Mrs. Ryder uttered a little scream of dismay. The priest smiled, and
said, sweetly, "Forgive me, mistress, I fear I startled you."
"Indeed you did, sir," said she. She looked furtively round, and saw
Leicester and his underling on the watch.
Leicester, unaware of her treachery, made her a signal of intelligence.
She responded to it, to gain time.
It was a ticklish situation. Some would have lost their heads. Ryder
was alarmed, but all the more able to defend her plans. Her first move,
as usual with such women, was--a lie.
"Our Dame is in the Grove, sir," said she. "I am to bring you to her."
The priest bowed his head, gravely, and moved towards the Grove with
downcast eyes. Ryder kept close to him for a few steps; then she ran
to Leicester, and whispered, hastily, "Go you to the stable-gate: I'll
bring him round that way: hide now; he suspects."
"Ay, ay," said Leicester; and the confiding pair slipped away round a
corner to wait for their victim.
Ryder hurried him into the Grove, and, as soon as she had got him out
of hearing, told him the truth.
He turned pale; for these delicate organizations do not generally excel
in courage.
Ryder pitied him, and something of womanly feeling began to mingle with
her plans. "They 'shall not lay a finger on you, sir," said she. "I'll
scratch and scream, and bring the whole parish out sooner; but the
best way is not to give them the chance: please you follow me." And she
hurried him through the Grove, and then into an unfrequented path of
the great wood.
When they were safe from pursuit she turned and looked at him. He was a
good deal agitated; but the uppermost sentiment was gratitude. It soon
found words, and, as usual, happy ones. He thanked her with dignity and
tenderness for the service she had done him, and asked her if she was a
Catholic.
"No," said she.
At that his countenance fell, but only for a moment. "Ah! would you
were," he said, earnestly. So then added, sweetly, "To be sure I have
all the more reason to be grateful to you."
"You are very welcome, reverend sir," said Ryder, graciously. "Religion
is religion: and 'tis a barbarous thing that violence should be done to
men of your cloth."
Having thus won his heart, the artful woman began at one and the same
time to please and to probe him. "Sir," said she, "be of good heart;
they have done you no harm, and themselves no good: my mistress will
hate them for it, and love you all the more."
Father Leonard's pale cheek coloured all over at these words, though he
said nothing.
"Since they won't let you come to her, she will come to you."
"Do you think so?" said he, faintly.
"Nay, I am sure of it, sir. So would any woman. We still follow our
hearts, and get our way by hook or by crook."
Again the priest coloured either with pleasure or with shame, or with
both; and the keen feminine eye perused him with microscopic power.
She waited, to give him an opportunity of talking to her and laying
bare his feelings; but he was either too delicate, too cautious, or too
pure.
So then she suddenly affected to remember her mistress's letter. She
produced it with an apology. He took it with unfeigned eagerness, and
read it in silence; and, having read it, he stood patient, with the
tears in his eyes. Ryder eyed him with much curiosity and a little pity.
"Don't you take on for that," said she. "Why, she will be more at her
ease when she visits you at your place than here; and she won't give
you up, I promise."
The priest trembled, and Ryder saw it.
"But, my daughter," said he, "I am perplexed and grieved. It seems that
I make mischief in your house: that is an ill office; I fear it is my
duty to retire from this place altogether, rather than cause dissension
between those whom the Church by holy sacrament hath bound together."
So saying, he hung his head and sighed.
Ryder eyed him with a little pity, but more contempt.
"Why take other people's faults on your back?" said she. "My mistress
is tied to a man she does not love; but that is not your fault; and he
is jealous of you that never gave him cause. If I was a man he should
not accuse me--for nothing: nor set his man on to drag me through a
horse-pond--for nothing. I'd have the sweet as well as the bitter."
Father Leonard turned and looked at her with a face full of terror.
Some beautiful, honeyed fiend seemed to be entering his heart and
tempting it.
"Oh, hush! my daughter, hush!" he said; "what words are these for a
virtuous woman to speak, and a priest to hear?"
