"NIGHTFALL"
It is more than twenty years ago, and yet how vividly it all comes
back to him to-night!
The sun has gone down in streaks of orange and crimson over the
old oaks that crown the deer-park sloping upward to the rear of
Ecclesfield Manor. Mr. Bruce walks across a darkened room to throw the
window open for a gasp of fresh evening air, laden with the perfume of
pinks, carnations, and moss-roses in the garden below. _Her_ garden!
Is it possible? Something in the action reminds him of that bright,
hopeful morning at Calais. Something in the scent of the flowers
steals to his brain, half torpid and benumbed; his heart contracts
with an agony of physical suffering. "My darling! my darling!" he
murmurs, "shall I never see you tying those flowers again?" and
turning from the window, he falls on his knees by the bedside with
a passionate burst of weeping that, like blood-letting to the body,
restores the unwelcome faculty of consciousness to his mind. When
he raises his head again he knows well enough that the one great
misfortune has arrived at last--that henceforth for _him_ there may
come, in the lapse of long years, resignation, even repose, but hope
and happiness no more.
Even now, though he wonders at his own callousness, he can bear to
look on the bed through a mist of tears; and, so looking, feels
his intellect failing in its effort to grasp the calamity that has
befallen him.
There she lies, like a dead lily, his own, his treasure, his beloved;
the sweet face, calm and placid, with its chiselled ivory features,
its smooth and gentle brow, has already borrowed a higher, a more
perfect beauty from the immortality on which it has entered. Not
fairer, not lovelier did she look that well-remembered evening when he
first knew her pure and priceless heart was his own, though she has
borne him a daughter--nay, two daughters (and he winces with a fresh
and different pain)--the younger as old as she was then. Her raven
hair is parted soft and silky off those pale, delicate temples; her
long black lashes rest upon the waxen cheek. No; she never looked as
beautiful, not in the calm sleep he used to watch so lovingly; and now
the deep, fond eyes must open on his own no more. She was so gentle,
too, so patient, so sweet-tempered, and O, so true. He had been a man
of the world, neither better nor worse than others: he knew women
well; knew how rare are the good ones; knew the prize he had won, and
valued it--yes, he was sure he always valued it as it deserved.
What was the use? Had she not far better have been like the
others--petulant, wilful, capricious, covetous of admiration, careless
of affection, weak-headed, shallow-hearted, and desirous only of that
which could not possibly be her own? Such were most of the women
amongst whom he had been thrown in his youth; but O, how unlike her
who was lying dead there before his eyes.
"For men at most differ as heaven and earth,
But women, worst and best, as heaven and hell."
He felt so keenly now that she had been his better angel for more than
twenty years; that but for her he might long ago have deteriorated to
selfishness and cynicism, or sunk into that careless philosophy which
believes only in the tangible, the material, and the present.
A good woman's lot may be linked to that of a bad man; she may even
love him very dearly, and yet retain much of her purer, better nature
amidst all the mire in which she is steeped; but it is not so with us.
To care for a bad woman is to be dragged down to her level, inch by
inch, till the intellect itself becomes sapped in a daily degradation
of the heart. From such slavery emancipation is cheap under any
suffering, at any sacrifice. The lopping of a limb is a painful
process, but above a gangrened wound experienced surgeons amputate
without scruple or remorse.
On the other hand, a true woman's affection is of all earthly
influences the noblest and most elevating. It encourages the highest
and gentlest qualities of man's nature--his enterprise, courage,
patience, sympathy, above all, his trust. Happy the pilgrim on whose
life such a beacon-star has shone out to guide him in the right way;
thrice happy if it sets not until it has lured him so far that he will
never again turn aside from the path.
Such reflections as these, while they added to his sense of loss and
loneliness, yet took so much of the sting out of Mr. Bruce's great
sorrow, that he could realise it for minutes at a time without being
goaded to madness or stunned to apathy by the pain.
