MONICA.
MONICA.
A Novel.
BY
EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN.
Author of
“Torwood’s Trust,” “The Last of the Dacres,”
“Ruthven of Ruthven,” Etc.
_IN THREE VOLUMES._
VOL. III.
LONDON:
WARD AND DOWNEY,
12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
1889.
PRINTED BY
KELLY AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS,
AND KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.
PAGE
Beatrice 1
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.
Storm 17
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.
Widowed 39
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH.
Monica 61
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH.
Haunted 79
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.
Lovers 97
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH.
“As We Forgive” 124
CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH.
Lord Haddon 155
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST.
Christmas 177
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND.
The Last 194
MONICA.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.
BEATRICE.
“Beatrice, I believe my words are coming true, after all. I begin to
think you are getting tired of Trevlyn already.”
It was Monica who spoke thus. She had surprised Beatrice alone in the
boudoir at dusk one afternoon, sitting in an attitude of listless
dejection, with the undoubted brightness of unshed tears in her eyes.
But the girl looked up quickly, trying to regain all her usual
animation, though the attempt was not a marked success, and Monica sat
down beside her, and laid one hand upon hers in a sort of mute caress.
“You are not happy with us, Beatrice, I see it more and more plainly
every day. You have grown pale since you came here, and your spirits
vary every hour, but they do not improve, and you are often sad. I
think Trevlyn cannot suit you. I think I shall have to prescribe change
of air and scene, and a meeting later on in some other place.”
Monica spoke with a sort of grave gentleness, that indicated a
tenderness she could not well express more clearly. For answer,
Beatrice suddenly flung herself on her knees before her hostess,
burying her face in her hands.
“Oh, don’t send me away, Monica! Don’t send me away! I could not bear
it—indeed I could not! I am miserable—I am wretched company. I don’t
wonder you are tired of me; but ah! don’t send me away from you, and
from Trevlyn. I think I shall _die_ if you do. Oh, why is the world
such a hard, cruel place?”
Monica was startled at this sudden outburst, for since the day
following her arrival Beatrice had showed herself unusually reserved.
She had been _distraite_, absorbed, fitful in her moods, but never once
expansive; therefore, this unexpected impulse towards confidence was
the more surprising.
“Beatrice,” she said gently, “I did not mean to distress you. You know
how very, very welcome you are to stay with us. But you are unhappy;
you are far more unhappy than when you came.”
Beatrice shook her head vehemently at this point, but Monica continued
in the same quiet way. “You are unhappy, you are restless and
miserable. Beatrice, answer me frankly, would you be happy if Tom
Pendrill were not here? He has already outstayed his original time, and
we could quite easily get rid of him if his presence is a trouble to
you. We never stand on ceremony with Tom, and Randolph could manage it
in a moment.”
Beatrice lifted a pale, startled face.
“Tom Pendrill?” she repeated, almost sharply. “What has he got to
do with it? What makes you bring in his name? What do you know
about—about——?” She stopped suddenly.
“I know nothing except what I see for myself—nothing but what your
face and his tell me. It is easy to see that you have known each
other before, and under rather exceptional circumstances, perhaps. Do
you think it escapes me, that feverish gaiety of yours whenever he is
near—gaiety that is expended in laughing, chatting, flirting, perhaps,
with the other guests, but is never by any chance directed to him? Do
you think I do not notice how quickly that affectation of high spirits
evaporates when he is gone; how many fits of sad musing follow in its
wake? How is it you two never talk to one another? never exchange
anything beyond the most frigid commonplaces? It is not your way to
be so distant and so cool, Beatrice. There must be a reason. Tell me
truly, would you not be happier if Tom Pendrill were to go back to St.
Maws?”
But Beatrice shook her head again, and heaved a long, shuddering sigh.
“Oh, no, no!” she said. “Don’t send him away. Nothing really matters
now; nothing can do either good or harm. Let him stay. I think his
heart is made of ice. He does not care; why should I? It is nothing but
my folly and weakness, only it brings it all back so bitterly—all my
pride, and self-will, and stubbornness. Well, I have suffered for it
now.”
It was plain that a confession was hovering on Beatrice’s lips; that
she was anxious at last to unburden herself of her secret. Monica
helped her by asking a direct question.
“Were you engaged to him once?”
“No—no! not quite. I had not got quite so far as that. I might have
been. He asked me to be his wife, and I—I——” She paused, and then went
on more coherently.
“I will tell you all about it. It was years ago, when I was barely
eighteen—a gay, giddy girl, just ‘out,’ full of fun, very wild and
saucy, and thoroughly spoiled by persistent petting and indulgence. I
was the only daughter of the house, and believed that Lady Beatrice
Wentworth was a being of vast importance. Well, I suppose people
spoiled us because we were orphans. We were all more or less spoiled,
and I think it was the ruin of my eldest brother. He was at Oxford at
the time I am speaking of; and I was taken to Commemoration by some gay
friends of ours, who had brothers and sons at Oxford.
