THE GIBBET ON THE SANDS
Woman! take up thy life once more
Where thou hast left it;
Nothing is changed for thee, thou art the same,
Thou who didst think that all things
Would be wholly changed for thee.
_Luteplayer's Song._
Pulwick again. The whirlwind of disaster that upon that fatal
fifteenth of March had burst upon the house of Landale has passed and
swept away. But it has left deep trace of its passage.
The restless head, the busy hand, the scheming brain of Rupert Landale
lie now mouldering under the sod of the little churchyard where first
they started the mischief that was to have such far reaching effects.
Low, too, lies the proud head of the mistress of Pulwick, so stricken,
indeed, so fever-tortured, that those who love her best scarce dare
hope more for her than rest at last under the same earth that presses
thus lightly above her enemy's eternal sleep.
There is a great stillness in the house. People go to and fro with
muffled steps, the master with bent white head; Miss O'Donoghue,
indefatigable sick nurse; Madeleine, who may not venture as far as the
threshold of her sister's room, and awaits in prayer and tears the
hour of that final bereavement which will free her to take wing
towards the cloister for which her soul longs; Sophia, crushed finally
by the sorrows she has played at all her days. Seemingly there is
peace once more upon them all, but it is the peace of exhaustion
rather than that of repose. And yet--could they but know it, as the
sands run down in the hour-glass of time there are golden grains
gathering still to drop into the lives of each.
But meanwhile none may read the future, and Molly fights for her life
in the darkened room, the gloom of which, to the souls of the dwellers
at Pulwick, seems to spread even to the sunny skies without.
* * * * *
When Lady Landale was brought back to her home from Lancaster, it was
held by every one who saw her that Death had laid his cold finger on
her forehead, and that her surrender to his call could only be a
matter of hours.
The physician in attendance could point out no reasonable ground for
hope. Such a case had never come within his experience or knowledge,
and he was with difficulty induced to believe that it was not the
result of actual violence.
"In every particular," said he, "the patient's symptoms are those of
coma resulting from prolonged strangulation or asphyxia. These
spectacles are very dangerous to highly sensitive organisations. Lady
Landale no doubt felt for the miserable wretch in the benevolence of
her heart. Imagination aiding her, she realised suddenly the horror of
his death throes, and this vivid realisation was followed by the
actual simulacrum of the torture. We have seen hysterical subjects
simulate in the same manner diverse diseases of which they themselves
are organically free, such as epilepsy, or the like. But Lady
Landale's condition is otherwise serious. She is alive; more I cannot
say."
According to his lights, he had bled the patient, as he would have
bled, by rote, to recall to life one actually cut down from the beam.
But, although the young blood did flow, bearing testimony to the fact
that the heart still beat in that deathlike frame, the vitality left
seemed so faint as to defy the power of human ministration.
The flame of life barely flickered; but the powers of youth were of
greater strength in the unconscious body than could have been
suspected, and gradually, almost imperceptibly, they asserted
themselves.
With the return of animation, however, came a new danger: fever,
burning, devastating, more terrible even than the almost mortal
syncope; that fever of the brain which wastes like the rack, before
which science stands helpless, and the watcher sinks into despair at
his impotence to screen a beloved sufferer from the horrible,
ever-recurring phantoms of delirium.
Had not Sir Adrian intuitively known well-nigh every act of the drama
which had already been so fatal to his house, Molly's frenzied
utterances would have told him all. Every secret incident of that
storm of passion which had desolated her life was laid bare to his
sorrowing heart:--her aspirations for an ideal, centred suddenly upon
one man; her love rapture cruelly baulked at every step; the consuming
of that love fire, resisting all frustration of hope, all efforts of
conscience, of honour; how her whole being became merged into that of
the man she loved and whom she had ruined, her life in his life, her
very breath in his breath. And then the lamentable, inevitable end:
the fearful confrontation with his death. Again and again, in never
ceasing repetition, was that fair, most dear body, that harrowed soul,
dragged step by step through every iota of the past torture, always to
fall at last into the same stillness of exhaustion--appalling image of
final death that wrung Adrian with untold agonies of despair.
For many days this condition of things lasted unaltered. In the
physician's own words it was impossible that life could much longer
resist such fierce onslaughts. But one evening a change came over the
spirit of the sufferer's vision.
