The night was a winter’s night--long and dark. Stapylton sat down in his
solitary room, and tried to think. He would let her alone, was his first
thought; he would leave her at peace. No doubt she had gone away to the
baby who was her idol. She must have told him a lie when she said it was
gone. But he would leave her to herself: he had plenty to think of,
Heaven knew. ‘It was not I that killed him,’ he said to himself, as he
had said a thousand times before. Oh, the intolerable night! so silent,
so full of horrible suggestions; and that aching void into which all in
a moment any horror might spring. He took up his candle, in his misery,
and went wandering all over the house, trying every door. He went to the
door of the room in which the servants had locked themselves, and heard
them rustling in their beds, and whispering to each other in their
panic; and he went to another door from which came no sound--‘Isabel,
Isabel, come back to me!’ he said, and a sigh seemed to breathe through
the house, but no answer came. He wanted her not so much to return to
him and resume the common life, as to come and protect him at that awful
moment, to keep spirits and appearances away from him. He had hours of
darkness to get through, and how was he to live through them by himself?
It was this panic that made him try the doors; but it sent a deeper
panic into the hearts of the three women who listened to his movements
in the silence. Isabel, alone in the room where her child had been,
believed in her heart that he had come to kill her, as he said, and
wound herself up in her misery to bear whatever she might be compelled
to bear; and yet trembled and wept, in a stillness as of death.
For seven or eight awful hours of darkness this torture continued. No
one closed an eye in the agitated house; and yet, save when Stapylton
went or came, a horrible silence reigned in it, unbroken by any
complaint or appeal for help. It was not daylight at last which aroused
her from that century-long vigil--daylight did not come till about eight
o’clock, when the morning was far advanced. It was the first sound of
early life outside, which came like a voice from Heaven to Isabel. When
she heard it she rose up softly from the cramped position she had
maintained all night, thrust up into the corner, and very quietly, with
trembling hands and heart, utterly unnerved by the horrors of the night,
prepared to make her escape. She could bear it no longer. She had faced
the man who had threatened to kill her, with dauntless resolution, on
the previous night, feeling almost that such a conclusion would be as
desirable as any other. But the night had taken away all her courage and
force. She trembled like a leaf and could not command herself. Before
her, like a vision of Heaven, appeared that little room at the Glebe,
where her child no doubt was sleeping. If she could but reach that
palace of peace! Stealthily, that no sound might betray her, she bathed
her hot forehead, and put up her hair, and drew her cloak round her. It
was more difficult to open the door without noise, and steal down the
stairs, which creaked under her, soft as her steps were. When she
stepped out at last into the darkness, which was no longer night but
morning, and felt the chill air on her face, and heard behind her sounds
of the early world beginning to stir, a certain excitement of hope rose
in Isabel’s mind. She thought she had escaped.
But her husband had heard her movements, soft as they were. He was fully
dressed as he had been on the previous evening, and, like her, feverish
with passion and want of sleep. He took out a pistol from the box in
which it reposed beside his desk. The pistol was old-fashioned as well
as the desk, and he had been in the habit of calling the weapons
curiosities. He charged it hurriedly in the dark, not knowing what he
did, and put it in the breast-pocket of his coat, and rushed out after
his wife into the rain and wind.
She was half way up the lower slope towards the Loch Diarmid road, when
she heard his step behind her, and felt, with a sudden leap of all her
pulses, that not yet--not yet, had she escaped her fate. It was no
surprise to her when he came up and laid his hand on her shoulder: the
first far-off sound of his step had made it evident to her that there
was still a struggle to come.
‘You are flying from me,’ he said to her, breathless. ‘Do you think I
will let you escape from me like this without another word?’
‘I was not thinking of escape,’ said Isabel, faltering. ‘I could not
bear it longer. I could not bear it. That was all.’
‘And yet you think I am to bear it,’ he said, making a clutch at her
arm. ‘False accusations and abuse and scorn, and desertion, and all
your hard words and contempt of me. You think I am to bear it all!’
‘Alas!’ she said, ‘when did I ever show contempt of you? But, oh! let me
go. What can we do but weary each other with vain words? If we had
quarrelled we might talk and talk and mend it. But that which is between
us is beyond help. Let me go.’
‘No, by God!’ he cried, holding her fast, ‘after the price I have paid
for you. No! What is to hinder me from killing you as you say I
did--_him_? I will not be left alone to think. You shall stay with me
and share with me, or by God, I will make an end of you!’
Isabel felt that her last hour was come. It was so dark that she could
with difficulty see his face. There was silence and blackness round
them--not a human creature from whom to ask help--and if there had been
a thousand, she would have asked help from none.
