THE UNFOLDING OF THE SCROLL
When Alan reached the château he was at once accosted by old Matieu.
"Mme. la Marquise wishes to see you in her private room, M'sieu Alan,
and without a moment's delay."
In a few seconds he was on the upper landing. At the door of the room
known as the Blue Salon he met Yann the Dumb.
"What is it, Ian? Is there any thing wrong?"
In his haste he spoke in French. The old islander looked at him, but
did not answer.
Alan repeated his question in Gaelic.
"Yes, Alan MacAlasdair, I fear there is gloom and darkness upon us all."
"Why?"
"By this an' by that. But I have seen the death-cloth about Lois nic
Alasdair bronnach for weeks past. I saw it about her feet, and then
about her knees, and then about her breast. Last night, when I looked
at her, I saw it at her neck. And to-day, the shadow-shroud is risen to
her eyes."
"But your second-sight is not always true, you know, Ian. Why, you told
me when I was here last that I would soon be seeing my long dead father
again, and, more than that, that I should see him, but he never see me.
But of this and your other dark sayings, no more now. Can I go in at
once and see my aunt?"
"I will be asking that, Alan-mo-caraid. But what you say is not true.
I have never yet 'seen' any thing that has not come to pass; though I
have had the sight but seldom, to Himself be the praise." With that Ian
entered, exchanged a word or two, and ushered Alan into the room.
On a couch beside a great fireplace, across the iron brazier of which
were flaming pine-logs, an elderly woman lay almost supine. That she
had been a woman of great beauty was unmistakable, for all her gray
hair and the ravages that time and suffering had wrought upon her
face. Even now her face was beautiful; mainly from the expression of
the passionate dusky eyes which were so like those of Annaik. Her long,
inert body was covered with a fantastic Italian silk-cloth whose gay
pattern emphasized her own helpless condition. Alan had not seen her
for some months, and he was shocked at the change. Below the eyes, as
flamelike as ever, were purplish shadows, and everywhere, through the
habitual ivory of the delicate features, a gray ashiness had diffused.
When she held out her hand to him, he saw it as transparent as a fan,
and perceived within it the red gleam of the fire.
"Ah, Alan, it is you at last! How glad I am to see you!" The voice was
one of singular sweetness, in tone and accent much like that of Ynys.
"Dear Aunt Lois, not more glad than I am to see you"--and, as he spoke,
Alan kneeled at the couch and kissed the frail hand that had been held
out to him.
"I would have so eagerly seen you at once on my arrival," he resumed,
"but I was given your message--that you had one of your seasons of
suffering, and could not see me. You have been in pain, Aunt Lois?"
"Yes, dear, I am dying."
"Dying! Oh, no, no, no! You don't mean _that_. And besides----"
"Why should I not mean it? Why should I fear it, Alan? Has life meant
so much to me of late years that I should wish to prolong it?"
"But you have endured so long!"
"A bitter reason truly!... and one too apt to a woman! Well, enough of
this. Alan, I want to speak to you about yourself. But first tell me
one thing. Do you love any woman?"
"Yes, with all my heart, with all my life, I love a woman."
"Have you told her so? Has she betrothed herself to you?"
"Yes."
"Is it Annaik?"
"Annaik ... Annaik?"
"Why are you so surprised, Alan? Annaik is beautiful; she has long
loved you, I am certain; and you, too, if I mistake not, care for her?"
"Of course, I do; of course I care for her, Aunt Lois. I love her. But
I do not love her as you mean."
The Marquise looked at him steadily.
"I do not quite understand," she said gravely. "I must speak to you
about Annaik, later. But now, will you tell me who the woman is?"
"Yes. It is Ynys."
"_Ynys!_ But, Alan, do you not know that she is betrothed to Andrik de
Morvan?"
"I know."
"And that such a betrothal is, in Brittany, almost as binding as a
marriage?"
"I have heard that said."
"And that the Marquis de Kerival wishes that union to take place?"
"The Marquis Tristran's opinion, on any matter, does not in any way
concern me."
"That may be, Alan; but it concerns Ynys. Do you know that I also wish
her to marry Andrik; that his parents wish it; and that every one
regards the union as all but an accomplished fact?"
"Yes, dear Aunt Lois, I have known or presumed all you tell me. But
nothing of it can alter what is a vital part of my existence."
"Do you know that Ynys herself gave her pledge to Andrik de Morvan?"
"It was a conditional pledge. But, in any case, she will formally
renounce it."
For a time there was silence.
Alan had risen, and now stood by the side of the couch, with folded
arms. The Marquise Lois looked up at him, with her steadfast, shadowy
eyes. When she spoke again she averted them, and her voice was so low
as almost to be a whisper.