There had been a somewhat longer interval between the paroxysms; Sir
Adrian seated as usual by the bed, waiting now with a sinking heart
for the wonted return of the frenzy, clamouring in his soul to heaven
for pity on one whom seemingly no human aid could succour, dared yet
draw no shadow of hope from the more prolonged stillness of the
patient. Presently indeed, she grew restless, tossed her arms,
muttered with parched lips. Then she suddenly sat up and listened as
if to some deeply annoying and disquieting sound, fell back again
under his gentle hands, rolling her little black head wearily from
side to side, only however to start again, and again listen. Thus it
went on for a while until the haunted, weary eyes grew suddenly
distraught with terror and loathing. Straining them into space as if
seeking something she ought to see but could not, she began to speak
in a quick yet distinct whisper:
"How it creaks, creaks--creaks! Will no one stop that creaking! What
is it that creaks so? Will no one stop that creaking!" And again she
placed her cheek on the pillow, covering her ear with her little,
wasted hand, and for a while remained motionless, moaning like a
child. But it was only to spring up again, this time with a cry which
brought the physician from the adjacent sleeping room in alarm to her
bedside.
"Ah, God," she shrieked, her eyes distended and staring as if into the
far distance through walls and outlying darkness. "I see it! They have
done it, they have done it! It is hanging on the sands--how it creaks
and sways in the wind! It will creak for ever, for ever.... Now it
spins round, it looks this way--the black face! It looks at _me_!" She
gave another piercing cry, then her frame grew rigid. With mouth open
and fixed eyeballs she seemed lost in the frightful fascination of the
image before her brain.
As, distracted by the sight of her torments, Adrian hung over her,
racking his mind in the endeavour to soothe her, her words struck a
chill into his very soul. He cast a terrified glance at the doctor who
was ominously feeling her pulse.
"There is a change," he faltered.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
"I have told you before," he retorted irritably, "that you should
attach no more importance to the substance of these delirious
wanderings than you would to the ravings of madness. It is the fact of
the delirium itself which must alarm us. She is less and less able to
bear it."
The patient moaned and shuddered, resisting the gentle force that
would have pressed her down on her pillow.
"Oh the creaking, the creaking! Will no one stop that creaking! Must I
hear it go on creak, creak, creak for ever, and see it sway and
sway.... Will no one ever stop it!"
Sir Adrian took a sudden resolution. "I will," he said, low and clear
into her ear. She sank down on the instant and looked at him, back
from her far distance, almost as if she understood him and the pitiful
cry for the help he would have given his heart's blood to procure for
her, was silent for the moment upon her lips.
"I will prepare an opiate," said the physician in a whisper.
"And I," said Sir Adrian to him, with a strange expression upon his
pale face, "am going to stop that creaking."
The man of medicine gazed after him with a look of intense
astonishment which rapidly changed to one of professional interest.
"It is evident that I shall soon have another mentally deranged
patient to see to," he remarked to himself as he rose to seek the
drugs he meant to administer.
Downstairs, Sir Adrian immediately called for Rene, and being informed
that he had left for the island early in the afternoon and had
announced his return before night, cast a cloak over his shoulders and
hurried forth in the hope of meeting him upon his homeward way. His
pulses were beating well-nigh as wildly as those of the fever stricken
woman upstairs in the house. He dared not pause to reflect on his
purpose, or seek to disentangle the confusion of his thoughts, for
fear of being confronted with the hopelessness of their folly. But the
exquisite serenity of the night sky, where swam the moon, "a silver
splendour;" the freshness of the sweeping breeze that dashed, keen
from the east, over the sea against his face; all the glorious
distance, the unconsciousness and detachment of nature from the fume
and misery of life, brought him unwittingly to a calmer mood.
He had reached the extreme confine of the pine wood, when, across the
sands that stretched unbroken to the lips of the sea, a figure
advanced towards him.
"Renny!" called Sir Adrian.
"Your honour!" cried the man, breaking into a run to meet him. O God!
how ghostly white looked the master's face in the moon-flood!
"My Lady----?"
"Not worse; yet not better--and that means worse now. But there is a
change. Renny," sinking his voice and clasping the man's sturdy arm
with clammy hand, "is it true they have placed him on the sands
to-day?"
The man stared.