‘It must be as you will,’ she said, with the sudden calm of despair--‘as
you will!’ and waited, wondering, would it be a knife or a bullet, or
the more horrible agony of his hands and blows--his hands, which had
embraced her so often--at her throat? She closed her eyes instinctively,
as if the darkness was not enough, and stood waiting, waiting for the
touch of the death, which was so near.
‘And you have not a word to say for yourself,’ he said, his breath
burning her cheek. ‘Not a word? Have you nothing to offer me for your
life?’
The bitterness of death was upon her; his grasp upon her shoulder was
like iron. ‘Let it be quick!’ she said, with a shudder. ‘Maybe it’s best
so--maybe it’s best.’
‘And that is all?’
‘Oh! do it and be done,’ she cried, falling at his feet, ‘or leave me
living for your own sake--for your sake. Is my life worth struggling for
_now_? but for yourself let me be----’
‘Is that all?’ he said again. And then drew something from his breast,
and a cold mouth of iron touched Isabel’s cheek. An involuntary cry
burst from her by instinct. Now it had come. Suddenly she heard a
report, and started aside from the sudden flash in the darkness, and
fell back, but not wounded. She had been so sure of death that her
safety threw her into a convulsive fit of horror and fear; there was an
awful moment in which she could not tell what had happened, if it was
her who was killed or anyone. Then there was a movement, a swing of his
arm--his dark shadow was still standing beside her--and the pistol was
thrown high ever her head, and went dashing down over the rocks, into
the black invisible Loch, which raged and beat upon the unseen shore.
‘Isabel,’ he said, ‘give me a kiss before we part.’
Oh, awful darkness that enclosed them round and round! Oh, awful
nearness and separation! Her heart melted and sunk within her at that
last prayer.
‘Oh, Horace, let me die!’
She would have fallen, but for his arms round her; but even at that
supreme moment he did not know why she would rather have died than have
been thus enveloped for the last time in his embrace. The melting of her
heart, the old love rising up within her like a giant, the struggle of
faithful nature which could die, but could not forsake and abandon,
wrung Isabel’s whole being, body and soul. But not his; he kissed her,
and he let her go. He stood for a moment in the darkness before her, and
then he turned and went away.
It was all over. She called after him faintly, ‘Horace!’ in a voice
swallowed by the wind, and sank down on the cold ground, prostrate,
covering her face with her hands. She could hear his steps going down
the hill and count them, each echoing on her heart. It was all over.
Death, and danger, and love, and strife, and happiness, had all departed
from her.
It was nearly noon before Isabel, stumbling at every step, reached the
Glebe Cottage, the aim she had been vaguely struggling to--was it for
hours or days? She went in with her haggard face, so changed and drawn
with suffering, that Jean gave a cry of terror, and did not know her.
She had not even a smile for her child, nor any interest in her. ‘Let me
rest! Let me rest!’ was all she could say. Jean put the baby down on the
carpet in the parlour, and gave all her care to the young mother thus
come back to her for pity and consolation. ‘Ye’ve been caught in the
storm, my lamb!’ she said, tenderly. But Isabel gave no explanation. She
suffered herself to be undressed and laid in her own room--the little
chamber she had occupied for the greater part of her life. Nothing but a
murmur of thanks, or a sudden shudder, or a sigh, came from her as her
stepmother tended and caressed her. When Jean questioned her, she shook
her head and made no answer. The good woman was driven to her wits’ end.
To her limited perceptions it was apparent that there had been a quarrel
between the husband and wife about little Margaret; that Isabel, after
leaving her child in safety the previous night, had come back again to
see her, and had been caught in the storm, and that at ‘any moment’
Stapylton himself might appear to claim the runaway. ‘He never could
think she would take it to heart like this,’ Jean said to herself. But
the strangest thing was, that Isabel took no notice of the baby after
suffering so much for her. When Jean could bear the mystery and
responsibility no longer, she sent a mysterious message to Miss
Catherine: ‘My mother says, if you ever cared for our Isabel, you’re to
come now, and lose no time,’ said little Mary, who was the messenger and
in whose hands the mystery lost none of its power. ‘Lord bless me, is
your mother mad?’ was Miss Catherine’s forcibly reply. But
notwithstanding, she made haste to get her great waterproof cloak and
her umbrella, and set out as soon as there was a pause in the rain to
ascertain what grounds there might be for so strange an appeal.
‘There is nae love lost between him and me,’ Jean explained, when Miss
Catherine had been introduced into Isabel’s room, and had looked
horror-stricken at the change in her face, without, so far as they could
see, being recognised by the sufferer. ‘But I couldna bear to expose the
family; what am I to say to the doctor, if I send for him? When a woman
is as ill as that, she should be in her ain house.’
‘Say!’ said Miss Catherine. ‘It may be life or death--let him see her
first, and tell us what is to be done, and then we will think what to
say. Let Jamie go at once--if I am not mistaken there is more here than
meets the eye.’
