ALICE PASCAL.
Alice Pascal looked up into Jean Merle's face with the frank and easy
self-possession of a well-bred English woman; coloring a little with
girlish shyness, yet at the same time smiling with a pleasant light in
her dark eyes. The oval of her face, and the color of her hair and eyes,
resembled, though slightly, the more beautiful face of Felicita in her
girlhood; it was simply the curious likeness which runs through some
families to the remotest branches. But her smile, the shape of her eyes,
the kneeling attitude, riveted him to the spot where he stood, and
struck him dumb. A fancy flashed across his brain, which shone like a
light from heaven. Could this girl be Hilda, his little daughter, whom
he had seen last sleeping in her cot? Was she then come, after many
years, to visit her father's grave?
There had always been a corroding grief to him in the thought that it
was Felicita herself who had erected that cross over the tomb of the
stranger, with whom his name was buried. He did not know that it was Mr.
Clifford alone who had thus set a mark upon the place where he believed
that the son of his old friend was lying. It had pained Jean Merle to
think that Felicita had commemorated their mutual sin by the erection
of an imperishable monument; and it had never surprised him that no one
had visited the grave. His astonishment came now. Was it possible that
Felicita had revisited Switzerland? Could she be near at hand, in the
village down yonder? His mother, also, and his boy, Felix, could they be
treading the same soil, and breathing the same air as himself? An agony
of mingled terror and rapture shot through his inmost soul. His lips
were dry, and his throat parched: he could not articulate a syllable.
He did not know what a gaunt and haggard madman he appeared. His grey
hair was ragged and tangled, and his sunken eyes gleamed with a strange
brightness. The villagers, who were wont at times to call him an
imbecile, would have been sure they were right at this moment, as he
stood motionless and dumb, staring at Alice; but to her he looked more
like one whose reason was just trembling in the balance. She was alone,
her father was no longer in sight; but she was not easily frightened.
Rather a sense of sacred pity for the forlorn wretch before her filled
her heart.
"See!" she said, in clear and penetrating accents, full, however, of
gentle kindness, and she spoke unconsciously in English, "see! I have
carried this little slip of ivy all the way from England to plant it
here. This is the grave of a man I should have loved very dearly."
A rapid flush of color passed over her face as she spoke, leaving it
paler than before, while a slight sadness clouded the smile in her eyes.
"Was he your father?" he articulated, with an immense effort.
"No," she answered; "not my father, but the father of my dearest
friends. They cannot come here; but it was his son who gathered this
slip of ivy from our porch at home, and asked me to plant it here for
him. Will it grow, do you think?"
"It shall grow," he muttered.
It was not his daughter, then; none of his own blood was at hand. But
this English girl fascinated him; he could not turn away his eyes, but
watched every slight movement as she carefully gathered the soil about
the root of the little plant, which he vowed within himself should
grow. She was rather long about her task, for she wished this madman to
go away, and leave her alone beside Roland Sefton's grave. What her
father had told her about him was still strange to her, and she wanted
to familiarize it to herself. But still the haggard-looking peasant
lingered at her side, gazing at her with his glowering and sunken eyes;
yet neither moving nor speaking.
"You know English?" she said, as all at once it occurred to her that she
had spoken to him as she would have spoken to one of the villagers in
their own country churchyard at home, and that he had answered her. He
replied only by a gesture.
"Can you find me some one who will take charge of this little plant?"
she asked.
Jean Merle raised his head and lifted up his dim eyes to the eastern
mountain-peaks, which were still shining in the rays of the sinking sun,
though the twilight was darkening everywhere in the valley. Only last
night he had slept among some juniper-bushes just below the boundary of
that everlasting snow, feeling himself cast out forever from any glimpse
of his old Paradise. But now, if he could only find words and
utterance, there was come to him, even to him, a messenger, an angel
direct from the very heart of his home, who could tell him all that last
night he believed that he should never know. The tears sprang to his
eyes, blessed tears; and a rush of uncontrollable longing overwhelmed
him. He must hear all he could of those whom he loved; and then, whether
he lived long or died soon, he would thank God as long as his miserable
life continued.
"It is I who take care of this grave," he said; "I was with him when he
died. He spoke to me of Felix and Hilda and his mother; and I saw their
portraits. You hear? I know them all."
"Was it you who watched beside him?" asked Alice eagerly. "Oh! sit down
here and tell me all about it; all you can remember. I will tell it all
again to Felix, and Hilda, and Phebe Marlowe; and oh! how glad, and how
sorry they will be to listen!"
There was no mention of Felicita's name, and Jean Merle felt a terrible
dread come over him at this omission. He sank down on the ground beside
the grave, and looked up into Alice's bright young face, with eyes that
to her were no longer lit up with the fire of insanity, however intense
and eager they might seem. It was an undreamed-of chance which had
brought to her side the man who had watched by the death-bed of Felix's
father.
"Tell me all you remember," she urged.