"How did your honour know? Yes--they have done so. It is true: the
swine! not more than an hour, in verity. How could it have come so
soon to your honour's ears? This morning, indeed, they came from the
town in a cart, and planted the great gibbet on Scarthey Point, at low
water. And to-night they brought the body, all bound in irons, and
from a boat, for it was high tide, they riveted it on the chain. And
it is to remain for ever, your honour--so they say."
"Strange," murmured Sir Adrian to himself, gazing seaward with
awestruck eyes. "And did you," he asked, "hear its creaking, Renny, as
it swayed in the wind?"
Again Rene cast a quick glance of alarm at his master. The master had
a singular manner with him to-night! Then edging closer to him he
whispered in his ear:
"They say it is to hang for ever. There is a warning to those who
would interfere with this justice of theirs. But, your honour, there
came one to the island to-day, I do not know if your honour knows him,
the captain's second on that vessel of misfortune. And I believe, your
honour, the dawn will never see that poor, black body hanging over
yonder like a scarecrow, to spoil our view. This man, this brave
mariner, Curwen is his name, he is mad furious with us all! He has
just but come from hearing of his captain's fate, and he is ready to
kill us, that we let him be murdered without breaking some heads for
him. Faith, if it could have done any good, it is not I that would
have balanced about it! But, as I told him, there was no use running
one's own head into a loop of rope when that would please nobody but
Mr. the Judge. But he is not to be reasoned with. He is like a wild
animal. When I left him," said Rene, dropping his voice still lower,
"he was knocking a coffin together out of the old sea wood on
Scarthey. He said his captain would rest better in those boards that
were seasoned with salt water. And when I went away, your honour, and
left him hammering there--faith, I thought that the coffin was like to
be seasoned by another kind of salt water too."
His face twitched and the ready tears sprang to his own eyes which,
unashamed, he now wiped with his sleeve after his custom. But Sir
Adrian's mind was still drifting in distant ghastly companionship.
"How the wind blows!" he said, and shuddered a little. "How the poor
body must sway in the wind, and the chains creak."
"If it can make any difference to the poor captain he will lie in
peace to-night, please God," said Rene.
"Ay," said Sir Adrian, "and you and I, friend, will go too, and help
this good fellow in his task. I hope, I believe, that I should have
done this thing of my own thought, had I had time to think at all. But
now, more hangs upon those creaking chains than you can dream of. This
is a strange world--and it is full of ghosts to-night. But we must
hurry, Renny."
* * * * *
Bound even to the tips of her burning little fingers by the spell of
the opiate, Lady Landale lay in the shadowed room as one dead, yet in
her sick brain fearfully awake, keenly alive.
At first it was as if she too was manacled in chains till she could
not move a muscle, could not breathe or cry because of the ring round
her breast; and she was hanging with the black figure, swaying, while
the rusty iron links went creak, creak, creak, with every swing to and
fro. Then suddenly she seemed to stand, as it were, out of herself and
to be seeing with the naked soul alone. And what she saw was the great
stretch of beach and sea, white, white, white, in the moonlight and
spreading, it seemed, for leagues and leagues, spreading till all the
world was only beach and sea.
But close to her in the whitest moonlight rose the great gibbet, gaunt
and black, cutting the pale sky in two and athwart; and hanging from
it was the black figure that swayed and swung. And though the winds
muttered and the waves growled, she could not hear them with the ears
of the soul, for that the whole of this great world of sea and sand
was filled with the creaking of the chains.
But now, across the bleak and pallid spaces came three black figures.
And, as she looked and watched and they drew nearer, the dreadful
burthen of the gibbet swung round as if to greet them, and she too,
felt in her soul that she knew them all three, though not by names, as
creatures of earth know each other, but by the kinship of the soul.
This man with hair as white as the white beach, hair that seemed to
shine silver as he came; and him yonder who followed him as a dog his
master; and yonder again the third, in the seaman's dress, with hard
face hewn into such rugged lines of grief and fury--she knew them all.
And next they reached the gibbet: and one swarmed up the black post,
and hammered and filed and prised, and then, oh merciful God! the
creaking stopped at last!
Now she could hear the wash of the waves, the rush of the wholesome
wind!
A mist came across her vision; faintly she saw the stiffened
disfigured corpse which yet she felt had once been something she had
loved with passion, laid reverently upon a stretcher, its irons
loosened and cast away, and then covered with a great cloak. Then the
sea, the beach, the white moon faded and waved and receded. Molly's
soul went back to her body again, while blessed tears fell one by one
from her hot eyes. She breathed; her limbs relaxed; round the tired
brain came, with a soft hush like that of gentle wings, dark oblivion.
