; the couch drawn towards
the window; and on that couch, in the gay rich dressing-gown of former
days, warm coverlets heaped on the feet, snow-white pillows propping the
head, lay what at first seemed a vague, undistinguishable mass--lay what,
as the step advanced, and the eye became more accurately searching, grew
into Jasper Losely.
Yes, there, too weak indeed for a babe to fear, lay all that was left of
the Strong Man! No enemy but himself had brought him thus low-
spendthrift, and swindler, and robber of his own priceless treasures-
Health and Strength--those grand rent-rolls of joy which Nature had made
his inheritance. As a tree that is crumbling to dust under the gnarls of
its bark seems, the moment ere it falls, proof against time and the
tempest, so, within all decayed, stood that image of strength-so, air
scarcely stirring, it fell. "And the pitcher was broken at the fountain;
and the wheel was broken at the cistern; vanity of vanities, saith the
Preacher."
Jasper turned his dull eye towards Caroline, as she came softly to his
side, and looked at her with a piteous gaze. The stroke that had
shattered the form had spared the face; and illness and compulsory
abstinence from habitual stimulants had taken from the aspect much of the
coarseness--whether of shape or colour--that of late years had disfigured
its outline--and supplied the delicacy which ends with youth by the
delicacy that comes with the approach of death. So that, in no small
degree, the beauty which had been to him so fatal a gift, was once more
visible--the features growing again distinct, as wanness succeeded to the
hues of intemperance, and emaciation to the bloated cheeks and swollen
muscle. The goddess whose boons adorn the outward shell of the human
spirit came back to her favourite's death-couch as she had come to the
cradle--not now as the Venus Erycina, goddess of Smile and Jest, but as
the warning Venus Libitina, the goddess of Doom and the Funeral.
"I'm a very poor creature," said Jasper, after a pause. "I can't rise--
I can't move without help. Very strange supernatural! She always said
that if I raised my hand against her, it would fall palsied!" He turned
his eye towards Arabella with a glare of angry terror. "She is a witch!"
he said, and buried his face in the pillow. Tears rolled down the grim
woman's cheeks.
LADY MONTFORT.--"She is rather your good ministering spirit. Do not be
unkind to her. Over her you have more power now than you had when you
were well and strong. She lives but to serve you; command her gently."
Jasper was not proof against that sweet voice. With difficulty he
wrenched himself round, and again looked long at Caroline Montfort, as if
the sight did him good; then he made a sign to Arabella, who flew to his
side and raised him.
"I have been a sad dog," he said, with a mournful attempt at the old
rollicking tone--"a very sad dog-in short, a villain! But all ladies are
indulgent to villains in fact, prefer them! Never knew a lady who could
endure 'a good young man'--never! So I am sure you will forgive me,
miss--ma'am. Who is this lady? When it comes to forgiveness, there are
so many of them! Oh, I remember now--your ladyship will forgive me--'tis
all down in black and white what I've done-Belles has it. You see this
hand--I can write with this hand--this is not paralysed.
"This is not the hand I tried to raise against her. But /basta, basta!/
where was I? My poor head! I know what it is to have a head now!--ache,
ache!--boom, boom-weight, weight-heavy as a church bell-hollow as a
church bell--noisy as a church bell! Brandy! give me brandy, you
witch!--I mean Bella, good Bella, give me brandy!"
"Not yet, Jasper dear. You are to have it every third hour; it is not
time yet, dearest; you must attend to the doctor, and try to get well and
recover your strength. You remember I told you how kind Lady Montfort
had been to your father, and you wished to see and thank her."
"My father--my poor, poor father! You've been kind to him! Bless you,
bless you! And you will see him? I want his pardon before I die. Don't
forget, and--and--"
"Poor Sophy!" said Mrs. Crane.
"Ah yes! But she's well off now, you tell me. I can't think I have
injured her. And really girls and women are intended to be a little
useful to one. /Basta, basta/."'
"Mr. Darrell--"
"Yes, yes, yes! I forgive him, or he forgives me; settle it as you like.
But my father's pardon, Lady Montfort, you will get me that!"
"I will, I will."
He looked at her again, and smiled. Arabella gently let his head fall
back upon the pillow.
"Throw a handkerchief over my face," he said feebly, "and leave me; but
be in call; I feel sleepy." His eyes closed; he seemed asleep even
before they stole from the room.
"You will bring his father to him?" said Arabella, when she and Lady
Montfort were again alone. "In this packet is Jasper's confession of the
robbery for which that poor old man suffered. I never knew of that
before. But you see how mild he is now!--how his heart is changed; it is
indeed changed more than he shows; only you have seen him at the worst--
his mind wanders a little to-day; it does sometimes. I have a favour to
ask of you. I once heard a preacher, not many months ago; he affected me
as no preacher ever did before. I was told that he was Colonel Morley's
nephew. Will you ask Colonel Morley to persuade him to come to Jasper?"
"My cousin, George Morley! He shall come, I promise you; so shall your
poor patient's forgiving father. Is there more I can do?"
"No. Explain to Mr. Darrell the reason why I have so long delayed
sending to him the communication which he will find in the packet I have
given to you, and which you will first open, reading the contents
yourself--a part of them, at least, in Jasper's attestation of his
stratagem to break off your marriage with Mr. Darrell, may yet be of some
value to you--you had better also show the papers to Colonel Morley--he
may complete the task. I had meant, on returning to England, or before
seeing Mr. Darrell, to make the inquiries which you will see are still
necessary. But then came this terrible affliction! I have been able to
think of nothing else but Jasper;--terrible to quit the house which
contains him for an hour; only, when Dr. F. told me that he was
attending you, that you were ill and suffering, I resolved to add to this
packet Jasper's own confession. Ah, and he gave it so readily, and went
yesterday through the fatigue of writing with such good heart. I tell
you that there is a change within him--there is there is. Well, well--
I resolved to give you the packet to transmit to Mr. Darrell, for somehow
or other I connected your illness with your visit to him at Fawley!"
"My visit to Mr. Darrell!"
"Jasper saw you as your carriage drove from the park gate, not very many
days since. Ah, you change colour! You have wronged that man; repair
the wrong; you have the power!"
"Alas! no," murmured Caroline, "I have not the power."
"Pooh!--he loves you still. You are not one of those whom men forget."
Caroline was silent, but involuntarily she lowered her veil. In an
instant the acute sense of the grim woman detected the truth.
"Ah! Pride--pride in both," she said. "I understand--I dare not blame
him here. But you--you were the injurer; you have no right to pride; you
will see him again."
"No--never--never!" faltered Caroline, with accents scarcely audible
under her veil.
Arabella was silent for a moment, and Lady Montfort rose hastily to
depart.
"You will see him again, I tell you;" and Arabella then following her to
the door:
"Stay; do you think HE will die?"
"Good heavens! Mr. Darrell?"
"No, no--Jasper Losely!"
"I hope not. What does Dr. F. say?"
"He will not tell me. But it is not the paralysis alone; he might
recover from that--so young still. There are other symptoms; that
dreadful habit of stimulants! He sinks if he has them not--they hasten
death if he has. But--but--but--HE IS MINE, AND MINE ONLY, TO THE GRAVE
--NOW!"