"Finally, Alan, let me ask you one question. It is not about you and
Ynys. I infer that both of you are at one in your determination to take
every thing into your own hands. Presumably you can maintain her and
yourself. Tristran--the Marquis de Kerival--will not contribute a franc
toward her support. If he knew, he would turn her out of doors this
very day."
"Well, Aunt Lois, I wait for your final question?"
"It is this. _What about Annaik?_"
Startled by her tone and sudden lifted glance, Alan stared in silence;
then recollecting himself, he repeated dully:
"'What about Annaik?' ... Annaik, Aunt Lois, why do you ask me about
Annaik?"
"She loves you."
"As a brother; as the betrothed of Ynys; as a dear comrade and friend."
"Do not be a hypocrite, Alan. You know that she loves you. What of your
feeling toward _her_?"
"I love her ... as a brother loves a sister ... as any old playmate and
friend ... as ... as the sister of Ynys."
A faint, scornful smile came upon the white lips of the Marquise.
"Will you be good enough, then, to explain about last night?"
"About last night?"
"Come, be done with evasion. Yes, about last night. Alan, I know that
you and Annaik were out together in the cypress avenue, and again, on
the dunes, after midnight; that you were seen walking hand in hand; and
that, stealthily, you entered the house together."
"Well?"
"Well! The inference is obvious. But I will let you see that I know
more. Annaik went out of the house late. Old Matieu let her out.
Shortly after that you went out of the château. Later, you and she came
upon Judik Kerbastiou prowling about in the woods. It was more than an
hour after he left you that you returned to the château. Where were you
during that hour or more?"
Alan flushed. He unfolded his arms; hesitated; then refolded them.
"How do you know this?" he asked simply.
"I know it, because...."
But before she finished what she was about to say, the door opened and
Yann entered.
"What is it, Ian?"
"I would be speaking to you alone for a minute, Bantighearna."
"Alan, go to the alcove yonder, please. I must hear in private what
Yann has to say to me."
As soon as the young man was out of hearing, Yann stooped and spoke in
low tones. The Marquise Lois grew whiter and whiter, till not a vestige
of color remained in her face, and the only sign of life was in the
eyes. Suddenly she made an exclamation.
Alan turned and looked at her. He caught her agonized whisper: "_Oh, my
God!_"
"What is it--oh, what is it, dear Aunt Lois?" he cried, as he advanced
to her side.
He expected to be waved back, but to his surprise the Marquise made no
sign to him to withdraw. Instead, she whispered some instructions to
Yann and then bade him go.
When they were alone once more, she took a small silver flagon from
beneath her coverlet and poured a few drops upon some sugar.
Having taken this, she seemed to breathe more easily. It was evident,
at the same time, that she had received some terrible shock.
"Alan, come closer. I cannot speak loud. I have no time to say more to
you about Annaik. I must leave that to you and to her. But lest I die,
let me say at once that I forbid you to marry Ynys, and that I enjoin
you to marry Annaik, and that without delay."
A spasm of pain crossed the speaker's face. She stopped, and gasped
for breath. When at last she resumed, it was clear she considered as
settled the matter on which she had spoken.
"Alan, I am so unwell that I must be very brief. And now listen. You
are twenty-five to-day. Such small fortune as is yours comes now into
your possession. It has been administered for you by a firm of lawyers
in Edinburgh. See, here is the address. Can you read it? Yes?... Well,
keep the slip. This fortune is not much. To many, possibly to you, it
may not seem enough to provide more than the bare necessities of life,
not enough for its needs. Nevertheless, it is your own, and you will be
glad. It will, at least, suffice to keep you free from need if ever
you fulfil your great wish to go back to the land of your fathers, to
your own place."
"That is still my wish and my hope."
"So be it! You will have also an old sea castle, not much more than a
keep, on a remote island. It will at any rate be your own. It is on an
island where few people are; a wild and precipitous isle far out in the
Atlantic at the extreme of the Southern Hebrides."
"Is it called Rona?" Alan interrupted eagerly.
Without noticing, or heeding, his eagerness, she assented.
"Yes, it is called Rona. Near it are the isles of Mingulay and Borosay.
These three islands were once populous, and it was there that for
hundreds of years your father's clan, of which he was hereditary chief,
lived and prospered. After the evil days, the days when the young King
was hunted in the west as though a royal head were the world's desire,
and when our brave kinswoman, Flora Macdonald, proved that women as
well as men could dare all for a good cause--after those evil days the
people melted away. Soon the last remaining handful were upon Borosay;
and there, too, till the great fire that swept the island a score of
years ago, stood the castle of my ancestors, the Macdonalds of Borosay.