“It was there I met Tom Pendrill. He was the ‘chum’ of one of the
undergraduate sons of my chaperon, and he was a great man just then. He
had distinguished himself tremendously in the schools, I know—had taken
a double-first, or something, and other things beside. He was quite a
lion in his own set, and I heard an immense deal in his praise, and was
tremendously impressed, quite convinced that there was not such another
man in the world. He was almost always in our party, and he took a
great deal of notice of me. He gave us breakfast in his rooms, and I
sat next him, and helped to do the honours of the table. You can’t
think how proud I was at being singled out by him, how delighted I was
to walk by his side, listening to his words of wisdom, how elevated I
often felt, how taken out of myself into quite a new world of thought
and feeling.”
Beatrice paused. A smile—half sad, half bitter—played for a moment over
her face; then she took up the thread of her narrative.
“I need not go into the subject of my feelings. I was very young, and
all the glamour of youth and inexperience was upon me. I had never,
in all my life, come across a man in the least like him—so clever, so
witty, so cultured, and withal with so strong a personality. He was
not silent and cynical, as he is now, but full of life and sparkle, of
brilliance and humour. I was dazzled and captivated. I believed there
had never been such a man in the world before. He was my ideal, my
hero; and he seemed to court me, which was the most wonderful thing of
all.
“You know what young girls are like? No, perhaps you don’t, and I
will avoid generalities, and speak only of myself. Just because he
captivated me so much—my fancy, my intellect, my heart—just because
I began to feel his power growing so strongly upon me, I grew shy,
frightened, restive. I was very wilful and capricious. I wanted him to
admire me, and I was proud that he seemed to do so; but I did not in
the least want to acknowledge his power over me. I was frightened at
it. I tried to ignore it—to keep it off.
“So, in a kind of foolish defiance and mistrust of myself, I began
flirting tremendously with a silly young marquis, whom I heartily
despised and disliked. I only favoured him when Tom Pendrill was
present, for I wanted to make him jealous, and to feel my power over
him. Coquetry is born in some women, I believe; I am sure it was born
in me. I did not mean any harm. I never cared a bit for the creature.
I cared for no one but the man I affected now to be tired of. But
rumours got about. I suppose it would have been a very good match for
me. People said I was going to marry the cub, and I only laughed when I
heard the report. I was young, vain, and foolish enough to feel rather
flattered than otherwise.”
She paused a moment, with another of those bitter-sweet smiles, and
went on very quietly:
“Why are girls so badly brought up? I was not bad at heart; but I was
vain and frivolous. I loved to inflict pain of a kind upon others, till
I played once too often with edge-tools, and have suffered for it ever
since. Of course, Tom Pendrill heard these reports, and, of course,
they angered him deeply; for I had given him every encouragement.
He did not know the complex workings of a woman’s heart, her wild
struggles for supremacy before she can be content to yield herself up
for ever a willing sacrifice. He did not understand; how should he? I
did not either till it was too late.
“I saw him once more alone. We were walking by the river one moonlight
night. He was unlike himself—silent, moody, imperious. All of a sudden
it burst out. He asked me almost fiercely if I would be his wife—he
almost claimed my promise as his right—said that I owed him that
reparation for destroying his peace of mind. How my heart leapt as I
heard those words. A torrent of love seemed to surge over me. I was
terrified at the depth of feeling he had stirred up. I struggled with
a sort of fury against being carried away by it, against betraying
myself too unreservedly. I don’t remember what I said; I was terribly
agitated. I believe in my confusion and bewilderment I said something
disgusting about my rank and his—the difference between us. Then he
cast that odious marquis in my teeth, supposed that the report he had
heard was true, that I was going to sell myself for the reversion of a
ducal coronet, since I thought so much of _rank_. I was furious; all
the more furious because I had brought it on myself, though, had he but
known it, it was ungenerous to take me at a disadvantage, and cast my
words back at me like that—words spoken without the least consideration
or intention. But, right or wrong, he did it, and I answered back
with more vehemence than before. I don’t know what I said, but it was
enough for him, at any rate. He turned upon me—I think he almost cursed
me—not in words, but in the cruel scorn expressed in his face and in
his voice. Ah! it hurts me even now. Then he left me without another
word, without a sign or sound of farewell—left me standing alone by
that river. I never saw him again till we met in your drawing-room that
night.”
Beatrice paused; Monica had taken her hand in token of sympathy, but
she did not speak.
“Of course, at first I thought he would come back. I never dreamed
he would believe I had really led him on, only to reject him with
contempt, when once he dared to speak his heart to me. We had
quarrelled; and I was very miserable, knowing how foolish I had been;
but I never, never believed for a moment that he would take that
quarrel as final.
“Two wretched days of suspense followed. Then I heard that he had left
Oxford the morning after our interview by the river, and I knew that
all was over between us. That is the story of my life, Monica; it does
not sound much to tell, but it means a good deal to me. I have never
loved anyone else—I do not think I ever shall.”
Monica was silent.
“Neither has he.”
Beatrice’s eyes were full of a sort of wistful sadness and tender
regret; but she only kissed Monica very quietly, and stole silently
from the room.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.
STORM.
“Ah, Randolph! I am glad you are in. It is going to be such a rough
night!”
Monica was sitting by the fire in her own room, waiting for her husband
to join her there, as he always did immediately upon coming in from
his day’s sport. They had one or two more guests at Trevlyn now—men,
friends of Randolph’s in days past; but nothing ever hindered him from
devoting this one hour before dinner to his wife. It was to Monica the
happiest hour of the day.