There had been no warning--no preparation. He had left her that
morning as usual, after smoking a cigar in her society on the lawn,
while she tied, and snipped, and gathered the flowers of her pretty
garden. He had visited the stable, ordered the pony-carriage, seen the
keeper, and been to look at an Alderney cow. It was one of his idle
days, yet, after twenty years of marriage, such days he still liked to
spend, if possible, in the company of his wife. So he strolled back to
write his letters in her boudoir, and entered it at the garden door,
expecting to find her, as usual, busied in some graceful feminine
employment.
Her work was heaped on the sofa; a book she had been reading lay open
on the table; the very flowers she gathered an hour ago had the dew on
them still. He could not finish his first letter without consulting
her, for she kept his memory, his conscience, and his money, just
as she kept his heart, so he ran up-stairs to her bedroom door and
knocked.
There was no answer, and he went in. At the first glance he thought
she must have fainted, for she had fallen on her knees against a
high-backed chair, her face buried in its cushions, and one hand
touching the carpet. He had a quick eye, and the turn of that grey
rigid hand warned him with a stab of something he refused persistently
to believe. Then he lifted her on the bed where she lay now, and sent
for every doctor within reach.
He had no recollection of the interval that elapsed before the nearest
could arrive, nor distinct notion of any part of that long sunny
afternoon while he sat by his Nina in the death-chamber. Once he
got up to stop the ticking of a clock on the chimney-piece, moving
mechanically with stealthy footfall across the room lest she should
be disturbed. The doctors came and went, agreeing, as they left the
house, that he had answered their questions with wonderful precision
and presence of mind; nay, that he was less prostrated by the blow
than they should have expected. "Disease of the heart," said they--I
believe they called it "the _pericardium_"; and after paying a tribute
of admiration to the loveliness of the dead lady, discussed the
leading article of that day's _Times_ with perfect equanimity. What
would you have? There can be but one person in the world to whom
another is more than all the world beside.
This person was sitting by Nina's bed, except for a few brief minutes
at a time, utterly stupefied and immovable. Even Maud--his cherished
daughter Maud--whose smile had hitherto been welcome in his eyes as
the light of morning, could not rouse his attention by the depth of
her own uncontrolled grief. He sat like an idiot or an opium-eater,
till something prompted him to open the window and gasp for a breath
of fresh evening air. Then it all came back to him, and he awoke to
the full consciousness of his misery.
There are men, though not many, and these, perhaps, the least inclined
to prate about it, who have one attachment in their lives to which
every other sentiment is but an accessory and a satellite. Such
natures are often very bold to dare, very strong to endure, very
difficult to assail, save in their single vulnerable point. Force
that, and the man's whole vitality seems to collapse. He does not even
make a fight of it, but fails, gives in, and goes down without an
effort. Such was the character of Mr. Bruce, and to-day he had gotten
his death-blow.
The stars twinkled out faintly one by one, the harvest-moon rose broad
and ruddy behind the wooded hill, and still he sat stupefied at the
bedside. The door opened gently to admit a beautiful girl, strangely,
startlingly like her dead mother, who came in with a cup of tea and a
candle. Setting these on the chimney-piece, she moved softly round
to where he sat, and pressed his head, with both hands, against her
breast.
"Dearest father," said she, "I have brought you some tea. Try and
rouse yourself, papa, dear papa, for _my_ sake. You love _me_ too."
The appeal was well chosen; once more the tears came to his eyes, and
he woke up as from a dream.
"You are a good girl, Maud," he answered, with a vague, distracted
air. "I have my children left--I have my children left! But all the
world cannot make up to me for what I have lost!"
She thought his mind was wandering, and tried to recall him to
himself.
"We must bear our sorrows as best we may, papa," she answered, very
gently. "We must help each other. You and I are alone now in the
world."
A contraction, as of some fresh pain, came over his livid face. He
raised his head to speak, but, stopping himself with an obvious
effort, looked long and scrutinisingly in his daughter's face.
