|THUS adjured, Madame de Castellan stepped forward to the same position
which Mary Forest had occupied at the foot of the bed: nowhere else
could Ralph see her, for he was on his back just as they had first laid
him, and could not turn his face a hairbreadth to left or right.
“Who _are_ you?” asked he bluntly. “I do not remember having seen your
face at Mirk.”
“They call me Madame de Castellan,” replied the old lady in good
English, “and I live here at Belcomb by favour of Sir Richard Lisgard.”
“Ah, you have reason, then, to be friends with him and his,” returned
the sick man bitterly. “You will none of you see me righted. Curse you
all!”
“I will not see you wronged, if I can help it, sir,” replied the
Frenchwoman solemnly, but keeping her eyes fixed always upon the floor.
“Will you not? Well, you have an honest face, I own; but faces are so
deceptive! Mistress Forest's face yonder, for instance, is pleasant
enough to look upon, but still she plays me false. Master Walter's
again--why, he seems to have robbed an angel of his smile, and yet he
is base-hearted like the rest; and, lastly, there was my Lucy--not mine
now--no, no; but what a sweet look was hers! And there was guile and
untruth for you! But that is what I have to tell you. You have said you
will not see me wronged, and I must believe you, since there is none
else to trust to here. Besides, you are too old to lie; you will be
called to your own account too soon to dare to palter with a dying man.
Yes, I am dying fast.--More brandy, doctor--brandy. Ah, that's life
itself!--And yet, although you are so old, Madame, I dare say you
remember your youthful days, when you were fair--for you _were_ fair, I
see--and courted. You were not without your lover, I warrant?”
“I was loved, sir,” returned Madame, in low but steadfast tones.
“And did you marry the man you loved?”
“I did, sir. My husband was very dear to me, God knows, though we did
not live long together.”
“He died young, did he?”
“Alas, yes, and I was left alone in the world without a friend or a
home.”
“His memory did not fade so quickly that you could love and marry
another man at once, I suppose?”
“His memory never faded,” replied the old lady gravely, “for it has not
faded now; but after an interval of three years, I married another man.”
“And loved him like the other?”
“No, sir; there is only one true love--at least for a woman. But I was
a dutiful wife for the second time; and there were children born to
me--three children--inexpressibly dear; and when I lost their father,
who loved me, though I could only give him grateful duty in return, I
had something to live for still.”
Whether the grief-laden tone of Madame touched him, or the sad story
she was telling, Ralph's accents seemed to lose something of their
bitterness when he again broke silence.
“But if, lady, your first husband and true lover had, by some wondrous
chance, returned, as it might be, from the very grave, and you were
satisfied that it was he indeed, and knew him, although he knew _you_
not, and he was living a bad life among bad company, with no one in all
the world to call him friend, would you not then have held your arms
out to him, and cried: 'Come back, come back!' and told him how you had
loved him all along?”
“No, sir; not so. If I had been alone, like him, with only my own
feelings to consult, I might, indeed, have so behaved; for my heart
would have yearned towards him, as it does, Heaven knows, even now. But,
sir, in such a case there would not only have been Love to be obeyed,
but Duty. If this man were living the wild life you speak of, would he
not have made a bad father to my poor children (left in my sole
charge and guardianship by a just and noble man), an evil ruler of a
well-ordered house, a bad example to all whom I would have had respect
him? Nay, worse, would not my acknowledgment of him--which I should
otherwise be eager to make, and willing to take upon myself the shame
that might accrue to _me_ therefrom--would not that, I say, have brought
disgrace on those who had earned it not--have made my own children,
lawfully begotten, as I had thought, all Bastards, and soiled the memory
of an honest man, their father?”
A long silence here ensued, broken only by the sick man's painful
breathing, and the sobs of Mistress Forest, who strove in vain to
restrain her tears.
“I thank you, Madame,” said Ralph very feebly: “you have been pleading
without knowing it for one who---- Do you see these tears? I did not
think to ever weep again. Either your gentle voice--reminding me of the
very woman of whom I had meant to speak so harshly--or perhaps it is
the near approach of death which numbs these fingers, that would else
be clutching for their revenge--I know not; but I now wish no one
harm.--Doctor, you must feed this flame once more; let me but speak a
very few words, and then I shall have no more use for Life.--Mary, good
wench, come here. You will shortly see again that mistress whom you love
so well, and have so honestly served. Tell her--- Nay, don't cry; I
do not need your tears to assure me that you feel for poor Ralph
Gavestone--castaway though he be. I heard your 'Thank God' when the
doctor said (though he was wrong there) that there was hope for me.