‘I kent they never would ‘gree about that wean,’ said Jean, with her
apron to her eyes. ‘Eh, the darling, that I should speak of her so; I ay
said there would be dispeace about wee Margaret. It would have been
better to have left her with me.’
‘If there had not been dispeace about that, it would have been something
else,’ said Miss Catherine; ‘nothing good could have come out of
it--nothing good was possible--it was what we all said.’
‘She was well warned,’ said Jean, ‘if onything could be a comfort to
remember at sic a time; but, poor thing, it must never be cast up to her
now.’
‘And where is her man?’ said Miss Catherine.
This question was repeated over and over again in many a tone of wonder
ere many hours had passed. The fact that he did not come to inquire
after her all that evening, that no search whatever was made, but the
runaway wife suffered to sink into her old home without protestation or
appeal, bewildered everybody about. The doctor, and Jean Campbell, and
Jenny Spence, and by degrees all the village, and even the parish, grew
aghast with wonder. A quarrel about the child was a comprehensible
thing, and was received by everybody with many shakings of the head, and
declarations of their own foresight. ‘I ay kent how it would be,’ said
one after another, and for the first moment it would be vain to say that
it was anything less than a sensation of triumph that burst upon the
Loch. But when the husband did not appear to make friends, and when it
began to be rumoured about the parish that ‘bonnie Isabel’ was lying ill
in a fever, altogether alone and deserted by the man for whom she had
separated herself from her home and her friends, pity began to take the
place of this self-gratulation. This was carrying matters too far. The
next day in the afternoon Nelly Spence came over the hill carrying her
own bundle and little Margaret’s, and with a scared and agitated face.
Her story ran like wildfire round the Loch. She told the tale of the
first night of terror till the gossips’ hair stood on end. She told of
the exit of both parties in the early morning, of Stapylton’s
re-entrance, of his commands to them to keep quiet and wait for their
mistress’s return--commands which woke in their minds the frantic
thought that he had thrown her into the Loch in the darkness, and that
she never would come back. They had been too much frightened, however,
by Stapylton’s presence and looks to do more than make furtive little
excursions round the house, and furtive questions to the neighbours,
none of whom had seen Isabel. He had taken his meals as usual, cursing
Nelly’s ‘neebor’ for her bad cookery, and had occupied himself packing
all the day long; and at night he had gone away, neither of the
terrified women having strength of mind to stop or to interrogate him.
It was too late after his departure to take any further steps. They sat
up half the night in their terror, still thinking it possible that
Isabel might return. That morning they had roused the village and made
all sorts of frantic searches for her, and at last had ascertained that
she had been seen on her way to the Glebe. Such was the story which
Nelly told with unbounded fullness of detail. It left the public in more
profound ignorance and wilder wonder than before. He had gone away
taking everything with him; he had not even asked for her before his
departure, and she was too ill to afford any explanations.
It was when Isabel was just beginning to wake into faint gleams of
returning life that the visit was paid her which made so much commotion
on the Loch. Everybody had learned by this time that Stapylton had
‘taken it upon him’ to refuse permission to his wife to visit Ailie at
Ardnamore. And when Ailie, herself pale as a spirit and so weak that she
had to be lifted out of the carriage, passed through the village on her
way to the Glebe, the whole population stirred with a hope that now at
last the explanation was to come. The cottage was unusually full at the
time, of nurses and attendants. Miss Catherine herself rarely left the
little parlour where she waited the chances of Isabel’s strange
disorder; and Nelly Spence was in charge of little Margaret, and her
mother came and went helping Jean to attend upon the patient. It was
thus into a little community, with all grades represented, that Ailie
came leaning on her mother’s arm. She was worn to a shadow, and so weak
that she could scarcely keep upright; over her white dress she wore a
large veil of black crape, for she was now a widow. Her appearance was
not less extraordinary than before, but her visionary eyes had lost
their wildness, and a softened expression had come over her face.
‘I am dying myself,’ she said to Miss Catherine, ‘and I would fain see
Isabel before I go. Ye needna fear me now. I would like to tell her just
that I’m reconciled in my mind. She has seen my sore trouble. No, I’ll
say nothing to disturb her; I’m dying myself, as you may see.’
‘Hoot no, my bonnie woman! hoot no!’ said her mother who supported her;
‘when the bonnie weather comes, and you get your feet on the May
gowans--ye see, Miss Catherine, it’s a’ the grief and trouble she’s had,
and poor Ardnamore taken from us so sudden at the last.’
But to Miss Catherine there was nothing sublime in the spectacle of the
dauntless old woman supporting on her arm the dying creature who ought
to have been the support of her old age, and facing the world
courageously with her pathetic fictions to the last. To her, Janet was
no champion-mother, but a worldly old woman, bent upon elevating the
social position of her child. ‘I am not afraid of you, Ailie,’ said Miss
Catherine, ‘why should I be? Isabel, poor thing! has her reason, though
she’s weak. Sit down, and I’ll ask if she can see you. You are far from
strong yourself.’
