CHRISTIAN. But what have you seen?
MEN. Seen! Why, the Valley itself, which is as dark as pitch; we
also saw there the Hobgoblins, Satyrs and Dragons of the Pit; we
heard also in that Valley a continuous Howling and Yelling, as of a
people under unutterable misery, who sat there bound in Affliction
and Irons; and over that Valley hung the discouraging clouds of
Confusion; Death also doth always spread his wings over it; in a
word, it is in every whit dreadful, being utterly without
Order.--BUNYAN.
I
The last occasion on which Wantley had come to Marston Lydiate had been
in order that he might be present at a great audit dinner, and he had
felt acutely the unreality, the solemn absurdity, of it all. Those
present, his tenants, all knew, and knew that he knew also, that he
could never hope to come and live among them.
Lady Wantley, keeping up full state at the Hall, was still, as she had
long been, their real overlord and Providence, and the young man had
felt that it was to her that should have been addressed the heavy
expressions of good will to which he had had to listen, and then to make
a suitable reply.
But now, on Christmas Eve, more than a year after the death of Sir
George Downing, as Wantley drove in the winter sunshine along lanes cut
through land which after all belonged to him, and which must in time
belong to those, yet unborn, whom he left after him, he felt something
of the pride of possession stir within him, and he bethought himself
that he was a link in a long human chain of worthy Wantleys, past and to
come.
Sitting silent by his young wife's side, he felt well pleased with
life, awed into thankfulness at the thought of how much better things
had turned out with him than he had ever thought possible. Then a
whimsical notion presented itself to his mind:
'Why are you smiling? Do tell me!' Cecily turned to him, rubbed her soft
cheek against the pointed beard she had once--it seemed so long
ago--despised as the appanage of age.
To her to-day was a great day, one to be remembered very tenderly the
whole of her life through. She had read everything that could be read
about this place, and, indeed, she knew far more of the history of the
house to which they were going than did Wantley himself. Here also, in
the substantial ivy-draped rectory, which her husband had pointed out as
they had driven quickly through the village, he had been born, and spent
his childhood. Oh yes, this was indeed to Cecily a day of days, and she
felt pleased and moved to think that their first Christmas together
should be spent at Marston Lydiate.
'Why was I smiling? Well, when I was a child, my nurse used to say to
me, "If 'ifs' were horses, beggars would ride!" and I was thinking just
then that _if_ we have a son, and _if_ our son marries an American
heiress, and _if_ he and she care to do so, they will be able to come
and live here, a thing you and I, my darling, can never do!'
The brougham swung in through the lodge gates, each flanked by a curious
and, Cecily feared, a most uncomfortable little house, suggestive of a
miniature Greek temple; and a turn in the wide park road, lined with
snow-laden evergreen bushes, brought suddenly into view the great
plateau along which stretched the long regular frontage of the huge
mansion for which they were bound.
The size of the building amazed and rather excited her. 'It must be an
immense place,' she said. 'I had no idea that it was like this!'
'Yes, the young lady will require to have a great many dollars--eh, my
dear?'
'You never told me it was such a--a----'
'Magnificent pile?' he suggested dryly. 'That is what some of my uncle's
guests used to call it. My mother's name for it was the "White
Elephant." Even Uncle Wantley could hardly have lived here if his wife
had not been a very wealthy woman. Of course, to Penelope the essential
ugliness of the place has always been very distasteful; and this perhaps
is fortunate, as Marston Lydiate was the only thing my uncle possessed
which he could not leave to her away from me.'
Still, he felt a thrill of pleasurable excitement when the carriage
stopped beneath the large Corinthian portico; and he was touched as well
as amused by the rather pompous welcome tendered by the crowd of
servants, the majority of whom he had known all his life, either in
their present situations or as his own village contemporaries. He was
moved by the heartiness with which they greeted him and his young wife,
and pleased at the discretion with which they finally vanished, leaving
him and Cecily alone with the housekeeper, Mrs. Moss.
