EURYDICE.
In the hall again, seated in the window, is Urith. The window is planted
high in the wall, so high, that to look out at it a sort of dais must be
ascended, consisting of a step. On this dais is an ancient Tudor chair,
high in the seat, as was usual with such chairs, made when floors were
of slate and were rush-strewn, calculated to keep the feet above the
stone, resting on a stool. Thus, elevated two steps above the floor, to
whit, on the dais and the footstool, sat Urith as an enthroned queen,
but a queen most forlorn, deadly pale, with sunken eyes that had become
so large as to seem to fill her entire face, which remained entirely
impassive, self-absorbed.
She made no allusion to Anthony; after he had withdrawn, she forgot that
she had seen him. His presence when before her rendered her uneasy, so
that, out of pity for her distress, he removed, when at once she sank
back into the condition which had become fixed. But Anthony was again in
the hall on this occasion, resolved again to try to draw her from her
lethargy.
She sat uptilted in her chair, trifling with a broken token. She was
swinging it like a pendulum before her, and to do this she leaned
forward that the ribbon might hang free of her bosom. Though her eyes
rested on the half-disc, its movement did not seem to interest her, and
yet she never suffered the sway entirely to cease. So soon as the
vibration became imperceptible, she put a finger to the coin and set it
swinging once more.
Anthony had seated himself on the dais step, and looked up into her
face, and, as he looked, recalled how he had gazed in that same face on
Devil Tor, when he had carried her through the fire. An infinite
yearning and tenderness came on him. His heart swelled, and he said low,
but distinct, with a quiver in his voice----
"Urith!"
She slowly turned her head, fixed her eyes on him, and said, "Aye."
"Urith! Do you not know me?"
She had averted her head again. Slowly, mechanically, she again turned
her face to him, seemed to be gathering her thoughts, and then said:
"You are like Anthony. But you are not he. I cannot tell who you are."
"I am your Anthony!"
He caught her elbow to draw her hand to him, to kiss it, but she started
at the touch, shivered to her very feet, so as to rattle the stool under
them, plucked her arm from him, and said quickly:
"Do not touch me. I will not be touched."
He heaved a long breath, and put his hand to his head.
"How can you forget me, Urith? Do you not recall how I had you in my
arms, and leaped with you through the fire, on Devil Tor?"
"I was carried by him--he is dead--not by you." She looked steadily at
him. "No--not by you."
"It was I!" he exclaimed, with vehemence. "I set you on my horse,
dearest. It was I--I--I. Oh, Urith! do not pretend not to know me! I
have been away, in danger of my life, and I thought in the battle of
you, only of you. Urith! my love! Turn your eyes on me. Look steadily at
me. Do you remember how, when I had set you on my horse, I stood with my
hand on the neck, and my eyes on you. You dazzled me then. My head spun.
Urith! dear Urith, then I first knew that you only could be mine, that
nowhere in the whole world could I find another I would care for. And
yet--whilst I discovered that, I foresaw something dreadful, it was
undefined, a mere shadow--and now it has come. Look me in the eyes, my
darling! look me in the eyes, and you must know me."
She obeyed him, in the same mechanical, dead manner and said, "I will
not thus be addressed, I am no man's darling. I was the darling of
Anthony once--a long time ago; but he ceased to love me; and he is dead.
I killed him."
"Anthony never ceased to love you. It is false. He always loved you, but
sometimes more than at other times, for his self-love rose up and
smothered his love for you--but never for long."
"Did Anthony never cease to love me? How do you know that? How can you
know that? You are deceiving me."
"It is true. None know it as I do."
She shook her head.
"Listen to me, Urith. Anthony never loved any but you."
"He had loved Julian," answered Urith. "He had from a child, and first
love always lasts, it is tough and enduring."
"No, he never loved her. I swear to you."
She shook her head again, but drew a long breath, as though shaking off
something of her load. "I cannot think you know," she said, after a
pause.
"I knew Anthony as myself." He caught her hand. "I insist--look me
steadily in the face."
She obeyed. Her eyes were without light, her hand was cold and shrinking
from his touch, but he would not let it go. For a while there was
symptom of struggle in her face, as though she desired to withdraw her
eyes from him, but his superior will overcame the dim, half-formed
desire, and then into her eyes came a faint glimmer of inquiry, then of
vague alarm.
"Urith?"
"It is a long way down," she said.