Maud Bruce was a very beautiful girl even now, in the extremity of
her sorrow. She had been crying heartily; no wonder, but her delicate
features were not swollen, nor her dark eyes dimmed. The silky
hair shone smooth and trim, the muslin dress was not rumpled nor
disarranged, and the white hands, with which she still caressed her
father's sorrow-laden head, neither shook nor wavered in their office.
With her mother's beauty, Miss Bruce had inherited but little of her
mother's character; on the contrary, her nature, like that of
her father's ancestors rather than his own, was bold, firm, and
self-reliant to an unusual degree. She was hard, and that is the only
epithet properly to describe her--manner, voice, appearance, all
were lady-like, feminine, and exceedingly attractive; but the
self-possession she never seemed to lose, would have warned an
experienced admirer, that beneath the white bosom beat a heart not to
be reduced by stratagem, nor carried by assault; that he must not hope
to see the beautiful dark eyes veil themselves in the dreamy softness
which so confesses all it means to hide; that the raven tresses
clinging coquettishly to that faultless head were most unlikely to be
severed as a tribute of affection for any one whose conquest would not
be a question of pride and profit to their owner. Tenderness was the
one quality Maud lacked, the one quality which, like the zone of
Venus, completed all her mother's attractions, with an indefinable and
irresistible charm.
There is a wild German legend which describes how a certain woodman, a
widower, gave shelter to a strangely fascinating dame, and falling in
love with her, incontinently made his guest lawful mistress of hearth
and home; how, notwithstanding his infatuated passion, and intense
admiration for her beauty, there was yet in it a fierceness which
chilled and repelled him, while he worshiped; how his children could
never be brought to look in the fair face of their stepmother without
crying aloud for fear; and how at last he discovered, to his horror
and dismay, that he had wedded a fearful creature, half wolf, half
woman, combining the seductions of the syren with the cruel voracity
of the brute. There was something about Maud Bruce to remind one of
that horrible myth, even now, now at her gentlest and softest, while
she clung round a sorrowing father, by the death-bed of one, whom, in
their different ways, both had very dearly loved.
It was well that the young lady preserved her presence of mind, for
Bruce seemed incapable of connected thought or action. He roused
himself, indeed, at his daughter's call, but gazed stupidly about him,
stammered in his speech, and faltered in his step when he crossed
the room. The shock of grief had evidently overmastered his
faculties--something, too, besides affliction, seemed to worry and
distress him--something of which he wished to unbosom himself,
but that yet he could not make up his mind to reveal. Maud, whose
quickness of perception was seldom at fault, did not fail to observe
this, and reviewing the position with her accustomed coolness, drew
her father gently to the writing-table, and sat down.
"Papa," said she, "there is much to be done. We must exert ourselves.
It will do us both good. Bargrave can be down by the middle of the
day, to-morrow. Let me write for him at once."
Bargrave and Co. were Mr. Bruce's solicitors, as they had been his
great-uncle's: it was the same firm, indeed, that had apprised him of
his inheritance at Calais twenty years ago. How he rejoiced in their
intelligence then! What was the use of an inheritance now?
A weary lassitude had come over him; he seemed incapable of exertion,
and shook his head in answer to Maud's appeal; but again some
hidden motive stung him into action, and taking his seat at the
writing-table, he seized a pen, only to let it slip helplessly through
his fingers, while he looked in his daughter's face with a vacant
stare.
Maud was equal to the occasion. Obviously something more than sorrow
had reduced her father to this state. She sat down opposite, scribbled
off a note hastily enough, but in the clear unwavering hand, affirmed
by her correspondents to be so characteristic of the writer's
disposition, and ringing the bell, desired it should be dispatched on
the instant. "Let Thomas take the brougham with the ponies; the doctor
is sure to be at home. He can bring him back at once."
