A last Message.
Wordsworth has written of one of those beautiful scenes which he loved
so intensely, and with whose loveliness he was so familiar--
"The spot was made by Nature for herself;
The travellers know it not. * * *
* * * But it is beautiful,
And if a man should plant his cottage near,
Should sleep beneath the shelter of its trees,
And blend its waters with his daily meals,
He would so love it, that in his death-hour
Its image would survive amongst his thoughts."
It was amid a scene to which these lines might be applied, that Lord
Sandilands and his daughter were living, a year after the death of
Gilbert Lloyd--a scene so grand, and yet so full of soft and tender
beauty, that an English writer, who knew it better than anyone except
the native Swiss dwellers in it, declared it to be, "even amongst the
wonders of the Alps, a very miracle of beauty." It was a nook in the
Savoy Alps, near the Valley of the Sixt. It had needed both money and
interest to enable the old English nobleman to make even a temporary
"settlement" in the remote region; but he had used both to good
purpose, when he found that the wounded spirit, the mind diseased, of
his daughter were not to be healed by the distractions of travelling
in the busy and populous centres of European life. They had tried many
places, but she had sickened of all, though she tried hard to hide
from her father--whose solicitude for her increased daily, as did her
affection for him--that all his efforts to procure peace and pleasure
for her were to a great extent ineffectual. The young English _prima
donna_--whose brief and brilliant career, whose sudden, unexplained
disappearance from the scene of her triumphs, had been the subject of
much talk and many conjectures in London--was not identified on the
Continent with the Miss Keith who kept so much to herself, but who was
so very charming when she could be induced to enter into the pastime
of the hour. This was the more natural, as Gertrude never exerted her
greatest, her most characteristic, talent--she never sang after she
left England The last occasion on which she had "tumbled," as she had
said, to a limited but critical audience at Hardriggs, was the last
appearance of Miss Lambert on any stage. Miss Keith looked well, when
he was to be seen, and talked well, when she could be heard; but she
never sang, and thus a kindly mist diffused itself over her identity.
It seemed incredible to Gertrude that the incidents which had
occurred, the great emotions she had experienced, the various kinds of
suffering she had undergone, could all have passed over her within so
brief a period: that in so short a space of time the exterior and
interior conditions of her life should be so completely changed. She
had passed through many widely-varying phases of mind since she had
left England with her father: the uncertainty of her life over, the
necessity for personal exertion at an end, and the death of her
husband--horrible and unlamented as it was--had produced a great
effect upon her. It was like relief from torturing, bodily pain,
exhausting and constant; it made her feel the need of deep and
prolonged rest, quite undisturbed and irresponsible. She turned
impatiently, in the great relief of her freedom, from men and cities;
and longed for the solitudes of nature, and the release from
conventionalities, which she felt was needed to complete the sense of
her emancipation. Lord Sandilands, who, though he had been very well
since they left England, was sensibly older, and who had gradually
come to centre all his interests in this woman--who, though a
reproach, was yet a constant delight to him--instantly obeyed her
wishes, and they went to Switzerland. The beaten track of the tourists
did not content Gertrude, whose taste for the wild and solitary
beauties of nature was thoroughly gratified in the Alp region; and at
no late period of their wanderings, they found themselves in the
neighbourhood of the beautiful and little-known valley of the Sixt.