‘I am dying,’ said Ailie, softly, with a smile which lit up her face.
‘Eh, and when I think upon Margaret! She will be _my_ sister where I’m
going. Tell Isabel that. Life has been a burden and a trouble, though I
thought it was so good. Tell Isabel. It has been hard on her, too.’
‘Oh, how hard!’ Miss Catherine said to herself, with an involuntary
tear, as she went into the inner room. ‘Two young creatures, still so
young, one overwhelmed in the conflict, and about to die and escape from
it; the other fated, perhaps, to remain and live and bear the scars and
the brand of it for years. Was it not well with Margaret, who, of all
the penalties of living, had only death to bear? The old lady bent over
Isabel in her bed, and kissed her forehead with unusual emotion. ‘Can
you see Ailie, my dear?’ she asked, and a little gleam of eagerness came
into the sufferer’s eyes. Miss Catherine ushered the visitors into the
room, but would not stay to listen to the strange conversation that
passed between them. It was not that she was wanting in curiosity, but
that the pity of it was too much for even her strong nerves. She
returned to the parlour with a flood of impatient tears coming to her
eyes. They had been to blame. Ailie had married for--what? This severe
judge said for ambition--a man incomprehensible to her, whom she did
not, and could not love, and who sought her only in the madness of
disappointment and grief. Such was the common-sense view of the matter,
and the end was, as might have been expected, misery and despair. And
Isabel; Isabel had done worse than Ailie. She had sinned against her
womanhood--her dead husband, her living child. She had loved, she had
taken her own way, and misery was the result. Miss Catherine, looking
back into her own experience, could remember a time when she too had
wanted her own way, and had given it up proudly, and sacrificed her
heart. Was she the better for it? This long calm of hers, or Isabel’s
brief fever--which was the least like that vision of joy and strength
which the imagination calls life? A few hot tears fell from her old
eyes. It was hard to pronounce any judgment, even now.
Ailie tottered to Isabel’s bedside, supported by her mother’s arm.
‘Since you canna come to me, I have come to you,’ she said. ‘Isabel,
I’ve come to tell ye I am reconciled in my mind. He sent me over word
before he died that _yon_ was no message from the Lord; it was his own
mad will, and no my God that said it. We’ve sinned, and we’re punished;
but His word stands fast. Eh, but I’m content!’
‘Oh, Ailie,’ said Isabel, looking wistfully from the bed, ‘I cannot
follow what you say.’
‘Never mind, it will come back some time,’ said Ailie; ‘and I’m come to
bless you, Isabel Diarmid. I was uplifted in my mind, and deceived
myself, but you, a simple lass, spoke the truth. Ye were right when ye
bid me not to wed, and ye were right when ye bid me say farewell to him
that came back nae mair. He perished with the sword, as I said; and now
I’m going after him, and to Margaret. Margaret will be _my_ sister. O
Isabel, rouse up in your mind! Give me a word to say to Margaret; I’m
going to her now.’
The tears came in a flood to Isabel’s eyes. All this time they had
burned with fever, neither sleep nor tears coming to refresh them. ‘O my
Margaret!’ she cried; and then Jean interposed in terror, not aware how
great a relief to the patient’s brain was this outburst of tears.
‘She canna bear it,’ said Jean. ‘O Ailie, my woman, come away.’
‘Jean,’ said old Janet, fiercely turning upon her, ‘that’s no a way to
speak to Mrs. Diarmid of Ardnamore.’
Thus the tragic and the trifling met together as everywhere. Ailie took
no notice of either. She stooped over the bed, and kissed, as she had
never done before, the face of the woman who had been so strangely
connected with her life.
‘I’ll tell her a’ you say,’ she cried; ‘I’ll carry her a’ the love in
your heart; and the Lord bless you, Isabel. You’re no like her, and
you’re not like me, but the like of you is best for this life.’
‘O Ailie, my bonnie woman,’ cried Jean, unmoved by the mother’s
remonstrances, in the height of her own anxiety, ‘she canna bear it;
come away!’
‘Life’s an awfu’ riddle--an awfu’ riddle,’ said Ailie, ‘and her and me
we’ve guessed wrong; but the Lord will set a’ right.’
These were Ailie’s last words so far as concerned the inmates of the
Glebe. When she died, some time after, her death-bed ejaculations became
the property of the parish, and were repeated far and wide, and finally
made into a book. It was said that the power returned to her at the
last, and that she prophesied and ended her existence in a blaze of
spiritual triumph. These last utterances of exulting faith were heard by
many, and could not be gainsaid. But this was the end and sum of her
testimony so far as concerned Isabel and her own life.