We are often assured that a servant's life is cast in pleasant places,
and each member of such a household as that of Marston Lydiate doubtless
enjoys a sense of security denied to many a free man and free woman. But
human nature craves for the unusual, and what can exceed the utter
dulness of life below stairs when the master or mistress of such an
establishment becomes old or broken in health?
Cecily would have been amused had she known of the long discussions
which had taken place between Mrs. Moss, the housekeeper, and Mr.
Jenkins, the butler, as to whether she or he should have the supreme
pleasure and excitement of leading the couple, who were still regarded,
in that house at least, as a bridal pair, through the ornate
state-rooms to that which had been set apart and prepared for their use
as the most 'cosy' of them all.
The privilege had been finally conceded to Mrs. Moss, it being admitted
that, with regard to a new Lady Wantley, such was her undoubted right;
and the worthy woman would have been shocked indeed had she realized
that Cecily, while being conducted through the splendid rooms, each
lighted up with a huge fire--the English servant's ideal of welcome--was
feeling very glad that fate had not made her mistress of Marston
Lydiate.
'Mr. Jenkins thought your ladyship would like tea in the Cedar
Drawing-room.'
Their long progress had come to an end, and Wantley was pleased that the
room chosen had always been his own favourite apartment, among many
which, though not lacking in the curious pompous charm of the grand
period when Marston Lydiate had been built and furnished, were yet, to
his fastidious taste, overdecorated and overladen with silk and gilding.
In old days he had often wondered that Lord and Lady Wantley, themselves
with so fine and austere a taste, had been content to leave, at any
rate, the state-rooms of Marston Lydiate exactly as they had found them.
But now, during the last few months, the young man had come face to face
with facts; above all, he had been compelled to see and witness much
which had made him at last understand why his predecessor had chosen
other uses for his wealth than that of putting a more costly simplicity
in the place of the splendour which he had inherited.
After she had ushered them with much circumstance into the pretty
circular room, even now full of the distinct faint fragrance thrown out
by the cedar panelling from which it took its name, Mrs. Moss still
lingered.
'Your lordship will find her ladyship very poorly,' she said nervously.'
I know you've heard from Dr. Knox; he said he was writing to you. I do
wish our young lady would come home. She writes to her mamma very
regularly, that I will say; but it's my belief that her ladyship's just
pining to death for her.'
'You've been having trouble with the nurses?' Wantley spoke with a
certain effort. He had not shown his wife the country doctor's letter to
himself.
Mrs. Moss tossed her head. 'That we have indeed! They don't like chronic
cases. That's what they all say. I don't know what young women are
coming to! Wait till they're chronic cases themselves! The night nurse
left this morning. I don't know, I'm sure, what we shall do about
to-night.'
Wantley checked the torrent of words. 'We will arrange about that, you
and I, later. Do you think my aunt would like to see me now, at once?'
Mrs. Moss shook her head. 'One time's the same to her as another,' she
said, sighing, and left the room.
II
During the last year, crowded as it had been to himself with events of
great moment, Wantley had yet thought much of Penelope's mother. The
knowledge of what she had done, though hidden away in the most secret
recess of his mind and memory had yet inspired him, as time went on,
with an increasing feeling of fear and repulsion.
His recollection of all that had happened at Monk's Eype remained so
vivid that sometimes he would seem to go again through some of the worst
moments of the dreadful day, which, as he remembered it, had begun with
his strange interview with Lady Wantley.
For many weeks--ay, and even months--he had lived in acute apprehension
of what each hour might bring forth; and even when the passage of time
had gradually brought a sense of security, when great happiness and,
for the first time in his life, daily work of a real and strenuous
nature had come together to fill his thoughts and chase forth morbid
terror of an untoward revelation, he had heard with actual relief that
Lady Wantley was very ill, and likely to die.
