THE SKELETON.
The death of the marquis took place in December, long before which time
the second marquis of Worcester, ever busy in the king's affairs, and
unable to show himself with safety in England, or there be useful, had
gone from Ireland to Paris.
As the country was now a good deal quieter, and there was nothing to
detain her in London, and much to draw her to Wyfern, Dorothy resolved
to go home, and there, if possible, remain. Indeed, there was now
nothing else she could well do, except visit Mr. Herbert at Llangattock.
But much as she revered and loved the old man, and would have enjoyed
his company, she felt now such a longing for activity, that she must go
and look after her affairs. What with the words of the good marquis and
her own late experiences and conflicts, Dorothy had gained much
enlightenment. She had learned that well-being is a condition of inward
calm, resting upon yet deeper harmonies of being, and resulting in
serene activity, the prevention of which natural result reacts in
perturbation and confusion of thought and feeling. But for many sakes
the thought of home was in itself precious and enticing to her. It was
full of clear memories of her mother, and vague memories of her father,
not to mention memories of the childhood Richard and she had spent
together, from which the late mists had begun to rise, and reveal them
sparkling with dew and sunshine. As soon, therefore, as marquis Henry
had gone to countess Anne, Dorothy took her leave, with many kind words
between, of the ladies Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary, and set out, attended
by her old bailiff and some of the men of her small tenantry, who having
fought the king's battle in vain, had gone home again to fight their
own.
At Wyfern she found everything in rigid order, almost cataleptic repose.
How was it ever to be home again? What new thing could restore the
homefulness where the revered over-life had vanished? And how shall the
world be warmed and brightened to him who knows no greater or better man
than himself therein--no more skilful workman, no diviner thinker, no
more godlike doer than himself? And what can the universe have in it of
home, of country, nay even of world, to him who cannot believe in a soul
of souls, a heart of hearts? I should fall out with the very beating of
the heart within my bosom, did I not believe it the pulse of the
infinite heart, for how else should it be heart of MINE? I made it not,
and any moment it may SEEM to fail me, yet never, if it be what I think
it, can it betray me. It is no wonder then, that, with only memories of
what had been to render it lovely in her eyes, Dorothy should have soon
begun to feel the place lonely.
The very next morning after her rather late arrival, she sent to saddle
Dick once more, called Marquis, and with no other attendant, set out to
see what they had done to dear old Raglan. Marquis had been chained up
almost all the time they were in London, and freedom is blessed even to
a dog: Dick was ever joyful under his mistress, and now was merry with
the keen invigorating air of a frosty December morning, and frolicsome
amidst the early snow, which lay unusually thick on the ground,
notwithstanding his hundred and twenty miles' ride, for they had taken
nearly a week to do it; so that between them they soon raised Dorothy's
spirits also, and she turned to her hopes, and grew cheerful.
This mood made her the less prepared to encounter the change that
awaited her. What a change it was! While she approached, what with the
trees left, and the towers, the rampart, and the outer shell of the
courts--little injured to the distant eye, she had not an idea of the
devastation within. But when she rode through one entrance after another
with the gates torn from their hinges, crossed the moat by a mound of
earth instead of the drawbridge, and rode through the open gateway,
where the portcullises were wedged up in their grooves and their chains
gone, into the paved court, she beheld a desolation, at sight of which
her heart seemed to stand still in her bosom. The rugged horror of the
heaps of ruins was indeed softly covered with snow, but what this took
from the desolation in harshness, it added in coldness and desertion and
hopelessness. She felt like one who looks for the corpse of his friend,
and finds but his skeleton.
The broken bones of the house projected gaunt and ragged. Its eyes
returned no shine--they did not even stare, for not a pane of glass was
left in a window: they were but eye-holes, black and blank with shadow
and no-ness. The roofs were gone--all but that of the great hall, which
they had not dared to touch. She climbed the grand staircase, open to
the wind and slippery with ice, and reached her own room. Snow lay on
the floor, which had swollen and burst upwards with November rains.
Through room after room she wandered with a sense of loneliness and
desolation and desertion such as never before had she known, even in her
worst dreams. Yet was there to her, in the midst of her sorrow and loss,
a strange fascination in the scene. Such a hive of burning human life
now cold and silent! Even Marquis appeared aware of the change, for with
tucked-in tail he went about sadly sniffing, and gazing up and down.
Once indeed, and only once, he turned his face to the heavens, and gave
a strange protesting howl, which made Dorothy weep, and a little
relieved her oppressed heart.
She would go and see the workshop. On the way, she would first visit the
turret chamber. But so strangely had destruction altered the look of
what it had spared, that it was with difficulty she recognised the doors
and ways of the house she had once known so well. Here was a great hole
to the shining snow where once had been a dark corner; there a heap of
stones where once had been a carpeted corridor. All the human look of
indwelling had past away. Where she had been used to go about as if by
instinct, she had now to fall back upon memory, and call up again, with
an effort sometimes painful in its difficulty, that which had vanished
altogether except from the minds of its scattered household.
She found the door of the turret chamber, but that was all she found:
the chamber was gone. Nothing was there but the blank gap in the wall,
and beyond it, far down, the nearly empty moat of the tower. She turned,
frightened and sick at heart, and made her way to the bridge. That still
stood, but the drawbridge above was gone.
She crossed the moat and entered the workshop. A single glance took in
all that was left of the keep. Not a floor was between her and the sky!
The reservoir, great as a little mountain-tarn, had vanished utterly!
All was cleared out; and the white wintry clouds were sailing over her
head. Nearly a third part of the walls had been brought within a few
feet of the ground. The furnace was gone--all but its mason-work. It was
like the change of centuries rather than months. The castle had
half-melted away. Its idea was blotted out, save from the human spirit.
She turned from the workshop, in positive pain of body at the sight, and
wandered she hardly knew whither, till she found herself in lady
Glamorgan's parlour. There was left a single broken chair: she sat down
on it, closed her eyes, and laid back her head.
She opened them with a slight start: there stood Richard a yard or two
away.
He had heard of her return, and gone at once to Wyfern. There learning
whither she had betaken herself, he had followed, and tracking what of
her footsteps he could discover, had at length found her.