Bending over her, for he was aware that for good or evil the crisis
was at hand, the physician saw moisture bead upon the suddenly
smoothed brow, heard a deep sigh escape the parted lips. And then with
a movement like a weary child's she drew her arms close and fell
asleep.
* * * * *
Having laid his friend to his secret rest, deep in the rock of
Scarthey, where the free waves that his soul had revelled in would
beat till the world's end, Sir Adrian returned to Pulwick in the early
morning, spent with the long and heavy night's toil--for it had taxed
the strength of even three men to hollow out a grave in such a soil.
On the threshold he was greeted by the physician.
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messengers of
glad tidings!" From afar, by the man's demeanour, he knew that the
tidings were glad. And most blessed they were indeed to his ears, but
to them alone not strange. Throughout every detail of his errand his
mind had dwelt rather with the living than the dead. What he had done,
he had done for her; and now, the task achieved, it seemed but natural
that the object for which it had been undertaken should have been
achieved likewise.
But, left once more with her, seeing her once more wrapt in placid
sleep, whom he had thought he would never behold at rest again save in
the last sleep of all, the revulsion was overpowering. He sat down by
her side, and through his tears gazed long at the lovely head, now in
its pallor and emaciation so sadly like that of his dead love in the
sorrowful days of youth; and he thanked heaven that he was still of
the earth to shield her with his devotion, to cherish her who was now
so helpless and bereft.
And with such tears and such thoughts came a forgetfulness of that
anguish which in him, as well as in her, had for so long been part of
actual existence.
When Tanty entered on tiptoe some hours later, she saw her niece
motionless upon her pillow, sleeping as easily and reposefully as a
child. And close to her head, Sir Adrian, reclining in the arm-chair,
asleep likewise. His arm was stretched limply over the bed and, on its
sleeve still stained with the red mud of the grave in Scarthey, rested
Lady Landale's little, thin, ivory-white fingers.
* * * * *
Thus ended Molly's brief but terrible madness.
"Then you have hope, real hope?" asked Sir Adrian, of the physician as
they met again that day in the gallery.
"Every hope," replied the man of science with the proud consciousness
of having, by his wisdom, pulled his patient out of the very jaws of
death. "Recovery is now but a question of a time; of a long time, of
course, for this crisis has left her weaker than the new-born babe.
Repose, complete repose, sleep: that is almost everything. And she
will sleep. Happily, as usual in such cases, Lady Landale seems to
have lost all memory. But I must impress upon you, Sir Adrian, that
the longer we can keep her in this state, the better. If you have
reason to believe that even the sight of _you_ might recall
distressing impressions, you must let me request of you to keep away
from the sick room till your wife's strength be sufficiently restored
to be able to face emotions."
This was said with a certain significance which called the colour to
Sir Adrian's cheek. He acquiesced, however, without hesitation; and,
banished from the place where his treasure lay, fell to haunting the
passages for the rest of the day and to waylaying the privileged
attendants with a humble resignation which would have been sorrowful
but for the savour of his recent relief from anguish.
But the next morning, Lady Landale, though too weak of body to lift a
finger, too weak of mind to connect a single coherent phrase,
nevertheless took the matter into her own hands, and proved that it is
as easy to err upon the side of prudence as upon its reverse.
Miss O'Donoghue, emerging silently from the room after her night's
vigil, came upon her nephew at his post, and, struck to her kind heart
by his wistful countenance, bade him with many winks and nods enter
and have a look at his wife.
"Don't make a sound," she whispered to him, "and then she won't hear
you. But, faith she's sleeping so well, it's my belief if you danced a
jig she would not stir a limb. Go in, child, go in. It's beautiful to
see her!"
And Adrian, pressed by his own longing, was unable to resist the
offer. Noiselessly he stepped across the forbidden threshold and stood
for a long time contemplating the sleeper in the dim light. As he was
about to creep out at length, she suddenly opened her eyes and fixed
them wonderingly upon him. Fearful of having done the cruel deed
against which he had been warned, he felt his heart contract and would
have rushed away, in an agony of self-accusation, when there occurred
what seemed to him a miracle.