“I am so glad to have you safe back. Are you not very wet?”
“No; I was well protected from the rain; but it has been a disagreeable
sort of day. The other fellows were carried off to dine at Hartland’s.
We came across their party just outside the park, and he begged us all
to accept his hospitality for the night, as the weather was getting
so bad. Haddon and I came home to tell you, but the rest accepted the
invitation. We shall be quite a small party to-night.”
Monica looked up with a smile.
“I think I am glad of that, Randolph.”
He sat down and put his arm about her.
“Tired of our guests already, Monica?”
“I don’t know—I like to have your friends, and to help to make them
enjoy themselves; but I don’t think there is any such happiness as
having you all to myself.”
He held her closer to him, and looked with a proud fond smile into her
face.
“You feel that too, Monica?”
“Ah, yes! How could I help it?”
He fancied she spoke sadly, and would know why.
“I think I have been sad all day,” she answered; “I am often sad before
a storm, when I hear the wind moaning round the house. It makes me
think of the brave men at sea, and their wives waiting for them at
home.”
There was a little quiver in her voice as she spoke the last words.
Randolph heard it, and held her very close to him.
“It is not such a very bad night, Monica.”
“No; but it makes me think. When you are away, I cannot help feeling
sad, often. Ah, my husband! how can I tell you all that you have been
to me these happy, happy months?”
“My sweet wife!” he murmured, softly.
“And other wives love their husbands,” she went on in the same dreamy
way, “and they see them go away over the dark sea, never to come back
any more,” and she shivered.
“Let us go to the music-room, Monica,” said Randolph. “You shall play
the hymn for those at sea.”
He knew the power of music to soothe her, when these strange moods of
sadness and fear came upon her. They went to the organ together, and
before half-an-hour had passed Monica was her own calm, serene self
again.
“Monica,” said Randolph, “can you sing something to me now—now that we
are quite alone together? Do you remember that little sad, sweet song
you sang the night before I went away to Scotland? Will you sing it to
me now? I have so often wanted to hear it again.”
Monica gave him one quick glance, and struck the preliminary chords
softly and dreamily.
Wonderfully rich and sweet her voice sounded; but low-toned and deep,
with a subtle searching sweetness that spoke straight to the heart:
“‘And if thou wilt, remember—
And if thou wilt, forget.’”
There was the least little quiver in her voice as it died into silence.
Randolph bent over her and kissed her on the lips.
“Thank you,” he said. “It is a haunting little song in its sad
sweetness. Somehow, it seems like you, Monica.”
But she made no answer, for at that moment a sound reached their ears
that made them both start, listening intently. Monica’s face grew white
to the lips.
The sound was repeated with greater distinctness.
“A gun!” said Randolph.
“A ship in distress!” whispered Monica.
A ship in distress upon that cruel, iron-bound coast—a pitch-dark night
and a rising gale!
Randolph looked grave and resolute.
“We must see what can be done,” he said.
Monica’s face was very pale, but as resolute as her husband’s.
“I will go with you!” she said.
He glanced at, her, but he did not say her nay.
In the hall servants were gathering in visible excitement. Lord Haddon
was there, and Beatrice. The distressing signals from the doomed vessel
were urging their imperative message upon every heart. Faces were
flushed with excitement. Every eye was turned upon the master of the
house.
“Haddon,” he said, “there is not a man on the place that can ride like
you, and you know every inch of the country by this time. Will you do
this?—take the fastest, surest horse in the stable, and gallop to the
nearest life-boat station. You know where it is?—Good! Give the alarm
there, and get all in readiness. If the ship is past our help, and
drifts with the wind, they may be able to save her crew still.”
Haddon stayed to ask no more. He was off for the stables almost before
the words had left Randolph’s lips.
Monica was wrapping herself up in her warm ulster; Beatrice followed
her example; the one was flushed, the other pale, but both were bent on
the same object—they must go down to the shore to see what was done.
They could not rest with the sound of those terrible guns ringing in
their ears.
The night was pitchy black, the sky was obscured by a thick bank of
cloud. The wind blew fierce and strong, what sailors would call “half
a gale.” It was a wild, “dirty” night, but not nearly so bad a one as
they often knew upon that coast.
The lanterns lighted them down the steep cliff-path, every foot of
which, however, was well known to Monica. She kept close beside her
husband. He gave her his hand over every difficult piece of the road,
Beatrice followed a little more slowly. At last they all stood together
upon the rocky floor of the bay.
Monica looked out to sea. She was the first to realise what had
happened.
“She has struck on the reef!” she said. “She does not drift. She has
struck!”
“And in such a sea she will be dashed to pieces in a very short time,”
said Randolph, as another signal flashed out from the doomed vessel.
Other lights were moving about the shore. It was plain that the whole
population of the little hamlet had gathered at the water’s edge.
Through the gusts of rain they could see indistinctly moving figures;
they could catch as a faint murmur the loud, eager tones of their
voices.
“Stay here, Monica,” said Randolph, “under the shelter of this rock. I
must go and see what is being done. Wait here for me.”
She had held fast by his arm till now! but she loosed his clasp as she
heard these words.
“You will come back?” she said, striving to speak calmly and steadily.