The place had an interest for Gertrude, from association with a
favourite volume which she had read many a time, wondering whether the
time would ever come when the scenery of the great glacier-world
should be other than a romantic, unattainable vision to her. Lord
Sandilands found the air invigorating, and though he could not join
Gertrude in her explorations, he made every possible arrangement for
their being effected with comfort and safety; and by means of
supplying himself with a number of truly English "comforts"--most of
which were entirely unintelligible to the simple people of the
district, and caused him to be regarded with more than common awe--he
established himself very satisfactorily at the hospitable hostelry of
the Fer à Cheval, formerly the Convent of Sixt. There had always been
a good deal of philosophical contentment in the disposition of Lord
Sandilands, and under his present circumstances this useful mental
characteristic grew stronger and more ready at call. Reflecting, as he
often did now, upon the past, it had an almost amusing effect upon his
mind to remember how his time had formerly been passed--the people
whom he had really thought of consequence to him, the things he had
cared for and taken an interest in. How far away, how along ago, it
all seemed now--now that he cared for nothing but Gertrude: the memory
of Gertrude's mother--ah, what a blunder his conduct to her had been,
as well as what a sin!--and his dead friend's son, mysteriously
involved in that sin's consequence. Who remembered him, he thought;
and whom did he remember of the many who had been his associates, and
had called themselves his friends? If tidings of his death were to be
sent to England, how many would say or think more than--"Old
Sandilands has popped off, I hear; deuced good thing for the parson's
son in Dorsetshire, nephew or cousin, isn't it?" None he knew--and the
knowledge did not pain him--except Miles Challoner. And of these
phantom friendships, these several associations, he had made the
pabulum of his life. What utter nonsense it seemed now, to be sure,
when his daughter, sedulously kept out of sight and out of mind during
so many years, was now the great central truth and occupation of his
life, and his books and the eternal hills the quiet company in which
he most delighted! To the old man, too, the time seemed strangely
short though eventful, since the whole aspect of his existence had
been changed by the revelation made to him by his daughter. Since
Gilbert Lloyd's death he had watched her even more closely than
before, for the purpose of making up his mind whether she should be
left in entire ignorance of who the wicked man who had blighted her
young life, and was now removed from it for ever, really was, or
whether she should be told the truth. He decided that the latter
course should be pursued if Gertrude pined for Miles Challoner's
presence, if she made any persistent attempts to break through the
barrier of separation which circumstances and her own consent had
placed between them. If change of scene, the excitement and interest
of travel, and the natural influence of her youth and her recovered
liberty should produce the effect he hoped for, should lead her to
remember Miles with only a soft, kindly, painless regret, he would not
tell her the truth at all; the whole mystery of Geoffrey Challoner's
life should rest in his grave with him, instead of only that dark
secret which now Lord Sandilands could never by any possibility be
forced to divulge. The purpose which his dead friend had had in view
in imparting it to him had been faithfully served so long as the
unhappy man lived,--it had died with him. Neither Miles nor Gertrude
should ever learn that tremendous truth. Lord Sandilands took great
delight in his daughter's society, and sometimes under its influence
lost sight of the troubles of the past. But the future fate of
Gertrude occupied his mind painfully. He had never felt very strong
since the illness he had gone through at St. Leonards, and he had
become sensible since then that his life was not likely to be much
prolonged. He had said nothing to Gertrude of his conviction on this
point, nor had he alluded to it in his communications with Miles
Challoner. But in the quiet majestic region where they had now taken
up their abode, Lord Sandilands found an influence which attuned his
mind to very serious thought, and disposed him to the setting of his
house in order. What was to become of Gertrude when he should be gone?
The painful and peculiar circumstances of her former life disinclined
her to seek the busy haunts of the world, and her disposition required
companionship, sympathy, and affection. He could leave her in easy
circumstances, to be sure,--and he was of much too practical a turn of
mind to underrate the importance of such a power,--but he could not
give her security or happiness for the future. His heart turned
yearningly to Miles Challoner as this solicitude troubled him, and he
wondered whether his daughter's heart turned in the same direction. It
had not been mentioned between them for long. The death of Gilbert
Lloyd had set Gertrude free, so far as she knew; but she felt that the
barrier between her and Miles existed still. He had loved and wooed
her under a false impression, and since he had known the truth had
made no attempt to see or write to her. Lord Sandilands had not
failed to discern that she suffered keenly from this cause, but he
still believed that she would suffer more keenly had she known the
truth--the imperative and insurmountable reason which prevented Miles
from again seeking her presence. Thus on this subject--the most
interesting, the most vital to the father and the daughter--there had
been silence, and now Lord Sandilands wished to break it, but hardly
knew how to do so.