"There, I have offended you by my blunt way," said the cajoling hussy,
in soft and timid tones.
"Nay, not so; but oh speak not so lightly of things that peril the
immortal soul."
"Well, I have done," said Ryder. "You are out of danger now; so give
you good day."
He stopped her. "What, before I have thanked you for your goodness? Ah,
Mistress Ryder, 'tis on these occasions a priest sins by longing for
riches to reward his benefactors. I have nought to offer you but this
ring: it was my mother's, my dear mother's."
He took it off his finger to give it her.
But the little bit of goodness that cleaves even to the heart of an
intriguante revolted against her avarice.
"Nay, poor soul, I'll not take it," said she; and put her hands before
her eyes, not to see it, for she knew she could not look at it long and
spare it.
With this she left him; but, ere she had gone far, her cunning and
curiosity gained the upper hand again, and she whipped behind a great
tree and crouched, invisible all but her nose and one piercing eye.
She saw the priest make a few steps homewards, then look around, then
take Mrs. Gaunt's letter out of his pocket, press it passionately to
his lips, and hide it tenderly in his bosom.
This done he went home with his eyes on the ground as usual, and
measured steps. And to all who met him he seemed a creature in whom
religion had conquered all human frailty.
Caroline Ryder hurried home with cruel exultation in her black eyes.
But she soon found that the first thing she had to do was to defend
herself. Leicester and his man met her, and the former looked gloomy,
and the latter reproached her bitterly; called her a double-faced jade,
and said he would tell the Squire of the trick she had played them.
But Ryder had her story ready in a moment. "'Tis you I have saved, not
him," said she. "He is something more than mortal: why, he told me
of his own accord what you were there for; but, that if you were so
unlucky as to lay hands on him, you would rot alive. It seems that has
been tried out Stanhope way; a man did but give him a blow, and his arm
was stiff next day, and he never used it again; and next his hair fell
off his head, and then his eyes they turned to water and ran all out of
him, and he died within the twelve-month."
Country folk were nearly, though not quite, as superstitious at that
time as in the middle ages. "Murrain on him," said Leicester. "Catch me
laying a finger on him. I'm glad he is gone; and I hope he won't never
come back no more."
"Not likely, since he can read all our hearts. Why, he told me
something about you, Tom Leicester; he says you are in love."
"No! did he really now?" and Leicester opened his eyes very wide. "And
did he tell you who the lass is?"
"He did so; and surprised me properly." This with a haughty glance.
Leicester held his tongue and turned red.
"Who is it, mistress?" asked the helper.
"He didn't say I was to tell you, young man."
And with these two pricks of her needle she left them both more or
less discomfited, and went to scrutinize and anatomize her mistress's
heart with plenty of cunning, but no mercy. She related her own part in
the affair very briefly, but dwelt with well-feigned sympathy on the
priest's feelings. "He turned as white as a sheet, ma'am, when I told
him, and offered me his very ring off his finger, he was so grateful;
poor man!"
"You did not take it, I hope?" said Mrs. Gaunt, quickly.
"La, no, ma'am. I hadn't the heart."
Mrs. Gaunt was silent awhile. When she spoke again it was to inquire
whether Ryder had given him the letter.
"That I did: and it brought the tears into his poor eyes; and such
beautiful eyes as he has, to be sure. You would have pitied him if you
had seen him read it, and cry over it, and then kiss it and put it in
his bosom he did."
Mrs. Gaunt said nothing, but turned her head away.
The operator shot a sly glance into the looking-glass, and saw a
pearly tear trickling down her subject's fair cheek. So she went on,
all sympathy outside, and remorselessness within. "To think of that
face, more like an angel's than a man's, to be dragged through a nasty
horse-pond. 'Tis a shame of master to set his men on a clergyman."
And so was proceeding, with well-acted and catching warmth, to dig
as dangerous a pit for Mrs. Gaunt as ever was dug for any lady; for
whatever Mrs. Gaunt had been betrayed into saying, this Ryder would
have used without mercy, and with diabolical skill.