“Yes, as soon as I can. I must see what can be done. There seems to be
a boat. I must go and see if it cannot be launched. The sea in the bay
is not so very wild.”
Randolph was gone already. Beatrice and Monica were left standing in
the lee of a projection of the cliff. They thought they were quite
alone. They did not see a crouching figure not many paces away,
squeezed into a dark fissure of the rock. The night was too obscure
to see anything, save where the flashing lights illumined the gloom.
Even the wild beast glitter of a pair of fierce eyes watching intently
passed unseen and unheeded.
Monica looked out to sea with a strange fixed yearning in her dark
eyes. She was looking towards the vessel, struck fast upon the very
rock where she had once stood face to face with death. How well she
remembered that moment and the strange calmness that possessed her!
She never realised the peril she was in—it had seemed a small thing
to her then whether she lived or died. She recalled her feelings so
well—was she really the same Monica who had stood so calmly there
whilst the waves leaped up as if to devour her? Where was her old, calm
indifference now?—that strange courage prompted by the want of natural
love for life?
A sense of revelation swept over Monica at that moment. She had never
really feared, because she had never truly loved. It was not death even
now that she dreaded for herself, or for her husband, but separation.
Danger, even to death, shared with him, would be almost welcome: but to
think of his facing danger alone—that was too terrible. She pressed her
hands closely together. It seemed as if her very soul cried to Heaven
to keep away this dire necessity. Why she suspected its existence she
could not have explained, but the shadow that had hung upon her all day
seemed wrapping itself about her like a cloud.
“Monica, how you tremble!” said Beatrice. “Are you cold? Are you
afraid?”
She was trembling herself, but it was with excitement and impatience.
Monica did not answer, and Beatrice moved a little away. She was too
restless to stand still.
Monica did not miss her. A storm was sweeping over her soul—one of
those storms that only perhaps come once in a life-time, and that leave
indelible traces behind them. It seemed to her as if all her life long
she had been waiting for this hour—as if everything in her past life
had been but leading up to it.
Had she not known from her earliest childhood that some day this
beautiful, terrible, pitiless sea was to do her some deadly injury—to
wreck her life and leave her desolate? Ay she had known it always—and
now—had the hour come?
Not in articulate words did Monica ask this question. It came as a sort
of voiceless cry from the depths of her heart. She did not think, she
did not reason—she only stood quite still, her hands closely clasped,
her white face turned towards the sea, with a mute, stricken look of
pain that yet expressed but a tithe of the bitter pain at her heart.
But during those few minutes, that seemed a life-time to her, the
battle had been fought out and the victory won. The old calmness had
come back to her. She had not faced this hour all her life to be a
coward now.
She was a Trevlyn—and when had a Trevlyn ever been known to shrink or
falter before a call of duty?
Beatrice rushed back with the greatest excitement of manner.
“They have a boat, but nearly all the men are away—the strong men who
could man it easily. There are a few strong lads, who are willing and
eager to go, and two fishermen; but there are only six in all, and they
don’t know if it is enough. Oh, dear! oh, dear! And those poor people
in the ship! Must they all be drowned?”
“I think not,” answered Monica, quietly. “I think some means will be
found to save them. Where is Randolph?”
Randolph was beside her next moment.
“Ah, if only I were a man,” Beatrice was saying, excitedly. “Ah! why
are women so useless, so helpless? To think of them drowning within
sight of land—and they say the sea does not run so very high. Oh, what
will they do? They cannot let them drown! Randolph, can nothing be
done?”
“Yes, something can be done,” he answered steadily and cheerfully. “The
boat is being run down. It will not be difficult or dangerous to launch
her in shelter of the cliff. There are six men to man it—all they want
is a coxswain. Monica,” he added, turning to her, and taking both her
hands in his strong clasp, “you have taught me to navigate the Bay of
Trevlyn so well, that I am equal to take that task upon myself. There
are lives to be saved—the danger to the rescuing party is small, they
say so, and I believe they speak the truth. Will you let me go?”
She looked up to him with a mute entreaty in her eyes.
“There are lives to be saved, my Monica,” he said, with grave
gentleness. “Are our brothers to go down within sight of land, without
one effort on our part to save them? Have you not wept for such scenes
before now? Have you no pity to-night? Monica, in that vessel on the
rocks there are men, perhaps, whose wives are waiting at home for them,
and praying for their safety. Will you let me go?”
She spoke at length with manifest effort, though her manner was quite
calm.
“Is there no one else?”
“There is no one else.”
For perhaps ten seconds there was perfect silence between them.
“Then Randolph, I will let you go.”
He bent his head and kissed her.
“I knew my wife would bid me do my duty,” he said proudly; “and believe
me, my life, the danger is not great, and already the wind seems
abating. It is but a small vessel. In all probability one journey will
suffice. We shall not be out of sight, save for the darkness; we shall
be under the lee of the cliff for the best part of the way. The boat is
sound, the men know their work. We shall soon be back in safety, please
God, and then you will be glad that you let me go.”
She lifted her head and looked at him.
“Take me with you, Randolph.”
“My darling, I cannot. It would not be right. We must not load the boat
needlessly, even were there no other reason. Your presence there would
take away half my courage, and perhaps it might necessitate leaving
behind some poor fellow who otherwise might be saved.”