Then she looked at her father, and stopped the lady's-maid, who,
tearful and hysterical, had answered the familiar summons, which but
this morning was "missis's bell."
"While they are putting to," said she calmly, "I will write a
telegraphic message and a letter. Tell him to send word when he is
ready. I shall give him exactly ten minutes."
Once more she glanced uneasily at Mr. Bruce; what she saw decided her.
In half-a-dozen words she penned a concise message to her father's
solicitor, desiring him to come himself or send a confidential person
to Ecclesfield Manor, by the very first train, on urgent business; and
wrote a letter as well to the same address, explaining her need of
immediate assistance, for Mr. Bargrave to receive the following
morning, in case that gentleman should not obey her telegram in
person, a contingency Miss Bruce considered highly probable.
The ten minutes conceded to Thomas had stretched to twenty before he
was ready; for so strong is the force of habit among stablemen, that
even in a case of life and death, horses cannot be allowed to start
till their manes are straightened and their hoofs blacked. In the
interval, Miss Bruce became more and more concerned to observe no
signs of attention on her father's part--no inquiries as to her
motives--apparently no consciousness of what she was doing. When the
brougham was heard to roll away at a gallop, she came round and
put her arm about his neck, where he sat in his chair at the
writing-table.
"Papa, dear," she said, "I have told them to get your dressing-room
ready. You are ill, very ill. I can see it. You must go to bed."
He nodded, and smiled. Such a weary, silly smile, letting her lead him
away like a little child. He would even have passed the bed where his
wife lay without a look, but that his daughter stopped him at the
door.
"Papa," said she--and the girl deserved credit for the courage with
which she kept her tears back--"won't you kiss her before you go?"
It may be some instinct warned her that not in the body was he to look
on the face he loved again--that those material lips were never more
to touch the gentle brow which in a whole lifetime he had not seen
to frown--that their next greeting, freed from earthly anxieties,
released from earthly troubles, must be exchanged, at no distant
period, in heaven.
He obeyed unhesitatingly, imprinting a caress on his dead wife's
forehead with no kind of emotion, and so left the room, muttering
vaguely certain indistinct and incoherent syllables, in which the
words "Nina" and "Bargrave" were alone intelligible.
Maud saw her father to his room, and consigned him to the hands of
his valet, to be put to bed without delay. Then she went to the
dining-room, and forced herself to eat a crust of bread, to drink
a single glass of sherry. "I shall need all my strength to-night,"
thought the girl, "to take care of poor papa, and arrange about the
funeral and such matters as he cannot attend to--the funeral! O,
mother, dear, kind mother! I wasn't half good enough to you while you
were with us, and now--but I won't cry--I won't cry. There'll be time
enough for all that by and by. The first thing to think of is about
papa. He hasn't borne it well. Men have very little courage when they
come to trial, and I fear--I fear there is something sadly wrong with
him. Let me see. Three-quarters of an hour to get to Bragford--five
minutes' stoppage at the turn-pike, for that stupid man is sure to
have gone to bed--five minutes more for Doctor Skilton to put on his
greatcoat, forty minutes for coming back--those ponies always go
faster towards home. No, he can't be here under another hour. Another
hour! It's a long time in a case like this. Suppose papa should have
a paralytic stroke! And I haven't a notion what to do--the proper
remedies, the best treatment. Women ought to know everything, and be
ready for everything."
"Then there's the lawyer to-morrow. I don't suppose papa will be able
to see him. I must think of all the business--all the arrangements. He
can't be here till ten o'clock at the earliest, even if he starts by
the first train. I shall write my directions for _him_ in the morning.
Meantime, I'll go and sit with poor papa, and see if I can't hush him
off to sleep."
But when Miss Bruce reached her father's room, she found him lying in
an alarming state of which she had no experience. Something between
sleeping and waking, yet without the repose of the one, the
consciousness of the other. So she took her place by his pillow, and
watched, listening anxiously for the brougham that was to bring the
doctor.