Very unwillingly he had brought Cecily with him to Marston Lydiate. But
he had found it impossible to give any adequate reason why she should be
left to spend a lonely Christmas in London; further, she had expressed,
with more strength than was usual with her, a desire to accompany him,
and he had been surprised at the warm affection with which she had
spoken of Penelope's mother.
He was quite determined that his own first meeting with Lady Wantley
should take place alone; and so at last, when he felt the moment he
dreaded could no longer be postponed, Cecily had to submit to being
placed on a sofa, and left, wondering, perplexed, even a little hurt,
while Wantley, guided by Mrs. Moss, went to face an ordeal which his
wife actually envied him.
So little really intimate had been the Hall with the Rectory in the days
of Wantley's childhood and boyhood, that there were many rooms of the
vast eighteenth-century mansion which now belonged to him into which he
had never been led as child and boy. And it was with a certain surprise
that he became aware, when standing on its threshold, that Lady
Wantley's bedroom was situated over the round Cedar Drawing-room, and so
was of exactly the same proportions, though the general impression
produced by the colouring and furnishing was amazingly other.
Long before they became the fashion, Lady Wantley had realized the
beauty and the value of white backgrounds, and no touch of colour, save
that provided by the fine old furniture, marred the delicate purity and
severity of an apartment where, even as a young woman, she had spent
much of her time when at Marston Lydiate.
In this moment of profound emotion and of fear, Wantley's mind and eyes
yet took delight in the restful whiteness which from the very threshold
seemed to envelop him.
The small bed, shrouded tent-wise with white curtains, concealed from
him, but only for an instant, the sole occupant of the circular room;
for suddenly he saw, sitting in a large armchair placed close to the
fire, a strange shrunken figure, wrapped and swathed in black from head
to foot. Even the white coif which had always formed part of Lady
Wantley's costume since her widowhood had been put aside for a scarf of
black silk, so arranged as to hide the upper part of the broad forehead,
while accentuating the attenuation of the hollow cheeks, the sunken
eyes, and the still delicately modelled nose and chin.
As he gazed, horror-struck, at the sinister-looking figure, by whose
side, heaped up in confusion on a small table, lay numberless packets of
letters, some yellow with the passage of time, others evidently written
very lately, Wantley's repugnance became merged in great concern and
pity.
'If your lordship will excuse me, I don't think I'll go up close to
her,' Mrs. Moss whispered. 'Her ladyship don't seem to care to see me
ever now,' and she slipped away, shutting the door softly behind her,
and so leaving him alone with this strange and, it seemed to him, almost
unreal presence.
Slowly he went up and stood before her, and as he murmured words of
greeting, and regret that he found her so ailing, he took hold of the
thin, fleshless right hand, to feel startled surprise at the strength of
its burning grasp.
Looking down into the wan face, meeting the still penetrating grey eyes,
Wantley saw with relief that, at this moment at any rate, she had full
possession of her mind; for the despair he saw there was a sane despair,
and one that told of sentient endurance.
'I see you have come alone,' she said at last in a low, clear, collected
tone. 'You have not brought your wife? But I could not have expected you
to do otherwise, knowing what you know.'
'Cecily is here. Of course she came with me,' he answered quickly. 'She
is now lying down, the long journey tired her, and I felt sure you would
like her to rest before seeing you.'
'Does she _know_?' asked Lady Wantley slowly, searchingly.
'Oh no!' he said, in almost a whisper, and glancing apprehensively round
the room as he did so, but only to be made aware that they were indeed
alone.
Then, very deliberately, the young man drew up a chair close to hers.
'Has not the time now come when you should try and forget? Surely you
should try and put the past out of your mind, if only for Penelope's
sake?'
'Ah,' she said very plaintively, 'but I cannot forget! I am not allowed
to do so. When I lie down I say, "When shall I arise and the night be
gone?" And I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the
day.'
'Yet you felt justified in your action--above all, you did save
Penelope,' he urged in a low tone.
But Lady Wantley turned on him a look of anguish and perplexity.