Monica said no more. She knew that he spoke the truth.
Her white, still face with its stricken look, went to his heart. He
knew how strangely nervous she was on wild, windy nights. He knew it
would be hard for her to let him go, but she had shown herself his
brave, true Monica, as he knew she would do, and now the kindest thing
he could do was to shorten the parting, and return to her as quickly as
his errand would allow him.
He held her a moment in his strong arms.
“Good-bye, my Monica, my own sweet wife. Keep up a brave heart. Kiss me
once and let me go. Whatever happens, we are in God’s hands. Remember
that always.”
She lifted her pale face, there was something strangely pathetic in its
haunting beauty.
“Let me see you smile before I go. Tell me again that you bid me do my
duty.”
Suddenly the old serenity and peace came back to the upturned face. The
smile he asked for shone in her sweet eyes.
“Good-bye, my Randolph—my husband—good-bye. Yes, I do bid you do your
duty. May God bless and keep you always.”
For a moment they stood together, heart pressed to heart, their lips
meeting in one long, lingering kiss; for one moment a strange shadow as
of farewell seemed to hang upon them, and they clung together as if no
power on earth could separate them.
The next moment he was gone, and Monica, left alone, stretched out her
hands in the darkness.
“Oh, my love! my love!”
It was the one irrepressible cry from the depths of her heart; the
next moment she repeated dreamily to herself the words that had lately
passed her husband’s lips:
“‘Whatever happens, we are in God’s hands. Remember that always.’
Randolph, I will! I will!”
A ringing cheer told her that the boat was off. Nobody had seen the
slim figure that had slunk after Randolph down to the beach. No one,
in the darkness and general excitement, had seen that same slim figure
leap lightly and noiselessly into the boat, and crouch down in the
extreme end of the bow.
Conrad Fitzgerald had witnessed the parting between husband and wife;
he had heard every word that had passed between them; and now, as he
crouched with a tiger-like ferocity in the bottom of the boat, he
muttered:
“This time he shall not escape me!”
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.
WIDOWED.
The boat launched by the rescuing party vanished in the darkness.
Monica stood where her husband had left her in the shelter of the
cliff, her pale face turned seawards, her eyes fixed upon the
glimmering crests of the great waves, as they came rolling calmly in,
in their resistless might and majesty.
Beatrice had twice come back to her, to assure her with eager vehemence
that the danger was very slight, that it was lessening every moment as
the wind shifted and abated in force—dangerous, indeed, for the poor
fellows in the doomed vessel that had struck upon the fatal reef, but
not very perilous for the willing and eager and experienced crew that
had started off to rescue them. Beatrice urged this many times upon
Monica; but the latter stood quite still and spoke not a word; only
gazed out to sea with the same strange yearning gaze that was like a
mute farewell.
Was it only an hour ago that she had been with her husband at home,
telling him of the dim foreboding of coming woe that had haunted her
all that day? It seemed to her as if she had all her life been standing
beside the dark margin of this tempest-tossed sea, waiting the return
of him who made all the happiness of her life—and waiting in vain.
Beatrice looked at her once or twice, but did not speak again.
Presently she moved down towards the water’s edge. Surely the boat
would be coming back now!
Suddenly there was a glad shout of triumph and joy from the
fisher-folk, down by the brink of the sea.
“Here she is!” “Here she comes!” “Steady, there!” “Ease her a bit!”
“This way now!” “Be ready, lads!” “Here she comes!” “Now, then, all
together!” “After this wave—NOW!”
Cries, shouts, an eager confusion of tongues—the grating of a boat’s
keel upon the beach, and then a ringing hearty cheer.
“All safe?”
“All saved—five of them and a lad.” “Just in time only.” “She wouldn’t
have floated five minutes longer.” “She was going down like lead.”
What noise and confusion there was—people crowding round, flitting
figures passing to and fro in the obscurity, every one talking, all
speaking together—such a hubbub as Beatrice had never witnessed before.
She stood in glad, impatient expectancy on the outskirts of the little
crowd. Why did not Randolph come away from them to Monica? Why did she
not hear his voice with the rest? Her heart gave a sudden throb as of
terror.
“Where is Lord Trevlyn?”
Her voice, sharpened by the sudden fear that had seized her, was heard
through all the eager clamour of those who stood round. A gleam of
moonlight, struggling through the clouds, lighted up the group for a
moment. The words went round like wildfire: “Where is Lord Trevlyn?”
and men looked each other in the face, growing pale with conscious
bewilderment. Where, indeed, was Lord Trevlyn? He was certainly not
amongst them; yet he had undoubtedly steered the boat to shore. Where
was he now? Men talked in loud, rapid tones. Women ran hither and
thither, wringing their hands in distressful excitement, hunting for
the missing man with futile eagerness. What had happened? Where could
he be?
Suddenly a deep silence fell upon all; for in the brightening moonlight
they saw that Monica stood amongst them—pale, calm and still, as a
spirit from another world.
“Tell me,” she said.