"I remember nothing," he answered, pressing his dark hard hand against
his forehead, "it is more than thirteen years ago. But he showed to me
their portraits. Is his wife still living?"
"Oh, yes!" she answered, "but she will not let either of them come to
Switzerland; neither Felix nor Hilda. Nobody speaks of this country in
her hearing; and his name is never uttered. But his mother used to talk
to us about him; and Phebe Marlowe does so still. She has painted a
portrait of him for Felix."
"Is Roland Sefton's mother yet alive?" he asked, with a dull, aching
foreboding of her reply.
"No," she said. "Oh! how we all loved dear old Madame Sefton! She was
always more like Felix and Hilda's mother than Cousin Felicita was. We
loved her more a hundred times than Cousin Felicita, for we are afraid
of her. It was her husband's death that spoiled her whole life and set
her quite apart from everybody else. But Madame--she was not made so
utterly miserable by it; she knew she would meet her son again in
heaven. When she was dying she said to Cousin Felicita, 'He did not
return to me, but I go to him; I go gladly to see again my dear son.'
The very last words they heard her say were, 'I come, Roland!'"
Alice's voice trembled, and she laid her hand caressingly on the name of
Roland Sefton graved on the cross above her. Jean Merle listened, as if
he heard the words whispered a long way off, or as by some one speaking
in a dream. The meaning had not reached his brain, but was travelling
slowly to it, and would surely pierce his heart with a new sorrow and a
fresh pang of remorse. The loud chanting of the monks in the abbey close
by broke in upon their solemn silence, and awoke Alice from the reverie
into which she had fallen.
"Can you tell me nothing about him?" she asked. "Talk to me as if I was
his child."
"I have nothing to tell you," answered Jean Merle. "I remember nothing
he said."
She looked down on the poor ragged peasant at her feet, with his gaunt
and scarred features, and his slowly articulated speech. There seemed
nothing strange in such a man not being able to recall Roland Sefton's
dying words. It was probable that he barely understood them; and most
likely he could not gather up the meaning of what she herself was
saying. The few words he uttered were English, but they were very few
and forced.
"I am sorry," she said gently, "but I will tell them you promised to
take care of the ivy I have planted here."
She wished the dull, gray-headed villager would go home, and leave her
alone for awhile in this solemn and sacred place; but he crouched still
on the ground, stirring neither hand nor foot. When at last she moved as
if to go away, he stretched out a toil-worn hand, and laid it on her
dress.
"Stay," he said, "tell me more about Roland Sefton's children; I will
think of it when I am tending this grave."
"What am I to tell you?" she asked gently, "Hilda is three years younger
than me, and people say we are like sisters. She and Felix were brought
up with me and my brothers in my father's house; we were like brothers
and sisters. And Felix is like another son to my father, who says he
will be both good and great some day. Good he is now; as good as man can
be."
"And you love him!" said Jean Merle, in a low and humble voice, with his
head turned away from her, and resting on the lowest step of the cross.
Alice started and trembled as she looked down on the grave and the
prostrate man. It seemed to her as if the words had almost come out of
this sad, and solitary, and forsaken grave, where Roland Sefton had lain
unvisited so many years. The last gleam of daylight had vanished from
the snowy peaks, leaving them wan and pallid as the dead. A sudden chill
came into the evening air which made her shiver; but she was not
terrified, though she felt a certain bewilderment and agitation creeping
through her. She could not resist the impulse to answer the strange
question.
"Yes, I love Felix," she said simply. "We love each other dearly."
"God bless you!" cried Jean Merle, in a tremulous voice. "God in heaven
bless you both, and preserve you to each other."
He had lifted himself up, and was kneeling before her, eagerly scanning
her face, as if to impress it on his memory. He bent down his gray head
and kissed her hand humbly and reverently, touching it only with his
lips. Then starting to his feet he hastened away from the cemetery, and
was soon lost to her sight in the gathering gloom of the dusk.
For a little while longer Alice lingered at the grave, thinking over
what had passed. It was not much as she recalled it, but it left her
agitated and disturbed. Yet after all she had only uttered aloud what
her heart would have said at the grave of Felix's father. But this
strange peasant, so miserable and poverty-stricken, so haggard and
hopeless-looking, haunted her thoughts both waking and sleeping. Early
the next morning she and Canon Pascal went to the hovel inhabited by
Jean Merle, but found it deserted and locked up. Some laborers had seen
him start off at daybreak up the Trübsee Alps, from which he might be
either ascending the Titlis or taking the route to the Joch-Pass. There
was no chance of his return that day, and Jean Merle's absence might
last for several days, as he was eccentric, and bestowed his confidence
on nobody. There was little more to be learned of him, except that he
was a heretic, a stranger, and a miser. Canon Pascal and Alice visited
once more Roland Sefton's grave, and then they went on their way over
the Joch-Pass, with some faint hopes of meeting with Jean Merle on their
route, hopes that were not fulfilled.