A faint smile came upon the pale lips, and narrowed ever so little the
large sunken eyes. Yes; by all that was beautiful, it was a
smile--transient and piteous, but a smile. And for him!
As he bent forward, almost incapable of believing, the lips relaxed
again and the lids drooped, but she shifted her hands upon the bed,
uneasily, as if seeking something. He knelt, trembling, by her side,
and as with diffident fingers he clasped the wandering hands he felt
them faintly cling to his. And his heart melted all in joy. The man of
science had reasoned astray; there need be no separation between the
husband who would so dearly console, and the wife who needed help so
sorely.
For a long while he remained thus kneeling and holding her hands. It
seemed as though some of the life strength he longed to be able to
pour from himself to her, actually passed into her frame: as though
there were indeed a healing virtue in his all encompassing tenderness;
for, after a while, a faint colour came to the sunken cheeks. And
presently, still holding his hand, she fell once more into that
slumber which was now her healing.
After this it was found that the patient actually became fretful and
fevered again when her husband was too long absent from her side; and
thus it came to pass that he began to supersede all other watchers in
her room. Tanty in highest good humour, declared that her services
were no longer necessary, and volunteered to conduct Madeleine to the
Jersey convent, whither (her decision being irrevocable) it was
generally felt that it would be well for the latter to proceed before
her sister's memory with returning strength should have returned
likewise.
This memory, without which the being he loved would remain afflicted
and incomplete, yet upon the working of which so much that was still
uncertain must hinge--Sir Adrian at once yearned for, and dreaded it.
Many a time as he met the sweet and joyful greeting in those eyes
where he had grown accustomed to find nought but either mockery or
disdain, did he recall his friend's prophetic words: "Out of my death
will grow your happiness." Was there happiness indeed yet in store in
the future? Alas, happiness for them dwelt in oblivion; and, some day,
"remembrance would wake with all her busy train, and swell at _her_
breast," and then----
Meanwhile, however, the present had a sweetness of its own. There was
now free scope for the passion of devotedness which almost made up the
sum of this man's character--a character which, to the Molly of
wayward days, to the hot-pulsed, eager, impatient "Murthering Moll,"
had been utterly incomprehensible and uncongenial. And to the Molly
crushed in the direst battle of life, whom one more harshness of fate,
even the slightest, would have straightaway hurled back into the grave
that had barely been baulked of its prey, it gave the very food and
breath of her new existence.
Week after week passed in this guise, during which her natural
healthiness slowly but surely re-established itself; weeks that were
happy to him, in later life, to look back upon, though now full of an
anxiousness which waxed stronger as recovery drew nearer.
There was little talking between them, and that kept by him studiously
on subjects of purely ephemeral, childish interest. Her mind, by the
happy dispensation of nature which facilitates healing by all means
when once healing has begun, was blank to any impressions save the
luxury of rest, of passive enjoyment, indifferent to ought but the
passing present. She took pleasure in flowers, in the gambols of pet
animals, in long listless spells of cloud-gazing when the heavens were
bright, in the presence of her husband in whom she only saw a being
whose eyes were always beautiful with the light of kindness, whose
touch invariably soothed her when fatigue or irritation marred the
even course of her feelings.
She had ever a smile for him, which entered his soul like the radiance
of sunshine through a stormy sky.
Thus the days went by. Like a child she ate and slept and
chattered--irresponsible chatter that was music to his ear. She
laughed and teased him too, as a child would; till sad, as it was, he
hugged the incomplete happiness to his heart with a dire foreboding
that it might be all he was to know in life.
But one evening, in sudden freak, she bade him open the shutters, pull
the curtains, and raise the window that she might, from her pillow,
look forth upon the night, and smell the sweet night air.
She had been unusually well that day, and on her face now filling out
once more into its old soft oval, bloomed again a look of warm life
and youth. Unsuspecting, unthinking Sir Adrian obeyed. It was a dim,
close night, and the blush-roses nodded palely into the room from the
outer darkness as he raised the sash. There was no moon, no stars
shone in the mist hung sky; there was no light to be seen anywhere
except one faint glimmer in the distance--the light upon Scarthey
Island.
"Is that a star?" said Molly, after a moment's dreamy silence.
Sir Adrian started. A vision of all that might hang upon his answer
flashed through his brain. With a trembling hand he pulled the
curtain. It was too late.