The story was told by one and another. Monica was used to the people
and their ways. She gathered without difficulty the substance of the
story. The boat had reached, without over-much difficulty or danger,
the sinking vessel. She was a small coaling ship, with a crew of seven
men and a boy. Two of the former had already been washed away, and the
vessel was sinking rapidly. The five survivors were easily rescued;
but the lad was entangled in the rigging, and was too much exhausted
to free himself and follow. Lord Trevlyn was the first to realise
this, and he sprang out of the boat at some peril to himself to the
lad’s assistance. Nobody had been able to see in the darkness what had
passed, but all agreed that the lad had been handed to those in the
boat by a pair of strong arms, and that after an interval of about
three minutes—for the boat had swung round, and had to be brought back
again, which took a little time—a man had sprung back into the boat,
had shouted “All right!” had seized the tiller, and sung out to the
crew to “Give way, and put off!” which they had done immediately, glad
enough to be clear of the masts of the sinking vessel, which were in
dangerous proximity.
No one had been able in the darkness to see the face of the steersman;
but all agreed that the voice was “a gentleman’s”; and most mysterious
of all was the fact that the boat had been steered to shore with a
skill that showed a thorough knowledge of the coast, and that not a man
of those who now stood round had ever laid a hand upon the tiller.
A thrill of superstitious awe ran round as this fact became known,
together with the terrible certainty that Lord Trevlyn had _not_
returned with them. Was it indeed a phantom hand that had guided the
frail bark through the wild, tossing waves? The bravest man there felt
a shiver of awe—the women sobbed, and trembled unrestrainedly.
The boat was put to sea once more without a moment’s delay. The wind
was dropping, the tide had turned, and the danger was well nigh over.
But heads were shaken in mute despair, and old men shook their heads
at the bare idea of the survival of any swimmer, who had been left to
battle with the waves round the sunken reef on a stormy winter’s night.
Monica stood like a statue; she heeded neither the wailing of the
women, the murmurs of sympathy from the men, nor the clasp of
Beatrice’s hand round her cold fingers. She saw nothing, heard nothing,
save the tossing, the moaning of the pitiless sea.
The boat came back at last—came back in dead, mournful silence. That
silence said all that was needed.
Monica stepped towards the weary, dejected men, who had just left the
boat for the second time.
“You have done all that you could,” she said gently. “I thank you from
my heart.”
And then she turned quietly away to go home—alone.
No one dared follow her too closely; even Beatrice kept some distance
behind, sick with misery and sympathetic despair. Monica’s step did not
falter. She went back to the spot where her husband had left her, and
stood still, looking out over the sea.
“Good-bye, my love—my own dear love,” she said, very softly and calmly.
“It has come at last, as I knew it would, when he held me in his arms
for the last time on earth. Did he know it, too? I think he did just at
the last. I saw it in his brave, tender face as he gave me that last
kiss. But he died doing his duty. I will bear it for his sake.” Yet
with an irrepressible gesture of anguish she held out her arms in the
darkness, crying out, not loud, indeed, but from the very depth of her
broken heart, “Ah, Randolph!—husband—my love! my love!”
That was all; that one passionate cry of sorrow. After it calmness
returned to her once more. She stepped towards Beatrice, who stood a
little way off, and held out her hand.
“Come, dear,” she said. “We must go home.”
Beatrice was more agitated than Monica. She was convulsed with tearless
sobs. She could only just command herself to stumble uncertainly up the
steep cliff path that Monica trod with ease and freedom.
The moon was shining clearly now. She could see the gaze that her
companion turned for one moment over the tossing waste of waters. She
caught the softly-whispered words, “Good-bye, dear love! good bye!” and
a sudden burst of tears came to her relief; but Monica’s eyes were dry.
As they entered the castle hall, they saw that the ill news had
preceded them. Pale-faced servants, both men and women, stood awed and
trembling, waiting, as it seemed, for their mistress. A sound as of
hushed weeping greeted them as they entered.
No one ever forgot the look upon Monica’s face as she entered her
desolated home. It was far more sad in its unutterable calm than the
wildest expression of grief could have been. Nobody dared to speak a
word, save the old nurse who had tended Randolph from childhood. She
stepped forward, the tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks.
“Oh, my lady! my lady!” she sobbed.
Monica paused, looked for one moment at the faithful servant; then bent
her head, and kissed her.
“Dear nurse,” she said gently, “you always loved him;” and then she
passed quietly on to the music-room—the room that she and her husband
had quitted together less than three hours before, and shut herself up
there—alone.
Beatrice dared not follow. She let Wilberforce take her upstairs, and
tend her like a child, whilst they mingled their tears together over
the brave young life cut short in its manhood’s strength and prime.
Randolph’s nurse was no stranger to Beatrice, and it was easy for the
good woman to speak with authority to one whom she had known as a
child, force her to take some nourishment, and exchange wet garments
for dry. She could not be induced to go to bed, exhausted though she
was, but the wine and soup did her good, and the hearty burst of
weeping had relieved her overcharged heart. She felt more like herself
when, after an hour’s time, she went downstairs again; but, oh! what a
different house it was from what it had been a few hours back!
It was by that time eleven o’clock. Monica was still shut up in the
music-room. Nothing had been heard of Haddon; she had hardly even given
him a thought. She went down slowly to the hall, and found herself
face to face with Tom Pendrill. He wore his hat and great coat. He
had evidently just arrived in haste. As he removed the former she was
startled at the look upon his face. She had not believed it capable of
expressing so much feeling.