Yes it was a pit, and the lady's pure, but tender heart pushed her
towards it, and her fiery temper drew her towards it.
Yet she escaped it this time. The dignity, delicacy, and pride, that
is oftener found in these old families than out of them, saved her
from that peril. She did not see the trap; but she spurned the bait by
native instinct.
She threw up her hand in a moment, with a queenly gesture, and stopped
the tempter.
"Not-one-word-from my servant against my husband in my hearing!" said
she superbly.
And Ryder shrank back into herself directly.
"Child," said Mrs. Gaunt, "you have done me a great service, and my
husband too; for, if this dastardly act had been done in his name,
he would soon have been heartily ashamed of it and deplored it. Such
services can never be quite repaid; but you will find a purse in that
drawer with five guineas; it is yours; and, my lavender silk dress, be
pleased to wear that about me; to remind me of the good office you
have done me. And now, all you can do for me is to leave me; for I am
very, very unhappy."
Ryder retired with the spoil, and Mrs. Gaunt leaned her head over her
chair, and cried without stint.
After this, no angry words passed between Mr. and Mrs. Gaunt; but
something worse, a settled coolness sprung up.
As for Griffith, his cook kept her place, and the priest came no more
to the Castle; so, having outwardly gained the day, he was ready to
forget and forgive; but Kate, though she would not let her servant
speak ill of Griffith, was deeply indignant and disgusted with him. She
met his advances with such a stern coldness, that he turned sulky and
bitter in his turn.
Husband and wife saw little of each other, and hardly spoke.
Both were unhappy; but Kate was angriest, and Griffith saddest.
In an evil hour he let out his grief to Caroline Ryder. She seized the
opportunity and, by a show of affectionate sympathy and zeal, made
herself almost necessary to him, and contrived to establish a very
perilous relation between him and her. Matters went so far as this,
that the poor man's eye used to brighten when he saw her coming.
Yet this victory cost her a sore heart and all the patient self-denial
of her sex. To be welcome to Griffith she had to speak to him of her
rival, and to speak well of her. She tried talking of herself and her
attachment; he yawned in her face: she tried smooth detraction and
innuendo; he fired up directly and defended her, of whose conduct he
had been complaining the very moment before.
Then she saw that there was but one way to the man's heart. Sore, and
sick, and smiling, she took that way: resolving to bide her time; to
worm herself in anyhow, and wait patiently till she could venture to
thrust her mistress out.
If any of my readers need to be told why this she-Machiavel threw
her fellow conspirators over, the reason was simply this: on calm
reflection she saw it was not her interest to get Father Leonard
insulted. She looked on him as her mistress's lover, and her own best
friend. "Was I mad?" said she to herself. "My business is to keep him
sweet upon her, till they can't live without one another: and then I'll
tell him; and take your place in this house, my lady."
And now it is time to visit that extraordinary man, who was the cause
of all this mischief; whom Gaunt called a villain, and Mrs. Gaunt a
saint; and, as usual, he was neither one nor the other.
Father Leonard was a pious, pure, and noble-minded man, who had
undertaken to defy nature with religion's aid; and, after years of
successful warfare, now sustained one of those defeats to which such
warriors have been liable in every age. If his heart was pure, it was
tender; and nature never intended him to live all his days alone.
After years of prudent coldness to the other sex, he fell in with a
creature that put him off his guard at first, she seemed so angelic.
"At Wisdom's gate Suspicion slept;" and, by degrees, which have been
already indicated in this narrative, she whom the Church had committed
to his spiritual care, became his idol. Could he have foreseen this, it
would never have happened; he would have steeled himself, or left the
country that contained this sweet temptation. But love stole on him,
masked with religious zeal, and robed in a garment of light that seemed
celestial.
When the mask fell, it was too late: the power to resist the soft and
thrilling enchantment was gone. The solitary man was too deep in love.