Molly sat up in bed, with a contracted brow and hands outstretched as
one who would seize a tantalising escaping memory.
"I used to watch it then, at night, from this window," she whispered.
"What was it? The light of Scarthey?" Then suddenly, with a scream;
"The light of Scarthey!"
Adrian sprang to her side but she turned from him, shrank from him,
with a look of dread which seared him to the soul.
"Do not come near me, do not touch me," she cried.
And then he left her.
* * * * *
Miss O'Donoghue was gone upon her journey with Madeleine. There was
none in whom he might confide, with whom seek counsel. But presently,
listening outside the door in an agony of suspense, he heard a storm
of sobs. In time these gradually subsided; and later he learnt from
Moggie, whom he had hurriedly ordered to her mistress's side, that his
wife was quiet and seemed inclined to rest.
On the next day, she expressed no desire to see him and he dared not
go to her unsought. He gathered a great dewy bunch of roses and had
them brought to her upon her breakfast tray instead of bringing them
himself as had been his wont.
She had taken the roses, Moggie told him, and laid them to her cheek.
"The master sent them, said I," continued the sturdy little matron,
who was far from possessing the instinctive tact of her spouse; "an'
she get agate o'crying quiet like and let the flowers fall out of her
hands on the bed--Eh, what ever's coom to her, sin yesterday? Wannut
you go in, sir?"
"Not unless she sends for me," said Sir Adrian hastily. "And remember,
Moggie, do not speak my name to her. She must not be worried or
distressed. But if she sends for me, come at once. You will find me in
the library."
And in the library he sat the long, long day, waiting for the summons
that did not come. She never sent for him.
She had wept a good deal during the day, the faithful reporter told
him in the evening, but always "quiet like;" had spoken little, and
though of unwonted gentleness of manner had persistently declined to
be carried to the garden as usual, or even to leave her room. Now she
had gone back to bed, and was sleeping peacefully.
An hour later Sir Adrian left his home for Scarthey once again. It is
to be doubted whether, through all the vicissitudes of his existence
he ever carried into the sheltering ruins a heart more full of cruel
pain.
When Tanty returned to Pulwick from her travels again, it was to find
in Miss Landale the only member of the family waiting to greet her.
The old lady's displeasure on learning the reason of this defection,
was at first too intense to find relief in words. But presently the
strings of her tongue were loosened under the influence of the usual
feminine restorative; and, failing a better listener, she began to
dilate upon the situation with her wonted garrulity.
"Yes, my good Sophia, I will thank you for another cup of tea. What
should we do without tea in this weary world? I declare it's the only
pleasure left to me now--for, of all the ungrateful things in life,
working for your posterity is the most ungrateful. Posterity is born
to trample on one.... And now, sit down and tell me exactly how
matters stand. My niece is greatly better, I hear. The doctor
considers her quite convalescent? At least this is very satisfactory.
Very satisfactory indeed! Just now she is resting. Quite so. I should
not dream of disturbing her; more especially as the sight of me would
probably revive painful memories, and we must not risk her having a
bad night--of course not. Ah, my dear, memory, like one's teeth, is a
very doubtful blessing. Far more trouble than pleasure when you have
it, and yet a dreadful nuisance when you have not--But what's this I
hear about Adrian? Gone back to that detestable island of his again! I
left him and Molly smiling into each other's eyes, clasping each
other's hands like two turtle-doves. Why, she could not as much as
swallow a mouthful of soup, unless he was beside her to feed her--And
now I am told he has not been near her for four days. What is the
meaning of this? Oh, don't talk to me, Sophia! It's more than flesh
and blood can bear. Here am I, having been backward and forward over
nine hundred miles, looking after you all, at my age, till I don't
know which it is, Lancashire or Somerset I'm in, or whether I'm on my
head or my heels, though I'm sure I can count every bone of my body by
the aching of them;--and I did think I was coming back to a little
peace and comfort at length. That island of his, Sophia, will be the
death of me! I wish it was at the bottom of the sea: that is the only
thing that will bring your brother to his senses, I believe. Now he
might as well be in his grave at once, like Rupert, for all the good
he is; though, for that matter it's more harm than good poor Rupert
ever did while he was alive----"
"Excuse me, Aunt Rose," here exclaimed Sophia, heroically, her
corkscrew ringlets trembling with agitation, "but I must beg you to
refrain from such remarks--I cannot hear my dear brother...."