Those were very honest words, Mary.”
“I did not say them!” ejaculated the waiting-maid earnestly. “O Madame,
tell him who it was that said them.”
“It was _I_,” murmured Madame de Castellan, coming close to the bedside,
and kneeling down there.
“You, lady! Why should you pray so earnestly that I might live, whose
death would profit many, but whose recovery none?”
“Because I have wronged you, Ralph. Yes, _Ralph!_ You know me now. Do
not ask to see my patched and painted face again, because it is not
mine, but listen to my voice, which you remember. I am your own wife,
Lucy, and I love you, husband mine.”
“She loves me still,” murmured the dying man: “she owns herself my wife,
thank God, thank God!” The tears rolled down his cheeks, and over his
rough and ghastly face a mellow softness stole, like the last gleam of
sunset upon a rocky hill. Dr Haldane rose and noiselessly left the room,
beckoning Mary to follow. The dying husband and his wife were left to
hold their last interview alone.
“What I have been telling you, Ralph, as the history of another, is my
own. I have never forgotten you. I have loved you all along. Forgive me,
if I seem to have sacrificed you to--to those it was my duty to shield
from shame. I could not hear to see disgrace fall upon my children, and
so I fled from them, in hopes to save them from it. And yet I loved
them so that I could not altogether leave them, but took this cottage in
another name, and under this disguise, in order to be near them. *
* The author having been informed by a critical friend that
he has exposed himself to the charge of plagiarism, by
representing Lady Lisgard as thus assuming the character of
another person, begs to state--first, that he has never had
the opportunity of reading the powerful novel, East Lynn
(wherein, as he understands, a similar device is employed);
and secondly, that the idea of the metamorphosis is taken
from a short story (written by himself) which was published
in Chambers's Journal, under the title of “Change for Gold,”
so long ago as 1854.
O lover, husband, who saved my life at peril of his own, a mother's
heart was my excuse--be generous and noble as of old--forgive me!”
“Forgive you!” gasped the sick man: “nay, forgive _me!_ How could I ever
have sought to do you wrong! My own dear Lucy!” In an instant she had
plucked away so much of her disguise as was about her face and head, and
was leaning over him with loving eyes.
“How many years ago, wife, is it since you kissed me last?” murmured the
dying man. “My outward sight is growing very dim; I do not recognise
my Lucy's face, although I know 'tis she; but I see her quite clearly
sitting in the cottage-porch beside the shining river. How it roars
among the rounded stones, and how swiftly it is running to the sea!
Round my neck, love, you will presently find the little locket with that
dead sprig of fuchsia in it which you gave me when we plighted troth.
Let that he buried with me; I have had no love or care for sacred
things, but perhaps----They say that God is very merciful; and since He
sees into our inmost thoughts, He will know with what reverence I held
that simple gift, because it was your own, and you were His. I loved you
most, I swear, because you were so pure and good, Lucy. Ah me! I wonder,
in the world to come, if I or _he_”----
A piercing cry broke from my Lady's lips. “Spare me, Ralph--spare me!”
“Yes, yes. It was done for the best, I know. Don't fret, dear heart.
Of course you thought me Dead. For certain, I am dying now--fast, fast.
Thank God for that! It would have been a woeful thing, having thus found
my Own, to have left her straightway, and taken my lone way through the
world again, knowing the thing I know. But I would have done it, never
fear. Are you sure of those two, Lucy--that were here a while ago--quite
sure? My dying curse upon them, if they breathe to human ear our sacred
secret! They love you? That is well. I would have all the world to love
you; and may all those you love repay that priceless gift with tender
duty.” Here he paused, as if to gather together his little remaining
strength; and when he spoke again, it was with a voice so low that my
Lady had to place her ear quite close to his pale lips to catch his
words. But she did hear them, every one. “The prayers of a man like me
may avail nothing, Lucy, but at least they can do no harm. God bless Sir
Richard--yes, yes! God bless Master Walter's handsome face! God bless
Miss Letty! That's what I said on Christmas-eve with Steve and the rest
of them, not knowing whom I spoke of, and I say it now, for are they not
my Lucy's dear ones! God bless _you_, my dear wife. Kiss--kiss.”
Those were the last words of wild Ralph Gavestone. When the doctor and
Mistress Forest re-entered that silent room, my Lady was upon her knees
beside the pillow; she had closed the dead man's eyes, and folded his
palms together, and taken from his neck the locket, but to be returned
to him by a trusty hand when the time came.