Yet he clung still to that self-deception, without which he never
could have been entrapped into an earthly passion: he never breathed a
word of love to her. It would have alarmed her; it would have alarmed
himself. Every syllable that passed between these two might have been
published without scandal. But the heart does not speak by words alone:
there are looks, and there are tones of voice that belong to love,
and are his signs, his weapons; and it was in these very tones the
priest murmured to his gentle listener about "the angelic life" between
spirits still lingering on earth, but purged from earthly dross; and
even about other topics less captivating to the religious imagination.
He had persuaded her to found a school in this dark parish, and in it
he taught the poor with exemplary and touching patience. Well, when
he spoke to her about this school, it was in words of practical good
sense, but in tones of love; and she, being one of those feminine women
who catch the tone they are addressed in, and instinctively answer in
tune, and, moreover, seeing no ill but good in the subject of their
conversation, replied sometimes, unguardedly enough, in accents almost
as tender.
In truth, if Love was really a personage, as the heathens feigned, he
must have often perched on a tree, in that quiet grove, and chuckled
and mocked, when this man and woman sat and murmured together, in the
soft seducing twilight, about the love of God.
And now things had come to a crisis. Husband and wife went about the
house silent and gloomy, the ghosts of their former selves; and the
priest sat solitary, benighted, bereaved of the one human creature
he cared for. Day succeeded to day, and still she never came. Every
morning he said, "She will come to-day," and brightened with the hope.
But the leaden hours crept by and still she came not.
Three sorrowful weeks went by; and he fell into deep dejection. He
used to wander out at night, and come and stand where he could see
her windows with the moon shining on them: then go slowly home, cold
in body, and with his heart aching, lonely, deserted, and perhaps
forgotten. Oh, never till now had he known the utter aching sense of
being quite alone in this weary world.
One day, as he sat, drooping and listless, there came a light foot
along the passage, a light tap at the door, and, the next moment, she
stood before him, a little paler than usual, but lovelier than ever,
for celestial pity softened her noble features.
The priest started up with a cry of joy that ought to have warned her;
but it only brought a faint blush of pleasure to her cheek and the
brimming tears to her eyes.
"Dear father and friend," said she. "What! have you missed me? Think,
then, how I have missed you. But 'twas best for us both to let their
vile passions cool first."
Leonard could not immediately reply. The emotion of seeing her again so
suddenly almost choked him.
He needed all the self-possession he had been years acquiring not to
throw himself at her knees and declare his passion to her.
Mrs. Gaunt saw his agitation, but did not interpret it aright.
She came eagerly and sat on a stool beside him. "Dear father," she
said, "do not let their insolence grieve you. They have smarted for it,
and shall smart till they make their submission to you, and beg and
entreat you to come to us again. Meantime, since you cannot visit me, I
visit you. Confess me, father, and then direct me with your counsels.
Ah! if you could but give me the Christian temper to carry them out
firmly but meekly! 'Tis my ungoverned spirit hath wrought all this
mischief, mea culpa! mea culpa!"
By this time Leonard had recovered his self-possession, and he spent an
hour of strange intoxication, confessing his idol, sentencing his idol
to light penances, directing and advising his idol, and all in the soft
murmurs of a lover.
She left him and the room seemed to darken.
Two days only elapsed, and she came again. Visit succeeded to visit:
and her affection seemed boundless.
The insult he had received was to be avenged in one place, and healed
in another, and if possible, effaced with tender hand.
So she kept all her sweetness for that little cottage, and all her
acidity for Hernshaw Castle.
It was an evil hour when Griffith attacked her saint with violence. The
woman was too high-spirited, and too sure of her own rectitude, to
endure that: so, instead of crushing her, it drove her to retaliation;
and to imprudence.
These visits to console Father Leonard were quietly watched by Ryder,
for one thing. But, worse than that, they placed Mrs. Gaunt in a new
position with Leonard, and one that melts the female heart. She was now
the protectress and the consoler of a man she admired and revered. I
say if any thing on earth can breed love in a grand female bosom, this
will.
She had put her foot on a sunny slope clad with innocent-looking
flowers; but more and more precipitous at every step, and perdition at
the bottom.