“Beatrice,” he said hoarsely, “is it true?”
He did not know he had called her by her Christian name, and she hardly
noticed it at the moment. She only bent her head and answered:
“Yes, it is true.”
Together they passed into the lighted drawing-room, and stood on either
side the glowing hearth, looking at each other fixedly.
“Where is Monica?”
“In the music-room, alone. They were there together when the guns
began. It will kill her, I am certain it will!”
“No,” answered Tom quietly; “she will not die. It would be happier for
her if she could.”
Beatrice looked at him with quivering lips.
“Oh!” she said at last. “You understand her?”
“Yes,” he answered absently, looking away into the fire. “I understand
her. She will not die.”
Both were very silent for a time. Then he spoke.
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You have not heard?”
“Only the barest outline. Sit down and tell me all.”
She did not resent his air of authority. She sat down, and did his
bidding. Tom listened in deep silence, weighing every word.
He made no comment on the strange story; but a very dark shadow rested
upon his sharp featured face.
He was a man of keen observation and acuteness of perception, and his
mind often leaped to a conclusion that no present premises seemed to
justify. Not for a moment would he have given utterance to the question
that had suggested itself to his mind; but there it was, repeating
itself again and again with persistent iteration.
“Can there have been foul play?”
He spoke not a word, his face told no tales; but he was musing
intently. Where was that half mad fellow, Fitzgerald; who some months
ago had seemed on the high-road to drink himself to madness or death?
He had not been heard of for some time past; but Tom could not get the
question out of his mind.
In the deep silence that reigned in the room every sound could be heard
distinctly. Beatrice suddenly started, for they were aware that the
door of the music-room had been opened, and that Monica was coming
towards them. The girl turned pale, and looked almost frightened. Tom
stood up as his hostess appeared, setting his face like a flint.
The long hour that had seemed like a life-time to the wife—the
widow—how could they bring themselves to think of her as such?—had left
no outward traces upon Monica. Her face was calm and still, and very
pale, but it was not convulsed by grief, and her eyes did not look as
though they had shed tears, although there was no hardness in their
depths. They shone with something of star-like brightness, at once
soft and brilliant. The sweet serenity that had long been the habitual
expression of her face seemed intensified rather than changed.
“Beatrice,” she said quietly, “where is your brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has he not come in?”
“Not that I know of.”
“We must inquire. He has been so many hours gone. I am uneasy about
him.”
“Oh, never mind about him,” said Beatrice, quickly. “He will be all
right.”
“We must think of him,” she answered. “Tom, it was good of you to come
back. What brought you? Did you hear?”
“I heard a rumour. Of course I came back. Is there anything I can
do?” He spoke abruptly, like a man labouring under some weight of
oppression.
“I wish you would go and inquire for Lord Haddon. Randolph sent him to
the life-boat station, because he believed he would ride over faster
than anybody else. I think he should be followed now, if he has not
come back. I cannot think what can have detained him so long.”
“I will go and make inquiries,” said Tom.
“Thank you. I should be much obliged if you would.”
But as it turned out, there was no need for him to do this. Even as
Monica spoke they became aware of a slight stir in the hall. Uncertain,
rapid steps crossed the intervening space, and the next moment Haddon
stood before them in the doorway, white, drenched, dishevelled,
exhausted, leaning as if for support against the framework, whilst his
eyes sought those of his sister with a strange look of dazed horror.
“Beatrice!” he cried, in a strained, unnatural tone. “Say it is not
true!”
Monica had stepped forward, anxious and startled at his appearance. The
look upon her face must have brought conviction home to Haddon’s heart,
and this terrible conviction completed the work begun by previous
over-fatigue and exhaustion. He made two uncertain steps forward,
looked round him in a dazed bewildered way; then putting his hand to
his head with a sudden gesture as of pain, called out:
“I say, what is it?—Look out!” and Tom had only just time to spring
forward and guide his fall as he dropped in a dead faint upon the
couch hard by.
“Poor boy!” said Monica gently; “the shock has been too much for him.”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH.
MONICA.
Lord Haddon was carried upstairs by Tom’s direction, and put to bed at
once, but it was a very long time before he recovered consciousness,
and the doctor’s face was grave when he rejoined Monica and Beatrice an
hour later.
Afterwards they learned that he had reached the life-boat station, only
to find the boat out in another direction, that he had lost his way
in the darkness, and had been riding for hours over trackless moors,
wet through by driving storms of rain, obliged often to halt, despite
the cold and wet, to wait for passing gleams of moonlight to show him
his way; and this after a long day’s shooting and a long fast. He had
reached the castle at last, utterly worn out and exhausted, only to
hear the terrible news of the death of his best friend. The strain had
been too much, and he had given way.
He awoke to consciousness only in a high state of fever, with pain in
every joint; and Beatrice, in answer to Tom’s question, admitted that
her brother had had a sharp attack of rheumatic fever some three years
before, and had always been rather susceptible to cold and damp ever
since.
Tom looked gravely at Monica.
“I was afraid he was in for something of that kind.”
“Poor boy!” she said again, very gently. “I am so sorry. You will stay
with us, Tom? It will be a comfort to have you.”