The time since the travellers had set up their rest at the Fer à
Cheval had passed tranquilly away, and Gertrude had frequently assured
her father that she had never enjoyed her foreign tour so much as now,
when she found herself among the solemn and majestic beauties of the
Alpine lands, and surrounded only by associations with nature, and
people of the simplest and most primitive habits. This assurance, so
far as it went, was strictly true, and yet Gertrude was not quite
happy. It was not altogether the shadow of the past which oppressed
her--it was dark, and fell chill upon her, doubtless--but there was an
actual haunting grief which was more painful even than that. She had
loved worthily a man worthy of her love, she had loved him more than
she had known or realised to herself, and he was lost to her now,--a
great gulf seemed to have fixed itself between them, and she was
perforce condemned to stand upon the opposite shore and gaze vainly
across it with longing eyes. What was he doing there, far away in the
distance beyond her ken? She did not know, and now not to know was
becoming unbearable. Had he forgotten her? How had he borne the
revelation which Lord Sandilands had made to him, and which had
disclosed to him the terrible deception of her life? Her father had
conveyed to her an assurance of his perfect forgiveness, and told her
that he had said, hopeless as his suit was now, and void of
expectation or happiness as his life must be, he could not regret that
he had known and loved her. This was all she knew, and the need, the
strong, desperate desire to know more became very potent as the time
lengthened, and the first shock of her husband's death, with the
revulsion of feeling it had caused, passed away. Thus it happened that
by a somewhat analogous process a similar result was wrought in the
minds of the father and the daughter, and it became imminent that
Miles Challoner should be spoken of between them.
The occasion arose on a splendid evening, late in the summer, when the
beauty of the scene amid which they lived was at its height, when the
peace and the majesty of the mountains filled their spirits, and the
turmoil of the past in their lives seemed an impossible delusion. A
time to think of the beloved dead with joyful hope as well as with
poignant sorrow; a time to make eternity seem true and near, and
hardly surprising; a time and a scene to soften and refine every
feeling, and to put far away the passions and pursuits of the common
world. Lord Sandilands was keenly impressed by this vague and
beautiful influence of nature; and under the impression reverted, as
the old do, to the long-past scenes of youth, its pleasures, its
dreams, its occupations, and its companions. He talked a great deal to
his daughter that evening of her mother, and of his own. The great
wrong he had done Gertrude Gautier once frankly acknowledged, and the
sincere repentance he had come to feel earnestly professed, Lord
Sandilands had alluded to that no more. Gertrude's mother might have
been his honoured wife for any tone of restraint or difference there
was in his infrequent mention of her. Then he strayed into talk of the
associates of his boyhood and his school and college days, and
mentioned Mark Challoner, the "young Squire" of Rowley in those
distant days. Here was Gertrude's opportunity, and she availed herself
of it promptly.
"Tell me about the Squire," she said, looking up into her father's
face from her low seat by his side, and laying her clasped hands upon
his knee. "I should like to hear all about him. Miles Challoner used
to speak of him with the greatest affection and respect."
"Yes," said Lord Sandilands, "Miles loved his father. He was a very
good son."
Seeing that a thoughtful expression spread itself over his face,
Gertrude was afraid he might lapse again into silence, and once more
asked him eagerly to tell her about the Squire. He did so. He told her
of the old times at Rowley, of the geniality, heartiness, popularity,
happiness of the Squire; of his pretty young wife, her death, the
change it wrought in the friend he so loved; of the long-unbroken
confidence which had existed between them, only disturbed by death;
and as he told the story, and dwelt upon the affectionate remembrances
which it revived, he felt how little death had really disturbed the
tie between them, how faithfully he had kept his friend's secret, and
how wonderful it was to think that his own daughter was so deeply
concerned in it--quite unconsciously. As her mobile, expressive face
lighted up with interest and emotion, he looked at her with deep
tenderness and compassion, thinking of the common suffering which
linked her with his dead friend, and made that secret more important
to her than even it had been to him. For him it was over and done with
for ever; for her its baleful and guilty influence lingered still.
"Is Miles like the Squire?" Gertrude asked.
"Yes," replied Lord Sandilands, "like him in face and in character,
but of a milder temper. Mark Challoner was very hot-tempered in his
youth, quick, and impatient. Miles is more like his mother in his
ways. She was a very sweet woman, and a terrible loss to her husband."
It was a relief to them to have thus slipped into an easy and familiar
mention of him whose name had been for so long unspoken between them.
"Have you heard of Miles lately, father?" said Gertrude quietly, and
without removing her eyes from Lord Sandilands' face.