"My father was a man well known in his day. The name of Sir Kenneth
Macdonald was as familiar in London as in Edinburgh; and in Paris he
was known to all the military and diplomatic world, for in his youth he
had served in the French army with distinction, and held the honorary
rank of general.
"Not long before my mother's death he came back to our lonely home in
Borosay, bringing with him a kinsman of another surname, who owned
the old castle of Rona on the Isle of the Sea-caves, as Rona is often
called by the people of the Hebrides. Also there came with him a young
French officer of high rank. After a time I was asked to marry this
man. I did not love him, did not even care for him, and I refused. In
truth ... already, though unknowingly, I loved your father--he that was
our kinsman and owned Rona and its old castle. But Alasdair did not
speak; and, because of that, we each came to sorrow.
"My father told me he was ruined. If I did not marry Tristran de
Kerival, he would lose all. Moreover, my dying mother begged me to save
the man she had loved so well and truly, though he had left her so much
alone.
"Well, to be brief, I agreed. My kinsman Alasdair was away at the time.
He returned on the eve of the very day on which I was suddenly married
by Father Somerled Macdonald. We were to remain a few weeks in Borosay
because of my mother's health.
"When Alasdair learned what had happened he was furious. I believe he
even drew a riding whip across the face of Tristran de Kerival. Fierce
words passed between them, and a cruel taunt that rankled. Nor would
Alasdair have any word with me at all. He sent me a bitter message, but
the bitterest word he could send was that which came to me: that he and
my sister Silis had gone away together.
"From that day I never saw Silis again, till the time of her death.
Soon afterward our mother died, and while the island-funeral was being
arranged our father had a stroke, and himself died, in time to be
buried along with his wife. It was only then that I realized how more
than true had been his statements as to his ruin. He died penniless.
I was reminded of this unpleasant fact at the time, by the Marquis de
Kerival; and I have had ample opportunity since for bearing it in vivid
remembrance.
"As soon as possible we settled all that could be settled, and left for
Brittany. I have sometimes thought my husband's love was killed when he
discovered that Alasdair had loved me. He forbade me even to mention
his name, unless he introduced it; and he was wont to swear that a
day would come when he would repay in full what he believed to be the
damning insult he had received.
"We took with us only one person from Borosay, an islander of Rona. He
is, in fact, a clansman both of you and me. It is of Ian I speak, of
course; him that soon came to be called here Yann the Dumb. My husband
and I had at least this to unite us: that we were both Celtic, and had
all our racial sympathies in common.
"I heard from Silis that she was married and was happy. I am afraid
this did not add to my happiness. She wrote to me, too, when she
was about to bear her child. Strangely enough, Alasdair, who, like
his father before him, was an officer in the French army, was then
stationed not far from Kerival, though my husband knew nothing of this
at first. My own boy and Silis's were born about the same time. My
child died; that of Silis and Alasdair lived. You are that child.
No ... wait, Alan ... I will tell you his name shortly.... You, I say,
are that child. Soon afterward, Silis had a dangerous relapse. In her
delirium she said some wild things; among them, words to the effect
that the child which had died was hers, and that the survivor was
mine--that, somehow or other, they had been changed. Then, too, she
cried out in her waywardness--and, poor girl, she must have known then
that Alasdair had loved me before he loved her--that the child who
lived, he who had been christened Alan, was the child of Alasdair and
myself.
"All this poor delirium at the gate of death meant nothing. But in some
way it came to Tristran's ears, and he believed. After Silis's death I
had brought you home, Alan, and had announced that I would adopt you. I
promised Silis this, in her last hour, when she was in her right mind
again; also that the child, you, should be brought up to speak and
think in our own ancient language, and that in all ways you should grow
up a true Gael. I have done my best, Alan?"
"Indeed, indeed you have. I shall never, never forget that you have
been my mother to me."
"Well, my husband never forgave that. He acquiesced, but he never
forgave. For long, and I fear to this day, he persists in his belief
that you are really my illegitimate child, and that Silis was right
in thinking that I had succeeded in having my own new-born babe
transferred to her arms, while her dead offspring was brought to me,
and, as my own, interred. It has created a bitter feud, and that is
why he hates the sight of you. That, too, Alan, is why he would never
consent to your marriage with either Ynys or Annaik."
"But you yourself urged me a little ago to ... to ... marry Annaik."
"I had a special reason. Besides, I of course know the truth. In his
heart, God knows, my husband cannot doubt it."
"Then tell me this: is my father dead also, as I have long surmised?"
"No ... yes, yes, Alan, he is dead."