But Miss O'Donoghue waved the interruption peremptorily away.
"Now it's no use your going on, Sophia. _We_ don't think a man flies
straight to heaven just because he's dead. And nothing will ever make
me approve of Rupert's conduct in all this dreadful business. Of
course one must not speak evil of those who can't defend themselves,
but for all that he is dead and buried, Rupert might argue with me
from now till doomsday, and he never would convince me that it is the
part of a gentleman to act like a Bow Street runner. I _hope_, my
dear, he has found more mercy than he gave. I _hope_ so. But only for
him my poor dear grand-niece Molly would never have gone off on that
mad journey, and my poor grand-niece Madeleine would not be buried
alive on that other island at the back of God's speed. Ah, yes, my
dear, it has been a very sad time! I declare I felt all the while as
if I were conducting a corpse to be buried; and now I feel as if I had
come back from the dear girl's funeral. We had a dreadful passage, and
she was _so_ sick that I'm afraid even if she wanted to come out of
that place again she'd never have the courage to face the crossing.
She was a wreck--a perfect wreck, when she reached the convent. Many a
time I thought she would only land to find herself dead. _I_ wanted
her to come to the hotel with me, where I should have popped her into
bed with a hot bottle; but nothing would serve her but that she must
go to the convent at once. 'I shall not be able to rest till I am
there,' she said. 'And it's precious little rest you will get there,'
said I, 'if it's rest you want?--What with the hard beds, and all the
prayers you have to say, and the popping out of bed, as soon as you
are asleep, to sing in the middle of the night, and those blessed
little bells going every three minutes and a half. There is no rest in
a convent, my dear.' But I might as well have talked to the wall.
"When I went to see her the next day, true enough, she declared that
she was more content already, and that her soul had found what it
yearned for--peace. She was quite calm, and sent you all messages to
say how she would pray for you and for the repose of the souls of
those you loved--Rupert, your rector and all--that they may reach
eternal bliss."
"God forbid!" exclaimed the pious Protestant, in horrified tones.
"God forbid?--You're a regular heathen, Sophia. Oh, I know what you
mean quite well. But would it not have been better for you to have
been praying for that poor fellow who never lived to marry you, all
these years, than to have been wasting your time weeping over spilt
milk? Tell me _that_, miss. Please to remember, too, that you could
not have come to be the heretic you are, if your great grandfather had
not been the time-server he was. Any how, you need not distress
yourself. I don't think Madeleine's prayers will do any one any harm,
even Rupert; though, honestly, I don't think they are likely to be of
much good in _that_ quarter. However, there, there, we won't discuss
the subject any more. Poor darling; so I left her. I declare I never
liked her so much as when I said good-bye, for I felt I'd never see
her again. And the Reverend Mother--oh! she is a very good, holy
woman--a Jerningham, and thus, you know, a connection of mine. She was
an heiress but chose the cloister. And I saw the buckles sable on a
memorial window in the chapel erected to another sister--also a
nun--they are a terribly pious family. I knew them at once, for they
are charges I also am entitled to bear, as you know, or, rather, don't
know, I presume; for you have all the haziest notion of what sort of
blood it is that runs in your veins. Well, as I said, she is a holy
woman! She tried to console me in her pious way. Oh, it was very
beautiful, of course:--bride of heaven and the rest of it. But I had
rather seen her the bride of a nice young man. Many is the time I have
wished I had not been so hasty about that poor young Smith. I don't
believe he _was_ purely Smith after all. He must have had some good
blood in his veins! Oh, of course, of course, he was dreadfully
wicked, I know; but he was a fine fellow, and all these complications
would have been avoided. But, after all, it was Rupert's fault if
everything ended in tragedy ... there, there, we won't speak another
word about your brother; we must leave him to the Lord--and," added
Miss O'Donoghue, piously under her breath, "if it's not the devil, He
is playing with him, it's a poor kind of justice up there!--Alas, my
poor Sophia, such is life. One only sees things in their true light
when they're gone into the darkness of the past. And now we must make
the best of the present, which, I regret to find, seems disposed to be
peculiarly uncomfortable. But I have done what I could, and now I owe
it myself to wash my hands of you and look after my own soul.--I'll
take no more journeys, at any rate, except to lay my bones at
Bunratty; if I live to reach it alive."