"A long way down? What do you mean?"
"I am looking into hell."
"What! through my eyes?"
"I do not know; I am looking, and it goes down deep, then deeper, and
again deeper. I am sinking, and at last I see him, he is far, far away
down there in flames." She paused, and intensity of gaze came into her
eyes. "In chains." She still looked, the iris of each orb contracting as
though actually strained to see something afar off. "Parched." Then she
moaned, and her face quivered. "All because he loved Julian when he was
mine, and I shall go there too--for I killed him. I do not care. I could
not be in heaven, and he there. I will be there--with him. I killed
him."
Anthony was dismayed. It seemed impossible to bring her to recognition.
But he resolved to make one more attempt.
He had let go her hand, and as he withdrew his eyes, her head returned
to its former position; and once more she began to play with the pendant
token.
Her profile was against the window. The consuming internal fire had
burnt away all that was earthly, common in her, and had etherialised,
refined the face.
"Urith!"
"Why do you vex me?"
"Turn fully round to me, Urith. What is that in your hand?"
"A token."
"Who gave it you?"
"It belonged to my father."
"It is broken."
"Everything is broken. Nothing is sound. Faith--trust--love." She paused
between each word, as gathering her thoughts. "Everything is broken.
Words--promises--oaths--." Then she looked at the token. "Everything is
broken. Hearts are broken--lives--unions--nothing is sound."
"Look at this, Urith."
Anthony drew from his breast the half-token that had belonged to his
mother, and placed it against that which Urith held.
"See, Urith! they fit together."
It was so, the ragged edge of one closed into the ragged edge of the
other.
She looked at it, seemed surprised, parted the portions, and reclosed
them again.
"Everything broken may be mended, Urith," said Anthony.
"Faith--trust--love. Do you see? Faith shaken and rent may become firm
and sound again, and trust may be restored as it was, and love be closed
fast. Unions--a little parted by misunderstanding, by errors, may be
healed. Do you see--Urith?"
She looked questioningly into his eyes, then back at the token, then
into his eyes again.
"Is it so?" she asked, as in a dream.
"It is so, you see it is so. See--this broken half-token belonged to
your father; that to my mother. Each had failed the other. All seemed
lost and ruined forever and ever. But it could not be--the broken pledge
must be made whole, the promises redeemed, the parts must be
reunited--and Urith! they are so in us."
He caught her by both hands, and looking into her face, began to sing,
in low, soft times:--
An evening so clear
I would that I were
To kiss thy soft cheek
With the lightest of air.
The star that is twinkling
So brightly above
I would that I might be
To enlighten my love!
A marvellous thing took place as he sang.
As he sang he saw--he saw the gradual return of the far-away soul. It
was like Orpheus in Hades with his harp charming back the beloved, the
lost Eurydice.
As he sang, step by step, nay, hardly so, hair'sbreadth by
hair'sbreadth, as the dawn creeps up the sky over the moor, the spirit
returned from the abysses where it had lost its way in darkness.
As he sang, Anthony doubted his own power, feared the slightest
interruption, the least thing to intervene and scare the tremulous
spirit-life back into the profound whence he was conjuring it.
The soul came, slow as the dawn, and yet, unlike the dawn in this, that
it came under compulsion. It came as the treasure heaved from a mine,
responsive to the effort employed to lift it; let that strain be
desisted from, and it would remain stationary or fall back to where it
was before.
An explosion of firearms, the crash of broken glass, and the rattle of
bullets against the walls.
Instantly Anthony has leaped to his feet, caught Urith in his arms, and
carried her where she was protected by the walls, for the bullets had
penetrated the window and whizzed past her head.
At the same moment he saw Solomon Gibbs, who plunged into the hall, red,
his wig on one side, shouting, "Tony! for God's sake, fly! the troopers
are here, sent after you. I've fastened the front door. Quick--be off.
They'll string you up to the next tree."
He was deafened by blows against the main entrance, a solid oak door on
stout iron hinges let into the granite. It was fastened by a
cross-bar--almost a beam--that ran back into a socket in the jamb, when
the door was unbarricaded.
"Tony! not an instant is to be lost. Make off. But by the Lord! I don't
know how. They are clambering over the garden wall to get at the back
door. There are a score of them--troopers under Captain Fogg."
Anthony had Urith in his arms. He looked at her, her eyes were fixed on
him, full of terror, but also--intelligence.