Alan noticed his aunt's confusion, and regarded her steadily.
"Why do you first say 'no' and then 'yes'?"
"Because...."
But here again an interruption occurred. The portière moved back, and
then the wide doors disparted. Into the salon was wheeled a chair, in
which sat the Marquis de Kerival. Behind him was his attendant; at his
side, Kermorvan the steward. The face of the seigneur was still deathly
pale, and the features were curiously drawn. The silky hair, too,
seemed whiter than ever, and white as foam-drift on a dark wave were
the long thin hands which lay on the lap of the black velvet shooting
jacket he wore.
"Ah, Lois, is this a prepared scene?" he exclaimed in a cold and
sneering voice, "or, has the young man known all along?"
"Tristan, I have not yet told him what I now know. Be merciful."
"Alan MacAlasdair, as the Marquise here calls you,--and she ought to
know,--have you learned yet the name and rank of your father?"
"No."
"Tell him, Lois."
"Tristran, listen. All is over now. Soon I, too, shall be gone. In
the name of God I pray you to relent from this long cruelty, this
remorseless infamy. You know as well as I do that our first-born is
dead twenty-five years ago, and that this man here is truly the son of
Silis, my sister. And here is one overwhelming proof for you: _I have
just been urging him to marry Annaik._"
At that Tristran the Silent was no longer silent. With a fierce laugh
he turned to the steward.
"I call you to witness, Raif Kermorvan, that I would kill Annaik, or
Ynys either for that matter, before I would allow such an unnatural
union. Once and for all I absolutely ban it. Besides.... Listen, you
there with your father's eyes! You are sufficiently a Gael to feel that
you would not marry the daughter of a man who killed your father?"
"God forbid!"
"Well, then, God does forbid. Lois, tell this man what you know."
"Alan," began the Marquise quaveringly, her voice fluttering like
a dying bird, "the name of your father is ... is ... Alasdair ...
Alasdair Carmichael!"
"_Carmichael!_"
For a moment he was dazed, bewildered. When, recently, had he heard
that name?
Then it flashed upon him. He turned with flaming eyes to where the
Marquis sat, quietly watching him.
"Oh, my God!" That was all. He could say no more. His heart was in his
throat.
Then, hoarse and trembling, he put out his hands.
"Tell me it is not true! Tell me it is not true!"
"_What_ is not true, Alan Carmichael?"
"That that was he who died in the wood yonder."
"That was General Alasdair Carmichael."
"My father?"
"Your father!"
"But, you devil, you murdered him! I saw you do it! You knew it was
he--and you killed him. You knew he would not try to kill you, and you
waited; then, when he had fired, you took careful aim and killed him!"
"You reiterate, my friend. These are facts with which I am familiar."
The cool, sneering tone stung Alan to madness. He advanced menacingly.
"Murderer, you shall not escape!"
"A fitting sentiment, truly, from a man who wants to marry my daughter!"
"Marry your daughter! Marry the daughter of my father's murderer! I
would sooner never see the face of woman again than do this thing."
"Good! I am well content. And now, young man, you are of age; you have
come into your patrimony, including your ruined keep on the island of
Rona; and I will trouble you to go--to leave Kerival for good and all."
Suddenly, without a word, Alan moved rapidly forward. With a light
touch he laid his hand for a moment on the brow of the motionless man
in the wheeled chair.
"There! I lay upon you, Tristran de Kerival, the curse of the newly
dead and of the living! May the evil that you have done corrode your
brain, and may your life silt away as sand, and may your soul know the
second death!"
As he turned to leave the room he saw Kerbastiou standing in the
doorway.
"Who are you, to be standing there, Judik Kerbastiou?" demanded the
steward angrily.
"I am Rohan de Kerival. Ask this man here if I am not his son. Three
days ago the woman who was my mother died. She died a vagrant, in the
forest. But, nigh upon thirty years ago, she was legally married to
the young Marquis Tristran de Kerival. I am their child."
Alan glanced at the man he had cursed. A strange look had come into his
ashy face.
"Her name?" was all Tristran the Silent said.
"Annora Brizeux."
"You have proofs?"
"I have all the proofs."
"You are only a peasant, I disown you. I know nothing of you or of the
wanton that was your mother."
Without a word Judik strode forward and struck him full in the face. At
that moment the miraculous happened. The Marquise, who had not stood
erect for years, rose to her full height.
She, too, crossed the room.
"Alan," she cried, "see! He has killed me as well as your father," and
with that she swayed, and fell dead, at the feet of the man who had
trampled her soul in the dust and made of her blossoming life a drear
and sterile wilderness.
BOOK SECOND
_THE HERDSMAN_