"I am very glad you have asked me, my dear," replied her father. "I
did not like to talk of Miles to you until you should mention him
first. I have heard from him lately, and I don't like the tone in
which he writes about himself."
"Is he ill?" said Gertrude, with quick alarm in her face and in her
voice.
"No, not at all; but he is thoroughly discontented and unhappy. He has
tried his very best and hardest to live the life of a moral English
squire at Rowley, but he cannot do it; he has no heart for it; and I
should not be surprised any day to hear that he had given up the
useless attempt. He has not forgotten you, Gertrude; and he cannot
forget you."
"I am glad of that," she said in the same calm tone. "I suppose I
ought to say otherwise; but it would not be true, and I cannot say it.
I deceived him, and was forced to disappoint him, and bring a great
cross on his life; but I _cannot_ say that I should be glad to know he
had forgotten me, and had found elsewhere the happiness he thought he
might have had with me."
"I am glad you speak so frankly to me," said Lord Sandilands, laying
his hand tenderly on the shining bands of Gertrude's dark-brown hair.
"I have been thinking a great deal about you and Miles Challoner; and
I should like to know exactly how you feel about him."
The answer was very plainly to be read in her face, but Gertrude did
not hesitate to give it in words.
"There is no change in my feelings for him, father," she said. "I
shall never cease to love him."
"Would you marry him, Gertrude, if he came to ask you, though your
marriage should involve your relinquishing all connexion with England,
breaking entirely, even more completely than we have done, with old
associations, and making quite a new life in a new country for
yourselves? Don't start, my dear, and look so agitated; he has not
told me to ask you this. You are not required to give a decision. I
have asked you for my own satisfaction, because I want to know."
"I would marry him," Gertrude answered, "to go to the other end of the
world with him, if it did not mean parting with you--but that can
never be--without a scruple, without a regret, without a fear. But he
could not marry me--have I not deceived him?--even supposing he cared
for me now as he once did. No, no, that is over and I must not repine,
blest as my life is far above my deserts."
She put her father's hand to her lips as she spoke, then laid her soft
cheek tenderly upon it.
"And you think the obstacle which your hard fate raised between you
and Miles is insurmountable?" said Lord Sandilands, thinking the while
of that obstacle of which she was unconscious.
"I think so," Gertrude answered sadly. "Do not you? Have you any
reason for thinking it is not so?"
"None that I can make you understand, my child," said Lord Sandilands.
"But I have a strong conviction--a feeling which may not be
reasonable, but is irresistible--that all this strange riddle of your
life will yet work itself out to a clear and happy solution in your
becoming Miles Challoner's wife. I understand the extent and force of
the objections much better than you do, and give them their full
weight in the estimation of the world. But (since I have been here
particularly) I have for some time ceased to set very great store by
the opinions of the world, and to believe that there is much happiness
or even satisfaction to be got out of conformity to them. I fancy
Miles is very strongly of my opinion, and in time--not a very long
time either--I have a perfect conviction that all will be well, and
that when I leave you I shall do so in better hands than mine."
Gertrude's tears were falling before her father concluded these
sentences, which he spoke with much earnestness, and for some time she
did not speak. At length she said:
"When he writes to you, does he ever mention me?"
"Always, and always in the same invariable tone. No other woman will
ever be offered the place in his home which he once hoped would have
been yours. This he has told me often, and desired I should tell you,
if ever, or whenever, you should again speak of him to me."
"He knows we have not spoken of him lately?"
"He knows that, and has been satisfied that it should be so; the time
that has elapsed since the event that set you free has not been too
long for a silence dictated by propriety; but it has expired now,
Gertrude, and I think you and he might be brought to understand each
other, and make up your minds, like rational people, what extent of
sacrifice you are prepared to make to secure the privilege of passing
the remainder of your lives together."
"I have it not in my power to make any sacrifice," said Gertrude;
"that must come from him, if it is to come at all. I wish I had; but
it is he who would have all to forgive, all to forego, all to endure."