“Of course I will stay,” he answered, in his abruptest fashion. “I
shall sit up with Haddon to-night. You two must go to bed at once—I
insist upon it.”
“Come, Beatrice,” said Monica, holding out her hand. “We must obey
orders you see.”
As they went together up the broad staircase, Beatrice said, with a
little sob:
“I cannot bear to think of our giving you all this trouble—just now.”
But Monica stopped her by a kiss.
“Have you not learned by this time Beatrice, that the greatest help in
bearing our own sorrows is to help others with their burdens? I am
grieved for you, dear, that this other trouble should have come; but
Tom is very clever, and we will all nurse him back to health again.
Good-night, dearest. You must try to sleep, that you may be strong
to-morrow.”
The next day Lord Haddon was very ill—dangerously ill—the fever
ran very high, other unfavourable symptoms had showed themselves.
Tom’s face was grave and absorbed, and Raymond, who came over at
his brother’s request, looked even more anxious. Yet possibly this
alarming illness of a guest beneath her roof was the very best thing
that could have happened, as far as Monica herself was concerned. But
for his illness, Beatrice and her brother must have left Trevlyn at
once; it was probable that Monica would have elected to remain there
entirely alone during the early days of her widowhood, alone in her own
desolation, more heart-breaking to witness than any wild abandonment
of grief, alone without even those last melancholy offices to perform,
without even the solemn pageantry of a funeral to give some little
occupation to the mind, or to bring home in its own incontrovertible
way the fact that a loved being has passed away from the world for ever.
Randolph had, as it were, vanished from this life almost as if spirited
away. There was nothing to be done, no obsequies to be performed. For
just a few days a faint glimmer of hope existed in some minds that a
passing vessel might have picked him up, that a telegram announcing his
safety might yet arrive; but at the end of a week every spark of such
hope had died out, and Monica, who had never from the first allowed
herself to be so buoyed up, put on her heavy widow’s weeds with the
steady unflinching calmness that had characterised her throughout.
She devoted herself to the task of nursing Lord Haddon, in which task
she showed untiring care and skill. All agreed that it was best for
her to have her thoughts and attention occupied in some quiet labour
of love like this, and certainly her skill at this time was such as to
render her services almost invaluable to the patient.
Haddon lay for weeks in a very critical state, racked with pain and
burning with fever. Without being always delirious, he was not in any
way master of himself, and no one could soothe, or quiet, or compose
him, during these long, weary days, except Monica. She seemed to
possess a power that acted upon him like a charm. He might not always
know her—very often he did not appear to recognise her, but he always
felt her influence. At her bidding he would cease the restless tossing
and muttering that exhausted his strength and gave him much needless
pain. He would take from her hand food that no one else could persuade
him to touch. She could often soothe him to sleep, simply by the sound
of her voice, or the touch of her hand upon his burning brow.
“If he pulls through it will be your doing,” Tom sometimes said to
her. And Monica felt she could not do enough for the youth, who had
suffered all this in carrying out her husband’s last command, and who
had succumbed when his task was done, in hearing of the fate that had
befallen his friend.
A curious bond seemed established between those two, the power of which
he felt with a throb of keen joy almost akin to pain, when at last the
fever was subdued, and he began to know in a feeble, uncertain sort of
fashion, what it was that had happened, and how life had been going
with him during the past weeks.
It was of Monica he asked the account of that terrible night, and from
her lips he learned the story to which none else had dared to allude
in her presence. It was he who talked to her of Randolph, recalled
incidents of the past, talked of their boyish days and the escapades
they had indulged together, passing on to the increase of mutual
understanding and affection that had bound them together as manhood
advanced.
Nobody else talked to her like this. Haddon never could have done so,
had not weakness and illness brought them into such close communion
one with another. His feelings towards Monica were those of simple
adoration—he worshipped the very ground she trod on. He often felt
that to die with her hand upon his head, her eyes looking gently and
kindly into his, was all and more than he could wish. His intense
loving devotion gave him a sort of insight into her true nature, and he
knew by instinct that he did not hurt her when he talked to her of him
who was gone. Perhaps from no other lips could Monica have borne that
name to be spoken just then; but Haddon in his hours of wandering had
talked so much of Randolph, that she had grown used to hear him speak
of the husband she had loved and lost, and she knew by the way in which
he had betrayed himself then how deeply and truly he loved him.
When the fever had gone, and the patient lay white and weak, hardly
able to move or speak, yet with a mind cleared from the haunting
shadows of delirium, eager to know the history of all that had passed,
it had not seemed very hard then, in answer to the wistful look in the
big grey eyes, and the whispered words from the pale lips to tell him
all the truth; and the ice once broken thus, it had been no effort to
talk of Randolph afterwards, and to let Haddon talk of him too.
This outlet did her good. She was not a woman to whom talking was
a necessity, yet it was better for her to speak sometimes of the
sorrow that was weighing upon her crushed spirit; and it was far, far
easier to do this to a listener like Haddon, who from his weakness
and prostration could rise to no great heights of sympathy, could
offer no attempt at consolation, could only look at her with wistful
earnestness, and murmur a broken word from time to time, than it would
have been to those who would have met her with a burst of tears, or
with those quiet caresses and marks of sympathy that must surely have
broken down her hardly-won composure and calm.