'Surely,' he added earnestly, 'surely you do not allow yourself to doubt
that Penelope was saved--and saved, I am convinced, from what would have
been a frightful fate, by your action?'
'I do not know,' she said feebly. 'Part of my punishment has been the
doubt, the awful doubt, as to whether we were justified in our fears. If
I gave my soul for hers, I am more than content to be marked with the
mark of the Beast. For, Ludovic, they that dwell in mine house and my
maids count me for a stranger; I am an alien in their sight.'
Her words, their hopelessness, moved him to great pity. 'Why did you not
ask us to come before?' he asked. 'We would have done so willingly, and
then you would not have felt so sadly lonely.'
Lady Wantley looked at him fixedly. 'If they, my father and my husband,
have forsaken me,' she said slowly,'I am not fit for other company. In
my great distress, in my extreme abasement, only my mother has remained
faithful; she alone has had the courage to descend with me into the Pit.
My kinsfolk have failed and my familiar friends have forgotten me. You
know--you remember, Ludovic, that he--my husband, I mean--never left me.
For nearly fifty years we were together, inseparable--forty years in the
flesh, ten years in the spirit; where he went I followed; where I chose
to go he accompanied me, and guarded me from trouble. But now,' she
said--and, oh! so woefully--'I have not felt his presence, or heard his
voice, for upwards of a year.'
Wantley got up: he turned away, and, walking to the great bay-window,
looked out on the darkening, snow-bound landscape.
This stretching out, this appeal of her soul, as it were, to his, moved
him as might have done the intolerable sight of some poor creature
enduring the extremity of physical torment.
Again he came to her, again took her thin, burning hand in his, and
then, murmuring something of his wife, abruptly left her.
III
Cecily was still lying on the sofa where he had placed her. The fire
alone lighted up the fine old luxurious room, softening the bright green
of the damask curtains, bathing the low gilt couch and the figure lying
on it in rosy light.
With a gesture most unusual with him, Wantley flung himself on his knees
by his wife: he gathered her head and shoulders in his arms, pressed the
soft hair off her forehead, and kissed her with an almost painful
emotion. 'You will find her very altered,' he said hoarsely; 'I wonder
if I ought to let you see her. I'm afraid you will be distressed, and I
cannot let you be distressed just now!'
'Has she been too much left alone? Oh, Ludovic, I wish we had come
before! Perhaps the nurse--the woman who has just left--was not kind to
her.'
Cecily was starting up, but he held her back, exceedingly perplexed as
to what to do and what to say. 'No,' he said at last; and then,
carefully choosing his words, 'She did not speak of the nurse, and I do
not suppose that any one has been outwardly disrespectful or unkind to
her. But, dearest, before you go up to her, I think you should be
prepared to find her in a very pitiful state. I dare say you've
forgotten once speaking to me at Monk's Eype concerning her belief that
she was in close communication with the dead whom she loved? Well, now
she unhappily believes that her husband has forsaken her, that his
spirit no longer holds communication with hers.' Wantley's voice broke.
'To hear her talk of it, of her agony and loneliness, is horribly sad;
and although I do not actually believe that my uncle was, as she says,
always with her, I could not help thinking of ourselves--of how I should
feel, my darling, if you were to turn from me.'
'But,' said Cecily, clinging to him, 'I could never, never turn from
you!'
'Ah! but so Uncle Wantley would once have said to her. You never saw
him; you do not know, as I do, in what an atmosphere of devotion--it
might almost be said of adoration--he always surrounded her. I don't
wonder,' he added, 'that she felt it endure even after his death.'
'But why does she think he has turned from her?' asked Cecily,
perplexed.
Wantley hesitated. 'She believes,' he answered reluctantly, 'that she
has done something which has utterly alienated him. But we must try and
keep her from the whole subject, and perhaps--indeed, I hope--she will
not speak to you as freely as she did to me.'
Hand in hand they went through the great ground-floor rooms, up the
broad staircase, and down vast corridors.