Lord Sandilands, with his secret knowledge of the truth, felt that she
had reason in her words. But he had strong faith in Miles Challoner,
and confident hope in the result of a plan which he had formed, and on
which this conversation with his daughter finally determined him to
act. He did not prolong their conference, but bade Gertrude be of good
cheer, and trust in him and in the future. She gave him her ready
promise, and a fervent assurance of the happiness and contentment of
her life with him, and said a few earnest words of affection to him,
which her father received with a fervour which would have astonished
himself almost as much as it would have surprised his London
acquaintances. As the shades of evening deepened, silence fell upon
Lord Sandilands and Gertrude once more, unbroken until he asked her to
sing to him. She complied immediately (her father and the peasants
were the only persons who now heard the glorious voice which had
enchanted the most splendid, refined, and critical audience in the
world), and the rich, thrilling strains soon floated out upon the pure
mountain-air. Her father--lying on a couch beneath the window at the
end of the long room, which commanded a glorious view of the valley
leading up to the Col d'Auterne, and from whence Gertrude had watched
many a sunrise, and gazed at many a moonlight scene, such as no words
could convey a description of--listened to her singing, and was
transported in fancy back to the long-vanished past. The last song
which Gertrude sung that night was the first she had sung at the
concert at Carabas House, when Miles Challoner had looked upon her to
love her, and Lord Sandilands had looked at her and found Gertrude
Gautier's features in her face.
A few days later, when he had considered the matter maturely, and made
up his mind that in the way which had suggested itself to him the
happiness of his daughter and Miles Challoner might be secured, Lord
Sandilands wrote to his dead friend's son. The letter was a long one,
replying fully to the last which he had received from Miles, and
giving him excellent advice, which the writer was thoroughly well
qualified to offer, concerning the disposition and management of his
property. It contained intelligence of Lord Sandilands' health, and a
description of the locale and its resources. Then it continued:
"_I have purposely avoided mentioning Gertrude to you until the
present stage of my letter should have been reached, because I have
much to say concerning her of a more serious nature than the details
of her daily occupations, and a report of her health and looks. The
latter are good, the former are as usual. She still retains unaltered
her pleasure in the mountain scenery, the primitive people, and the
flowers. She is still the same to me--an affectionate daughter and a
charming companion. But some time has now passed since the death of
her unhappy husband, and its influence is telling upon her. I have not
been blind to the change in her; and a few days ago, for the first
time, I mentioned you, and elicited from her an avowal which I am
about to disclose to you, addressing you in my double character (and
of course without her knowledge) of Gertrude's father and your oldest,
and I think I may add truest, friend. She is still attached to
you--and in spite of all the sorrow and all the equivocal experiences
which have been hers--with a fresh, vivid, and trusting affection,
which would suffice, or I am very much mistaken in my estimate of both
of you, to make your lives, if united, happy. I do not entertain any
doubt that your feelings towards her remain unchanged, and it is on
this supposition that I now address you. You have known me long, my
dear Miles, and as well as a man of your age can know a man of mine;
and when I tell you that I regret more deeply, bitterly, and
unavailingly than anything else--it is my lot, the common one of old
age, to look back upon the past with vain bitterness and regret--the
having hesitated before the opinion of the world in doing my duty by
the woman I loved, and following to a practical issue my own
conviction of the means by which my true happiness might have been
secured, you will not suspect me of unduly underrating, or carelessly
despising, the opinion and the judgment of the world. The
circumstances must be very exceptional indeed under which I would
counsel any man, holding a fair position in society and endowed with
the duties and privileges of a landed proprietor as you we, to defy
the opinion of society, and to turn his back on those duties and
privileges. But yours is a very exceptional position, and I do counsel
you to do both these things. Your heart is not in Rowley Court, nor
are you capable of fulfilling your duties as you are at present. Make
new ones for yourself, my dear Miles. Yield to the inclination which
you have partly confessed, and which I have very distinctly perceived,
and turn your back upon the scene which has been overclouded for you
since your boyhood by a sorrow which has ever been, and must remain, a
mystery to you. Geoffrey Challoner's crime is buried in the grave of
Gilbert Lloyd; but you will never lay its ghost while you remain at
Rowley Court. I am neither a credulous nor a superstitious man; but I
have seen more instances than one of the passing away of the 'luck' of
an old place, and I feel that Rowley Court is one of those from which
the old 'luck' has passed away. So far as leaving the place is
