I ran downstairs in desperation. I could not be content to let that
dreadful mockery go on. It was vain, for we never, never, would have
taken another man’s rights; but for herself, the miserable, guilty
woman, to hinder her by any means, to save her from putting that seal
upon all her cruelty and falsehood. I saw nobody as I flew down the
stairs, though afterwards I was conscious that Lizzie had been standing
there with my beautiful innocent boy. Do you think I would consent for a
kingdom to bring the curse of wrongful wealth upon little Harry? Not if
starvation and misery had been the only other choice!
I burst into the library, where I knew Aunt Milly was. Pale with
watching and anxiety, she was sitting propped up in an easy-chair, with
Sara Cresswell and Luigi beside her. I believe they had been telling her
their story, and she, straining her ear for every sound, had been trying
to listen to them. When I came in she started up from her chair and came
to meet me, unconsciously putting them away. “What is it, Milly?” she
cried, putting out her arms to me. I dared not permit myself to rest or
even lean upon her. I seized her hand and drew her to the door.
“Come up, and interfere,” I cried; “she is making her dreadful will. She
is leaving everything to me. Come, before she has put the seal to all
this misery. Aunt Milly, can you stand aside and let this be done?”
“My dear,” said Aunt Milly, with a burst of tears, kissing me and
looking in my face, “you know I love you, Milly; you know you are almost
dearer to me now than any creature on earth.”
I could not thank her; I had no time. I did not feel grateful or
pleased, but only impatient. “Come; come!” I repeated almost with
violence. I could not understand how she could delay.
“Let her do what she will,” cried Aunt Milly. “If I go and argue with
her, it will only make her worse. Oh, child! we can’t cross her now;
don’t you see we can’t cross her now? But I took a vow, as sure as God
saw us, I would do justice,” said Aunt Milly, solemnly through her
tears. “She can but do what she can. We are co-heiresses! she has no
power but over her own share.”
“Share!” I cried, “is it shares we have to think of? She is dying, and
she does not repent.”
I could not wait there any longer; they all followed upstairs, Aunt
Milly holding my hand. They all came into the dressing-room, where we
could faintly hear Miss Mortimer’s voice, and where Carson stood
trembling at the door. At this moment there was no order or rule in the
stricken house. Then Aunt Milly went with me into the sick room. Mr.
Cresswell was writing, and Miss Mortimer had stopped speaking. She
turned her eyes triumphantly upon us both.
“I have carried out your wishes, Milly. I have left everything to your
favourite,” she said, with pauses to got her breath. “You may sign it
after me, and then it will be complete.”
“Sarah, that boy, that boy!” cried Aunt Milly. “Oh, put out your hand to
him just once--think, before it is finished, what claims he has. Give
him something. Sarah! Sarah! you would not take me into your confidence;
but I’ll go down on my knees to you if you’ll do justice to that boy!”
“I am going to die,” said Miss Mortimer, after a pause. “I can see it in
all your faces. I can’t be much worse off than I’ve been here. But look
you, Milly, if you come and drive me into passion; if that wretched boy
so much as comes near me, I’ll die directly, and you’ll be my murderers.
His father made the choice--and I will not change, no, not if he came
again, as he did yesterday, with the dead man. Cresswell, I’m growing a
little faint. Is it ready to sign?”
He brought it and laid it before her on the bed; and she called to me to
raise her up. I was desperate. I would rather have been content to be
her murderer, as she said, than to let her do that sin.
“You are not Sarah Mortimer,” said I, as with great difficulty she wrote
her signature. “It is a false name, and you know it is. Write your own
name, Countess Sermoneta, and let everybody know that you have
disinherited your son.”
She stared round at me, setting her teeth, then returned to the paper,
and with a desperate resolution completed it. I stood perfectly aghast
as I saw that dead hand trace those words, which to me cut her off for
ever from every hope:--“By marriage, Sermoneta.” God help us! was there
now no place of repentance?
“And now,” she said, falling back on her pillows, “send me Carson--I
want no more--no more from anybody; send me my maid. I’ll forgive _her_
though she deserted me;--nobody,” sobbed the poor voice, all at once
breaking and growing feeble,--“nobody knows me but Carson. I want my
maid; Carson, here!”
She had scarcely spoken, when Carson was by her side kneeling down at
the bed, kissing the cold hand held out to her with such tears and eager
affection as I never saw a servant show to a mistress. It was a
reconciliation of love. The tears came into Miss Mortimer’s eyes. She
gave her hand to her maid’s caresses with actual affection. It was the
strangest conclusion to that dismal scene. One after another we three
went out of the room confounded. Aunt Milly weeping tears, the
bitterness of which I could not enter into. Mr. Cresswell, with a face
of utter wonder, and myself, too much shocked and shaken to be able for
anything. I could not go downstairs with them. I took refuge in the room
that had been fitted up as a nursery for my baby. I got my boy into my
arms and cried over him. It was too much; when he put his innocent arms
round my neck and laid his cheek to mine to console me, my happiness
struck me as with a pang. Oh, the unutterable things she had lost, that
poor, miserable woman! I got up again to rush back to her with my baby,
and see if that would not touch her heart, but stumbled in weariness and
weakness, and fell on my knees on the floor. That was all that was to be
done. I acknowledged it with that dreadful sense of impotence that one
has, when hearts and souls have to be dealt with. On my knees I might
help that desolate, lonely creature,--nowhere else, in no other manner.
And even this not now. I was worn out with excitement and distress. I
was ashamed to think, or permit myself to say, that one night’s watching
had done it. I had to put little Harry back into Lizzie’s hands and lie
down in the waning daylight. My head throbbed, and my heart beat, so
that I could not even recollect my thoughts. And all that had happened
seemed to have no impression but one upon me. I never thought of that
group downstairs going over the wonderful story which nobody had so much
as guessed at. I thought only of that hopeless woman, in her shut-up
room, slowly floating out of existence, dying hour by hour, and minute
by minute, unchanged and unsubdued. What was death that it should
change her, whom love and pity, and the long-suffering of God had not
changed? But I thought to myself I could never more blame those who
preach out of season as well as in season, and cannot be silent. There
were moments in which I could not endure myself--in which I felt as if I
must go and make another appeal to her--even at the risk of thrusting
myself into the room, and disturbing the quiet of her last hours.