At the door of Lady Wantley's room he turned to Cecily. 'Promise me,' he
said rather sternly, 'that if I make you a sign--if I say "Go"--you will
leave us. It is not right that you should be made ill, or that you
should be overdistressed.' And as he spoke there was in his voice a note
new to her--a tone which said very clearly that he meant to be obeyed.
Wantley hung back as Cecily, treading softly, walked forward into the
room of which the white dimness had been accentuated by two candles
which had been lighted close to where Lady Wantley was sitting.
Suddenly, as the older woman stood up, uttering a curious, yearning cry
of welcome which thrilled through the passive spectator, the younger
woman ran forward, and took the shrunken, shrouded figure in her
arms--soft arms, which were at once so maternal and so childish in
contour.
Then the one standing aside felt a curious feeling come over him.
Sometimes it seemed as if he shared his wife with the whole of the
suffering half of the world.
Silently he watched Cecily place Lady Wantley back in her chair, and
then, kneeling down by her, first kiss, and then take between her warm
young palms, the other's trembling hands. He heard his wife's words:
'We are ashamed of not having come before, of having left you to be
lonely here; but now we will stay as long as you will have us, and I am
sure you will be better, perhaps quite well again, by the time Penelope
comes home!'
'Is Ludovic here?' Lady Wantley asked suddenly. And as he came forward,
'Are there not candles,' she asked him--'candles which should be lit?'
'Yes,' he answered, looking round with some surprise. 'There are a great
number of candles about your room--all unlit, of course.'
'Unlit?' she repeated; 'unlit as yet, for till now I feared the light.
When I said "My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint,"
then I was scared by dreams and terrified through visions.'
'But now,' whispered Cecily earnestly, 'you will no longer be so sadly
lonely; we will see that you are not left alone.'
'I am no longer lonely or alone,' said Lady Wantley mysteriously. 'That
is why,' she added, looking at the young man standing before her--'that
is why I must ask you, Ludovic, to go round my room and give light; for
the bridegroom cometh, and must not find me in the dark.'
Wondering at her words, he obeyed, and a few moments later they left
her, the centre of a circle of glimmering lights.
IV
It was night. In the dimly-lighted corridor Wantley stood holding a
short colloquy with the maid who tended Lady Wantley throughout the day.
'There's nothing to do but sit by quietly,' the woman spoke wearily.
'Her ladyship never speaks all night; but she won't be left alone a
minute.'
Entering the room, he hoped to find her asleep, for he still felt
strangely unfamiliar with the thin, worn face and strange,
distraught-looking eyes. There had always been something ample about
Lady Wantley's presence, especially a great dignity of demeanour; but
the long months of mental agony had betrayed her, and he wondered that
those about her had not divined her fear, and asked themselves of what
she was afraid.
Wantley had been terribly moved by the tragic melancholy of their first
meeting, infinitely touched by her cry of welcome to his young wife; but
he felt oppressed at the thought of his lonely vigil, and as he sat down
by the fire with a book, he hoped most fervently that she would sleep,
or remain, as he was told she always had done with the nurse whose place
he was now filling, mutinously silent.
But he had scarcely read the first words of the story to whose familiar
charm he trusted to make him for the moment forget, when Lady Wantley's
voice came clearly across the room. 'Cecily,' he said to himself, 'has
indeed worked wonders;' for the words were uttered naturally, almost as
the speaker might have spoken them in the old days when all was well
with her.
'I want to know'--and the words seemed to float towards him--'about you
and Cecily. I cannot tell you, Ludovic, how happy it makes me to think
that this dear child shares my name with me! I learnt to love her during
those days--before----' Her voice faltered.
Wantley quickly laid down 'Persuasion.' He rose and went over to the
bed, drew up a chair, and very tenderly and quietly took one of the thin
hands lying across the counterpane in his. 'Yes, let me tell you all
about ourselves,' he said quickly, forcing a light note into his voice.
'After our marriage--such a queer, quiet wedding----'
'Was Penelope there? I can't remember.'