concerned, I believe my advice will only anticipate, if even it does
anticipate, the resolution I fully expect to hear you have by this
time taken. And now to my other point. Society in England and English
law do not recognise such a marriage as that of yourself and Gertrude
would be; and under anything like ordinary circumstances I should be
one of the first and strongest protestants against such a union; but
as I have already said, yours are the most exceptional circumstances
conceivable out of the region of the wildest romance. Your marriage
with Gertrude could not injure any rights, or offend any principles or
prejudices, as no one ever likely to see your faces again, or, if you
did marry, ever to be aware of the fact, has the least notion of the
existence of those circumstances. Sell the property, leave England,
and if you still love Gertrude, as she loves you, marry her, and seek
happiness and home in a foreign land. I write now, you must bear in
mind, remembering that she is entirely ignorant of the complication in
your story and hers which sets it apart from perhaps any other human
experience. She regards herself as a faulty woman, who deceived the
man she loved by an assumption which she deems unpardonable,
undeniable, even after that wretched man's death had set her free. You
regard her as still (as I believe) the object of your truest love, but
parted from you by the fact that the man who made her miserable, and
might have made her guilty had not true love intervened to save her,
was your own brother, the author of the misery which made the latter
years of your father dark and cheerless. These are both substantial
truths and phantoms,--the first in their simple existence, the second
in the effect they ought to produce on such a mind as yours. The
misfortunes of your life are irremediable; but they are also past and
gone, and the future may still be yours--yours too, without a braving
of opinion, a defiance of the world to which you would probably not
feel equal, if the selection of your future course of proceeding were
put before you hampered with any such imperative condition. You might
take wealth with you to a foreign land, and the antecedents of your
wife could never be known there to anyone; here, only to me; and I am
ready to give your determination to carry out such a scheme as this my
warmest approbation and support, though, if you do it, I must lose the
society of my child, which is inexpressibly dear to me. But I owe it
to Gertrude, and still more to Gertrude's mother, that I should not
rest content with a half-compensation to my daughter, that she should
not be only half-happy. I know in what her true happiness would
consist, and it shall not be wanting through any failure of self-denial
on my part. My time here is not to be long; perhaps it may be
peaceful, and less haunted by remorse, if my daughter becomes your
wife. I have sinned much towards the living and the dead; and though
there does not at first sight appear to be any reparation in the
scheme which I propose, there is a reparation which you will
understand in part, and I entirely. If I am not in error in respect to
your feelings, write to me, and say that you will join us here, when
the necessary arrangement of your affairs will admit of your coming_."
When Lord Sandilands had written this letter, he did not immediately
despatch it, but laid it by-for a few days, during which he
deliberated with himself much and secretly. But the end of all his
meditations, the upshot of all his close observation of Gertrude, was
a conviction that the letter was an exposition of the truth, and ought
to be sent. Accordingly, on the fourth day after he had written he
despatched it, and it was fortunate that he had taken and acted upon
the resolution at the time he did; for Lord Sandilands was not to act
upon any more resolutions, or play any active part in the affairs of
this world any more.
On the evening of the day on which his letter to Miles Challoner had
been sent away, and while his daughter was singing to him, Lord
Sandilands was taken ill with acute gout. The attack had many features
in common with that which had tried him so severely at St. Leonards,
but was more severe and exhausting. The English doctor from Chamouni
shook his head and looked very grave from the first,--he was naturally
a gloomy practitioner, but in this instance his gravity was amply
justified. There was not enough rallying-power in the constitution of
the patient it seemed, and the illness rapidly assumed a fatal aspect.
The intelligence was conveyed, not without humane gentleness, to
Gertrude, on whom its effect was overwhelming indeed. A kind of
stupefaction came over her; she could render but little assistance,
but she never left her father, and even when his exhaustion was
greatest he was conscious of her presence.
One day, when the end was only a few hours off, she was sitting by
Lord Sandilands' bed, holding one of his thin hands in hers, and
gazing with looks expressive of such anguish as only such a vigil
knows, on his sleeping face. A slight noise at the door disturbed her,
but she merely raised her hand with a warning gesture, and did not
turn her head. In another moment a man's form approached her with
swift, noiseless strides, and she was silently clasped in the arms of
Miles Challoner.
Thus sheltered, thus comforted, her father found her when he awoke,
and a little while after Lord Sandilands died.