"Anthony!" she said, "what is it? Are you in danger?"
"They seek my life, dearest. It is forfeit. Never mind. Give me a kiss.
We part in love."
"Anthony!" she clung to him. "Oh, Anthony! What does it all mean?"
"I cannot tell you now. I suppose it is over. Thank God for this kiss,
my love--my love."
The soldiers were battering at the door; two were up at the hall window,
ripping and smashing at the panes. But there was no possibility of
getting in that way, as each light was protected by stout iron
stanchions.
"By the Lord! Tony. I'll fasten the back-door!" shouted Gibbs. "Get out
somehow--Urith! if you have wits, show him the trapway. Quick! not a
moment is to be lost--whilst I bar the back-door." Solomon flew out of
the hall.
"Come," said Urith. "Anthony! I will show you." She held his hand. She
drew it to her, and pressed it to her bosom. It touched the broken
token--and she had his half-token in her hand. "Anthony! when joined--to
be again separate?"
They passed behind the main door, whilst the troopers thundered against
it, pouring forth threats, oaths, and curses. They had drawn a great
post from the barn over against the porch, and were driving this against
the door. That door itself would stand any number of such blows, not so
the hinges, or rather the granite jambs into which the iron crooks on
which the hinges turned were let; as Anthony and Urith went by, a piece
of granite started by the jar flew from its place, and fell at their
feet. Another blow, and the crook would be driven in, and with it the
upper portion of the door.
On the further side of the entrance passage, facing the door into the
hall, was one that gave access to a room employed formerly as a buttery.
In it were now empty casks, old saddles, and a variety of farm lumber,
and, amongst them that cradle that Anthony had despised, the cradle in
which Urith had been lulled to her infantine slumbers.
Urith thrust the cradle aside, stooped, lifted a trap-door in the
wooden-planked floor, and disclosed steps.
"Down there," she said, "fly--be quick--grope your way along, it runs in
the thickness of the garden wall, and opens towards the chapel."
"One kiss, Urith!"
They were locked in each other's arms. Then Anthony disengaged himself.
A shout! The door had fallen in. A shot--it had been fired through the
window by a soldier without who had distinguished figures, though seen
indistinctly, through the cobwebbed, dusky panes of the buttery window.
Anthony disappeared down the secret passage. Urith put her hand to her
head a moment, then a sudden idea flashed through her brain; she caught
with both arms the cradle, and crashed it down the narrow passage,
blocking it completely, and threw back the door that closed the
entrance.
Next moment she and Solomon Gibbs were in the hands of the troopers who
had burst in.
"Let go--that is a woman!" called the commanding officer. "Who are you?"
This to Mr. Gibbs. "Are you Anthony Cleverdon? You a rebel?"
"I!--I a rebel! I never handled a sword in my life," answered Mr. Gibbs,
without loss of composure; "but, my lads, at a single-stick, I'm your
man."
"Come!--who are you?"
"I am a man of the pen, Mr. Solomon Gibbs, attorney," answered the old
fellow; "and, master--whatever be your name, I'd like to see your
warrant--breaking into a house as you have done. I can't finger a sword
or a musket, but, by Saint Charles the Martyr, I can make you skip and
squeak with a goose-quill; and I will for this offence."
"Search the house," ordered Captain Fogg, the officer in command of the
party. "I know that the rebel is here; he has been seen. He cannot have
escaped; he is secreted somewhere. Meanwhile keep this lawyer-rascal in
custody. Here--you, madame!"--to Urith--"what is your name, and who are
you?"
"I am Anthony Cleverdon's wife."
"And he--where is he?"
"Gone."
"Where is he gone to."
"I do not know."
"Who is this fellow in the hands of my men?"
"He is my uncle, my mother's brother, Mr. Solomon Gibbs."
"Search the house," ordered the captain. "Madame, if we catch your
husband, we shall make short work of him. Here is a post with which we
broke open the door; we will run it out of an upstair window and hang
him from it."
"You will not take him; he is away."
In the mean time the soldiers had overrun the house. No room, no closet,
not the attics were unexplored. Anthony could not be found.
"What have we here?" A couple of troopers had lifted the trap and
discovered the passage.
"It is choked," said the captain. "What is that? An old cradle thrust
away there? 'Fore heaven! he can't have got off that way, the cradle
stops the way. The bird had flown before we came up the hill."