'No, no! Penelope had already started on her travels. Just then I think
she was in Japan.' He went on, speaking quickly, hardly knowing what he
was saying. 'Well, Cecily had had a hard time at the Settlement--in
fact, she was really quite tired out--so, to the great horror of Miss
Wake, who had never heard of such a thing being done before, I took her
the day we were married down to Brighton, although several people,
including a brother of Miss Theresa's, offered us country-houses. In a
sense we spent our honeymoon at Cecily's old convent, for we went out
there almost every day. I got on splendidly with the nuns, especially
with the one whom I suppose one would call the Mother Abbess. Such a
woman, such a type! One of Napoleon's field-marshals in
petticoats--knowing exactly what she wanted, and making the people round
her do it.'
Wantley paused a moment, then went on: 'After three weeks of Brighton,
this determined old lady made me take my wife to France, to Versailles.
"Là vous l'aimerez bien, et vous la distrairez beaucoup!" she commanded;
and of course I obeyed.'
There was a pause. 'And then you went on to Monk's Eype?' Lady Wantley
raised herself on her pillows; she looked at him searchingly, but he
avoided meeting her eyes. 'I felt surprised to hear of your going
there,' she said, and the hand he was still holding trembled in his
grasp.
'I was surprised to find myself going there'--Wantley spoke very slowly,
very reluctantly--'but Cecily loves the place, and you would not have
had me sell it, just after Penelope had so very generously given it over
to us?'
'Oh no!' she said. And then again, 'Oh no! I did not mean that,
Ludovic.'
'I have had the Beach Room taken away,' he said, almost in a whisper.
'It is entirely obliterated'; and then, trying again to speak more
naturally: 'We had Philip Hammond with us part of the time; and also
others of Cecily's Stratford friends, including one poor fellow who had
never had more than two days' holiday in his life since he first began
working! And then I want to tell you'--he was eager to get away from
Monk's Eype--'about our life in town, and the sort of existence we had
made for ourselves.'
Lady Wantley, for the first time, smiled. 'I know,' she said;
'people--acquaintances, and old fellow-workers of your uncle--have
written to me full of joy.'
Wantley made a slight grimace. 'Well,' he observed rather shamefacedly,
'I have had to take to it all, if only in self-defence; otherwise I
should never see anything of my own wife. Even as it is, I have offended
a good many people, especially lately, by my determination that she
shall not join any more committees or undertake any new work. Cecily is
quite bewildered to find what a number of admirable folk there are in
the world!'
Lady Wantley again smiled. 'But I do not suppose,' she said, 'that
Cecily finds among them many like herself. I have sometimes thought of
how well your uncle would have liked her.'
'Pope and all?' Wantley smiled. For the first time he allowed his eyes
frankly to meet hers.
'Yes, yes!' she cried with something of her old eagerness; 'he always
knew and recognized goodness when he saw it. And, Ludovic, you know what
I told you to-day--of my awful loneliness, of my desolation of body and
spirit?' Wantley looked at her uneasily. 'Even as I spoke to you,' she
said, 'my punishment was being remitted, my solitude blessedly
invaded--for he, the husband of my youth, my companion and helper, was
returning, to help me across the passage.'
A feeling, not so much of astonishment, as of awe and fear came over
Wantley. His eyes sought the dim grey shadows, out of which he half
expected to see force itself the figure of the man he had never wholly
liked, or even wholly respected, but whom he had always greatly feared.
'He came back with Cecily,' Lady Wantley added, after a long pause. 'Her
purity has blotted out my iniquity.'
'And do you actually see him now? Are you aware of his presence?'
Wantley in a sense felt that on her answer would depend what he himself
would see, and as he waited he felt increasingly afraid; but, 'To know
that he is there is all I ask,' she said slowly; 'to be able to tell him
everything is the sum of my desire, and this I can now do;' and, lying
back on her high pillows, she sank into silence and sleep.