THE CRYING IN THE NIGHT
"My dearest daughter," the letter began; it was so my grandmother always
addressed Mary Champion. "We are pleased with the fine accounts of how
Bawn is enjoying herself and your gaieties and the old friends you have
met. The house is very lonely without Bawn, and I miss your coming, and
there has been no letter from Theobald since you went. Perhaps Bawn has
had one. We seem to realize that we are old and our children dead and
their children away from us, all at once."
The letter went on to talk of trivial and ordinary things, but my
grandmother was bad at deception, and one felt that her thoughts were
not in the things she told, but that they were written with an intention
to conceal something. And at last the thin deception gave way.
"Mr. Dawson has been to see Lord St. Leger," ran the last paragraph. "He
had some astounding news. And Mrs. Dawson has driven over to call, and
we are to dine with them next week. I wish you were home, Mary. I want
you to lean upon."
When I had read I turned amazed eyes on my godmother.
"The Dawsons!" I said. "And we used always to say that though every
other house in the county were opened to the Dawsons, Aghadoe Abbey
would shut its door in their faces."
"It shall shut its door," Mary Champion said indignantly. "He is
frightening them because they are old and have no son to lean upon.
Garret Dawson is an evil plotter and schemer, and there is blood and
tears on his money. Aghadoe shall be safe from him."
"How can he have frightened them?" I asked. "They have never borrowed
money from him."
The cloud deepened on my godmother's face.
"It must be something about Luke," she said. "But whatever it is, I will
swear it is not true. Luke never did anything that would put his old
father and mother in the power of Garret Dawson. He has frightened them
because I was not there to protect them. I shall tear through his web of
lies."
As she said it the light came to her eyes and the colour to her lips,
and I wondered that any one could ever have thought her plain.
"So you see, Bawn," she said, as she took the letter from me and folded
it up, "there was cause for our return. You know I would not take you
away from your enjoyment without cause."
"Yes, I knew that," I said.
Indeed, when we reached Aghadoe my grandmother was so tremulous in her
joy at seeing us, and she clung so to Mary Champion, that we might have
been away two years instead of two weeks.
It was late when we arrived, and there was supper prepared for us; and
while we ate it my grandfather sat in his chair by the window, where we
could not see his face, and was silent. There was a gloom over the meal,
a sense of trouble impending. It was not at all a joyful occasion as it
ought to have been, since we had come back. My grandmother hovered about
us uneasily, pressing this and that thing upon us, for she had bidden
Neil Doherty to lock up and go to bed, saying that we could wait on
ourselves, to his manifest indignation. And presently my grandfather got
up, excused himself for being tired, and, having kissed my godmother and
me on our cheeks, went away with a tired and uncertain step.
Something had happened. It was obvious that there was a sense of it in
the faces of the old servants. Even Dido whimpered uneasily under my
caressing hand.
My grandmother remembered to ask me if I had heard from Theobald, and it
was only then, with a sense of shame, that I realized the absence of
Theobald's letters and the fact that I had not noticed their absence.
Why, I had not written to Theobald for several weeks past; but I did not
dare to tell my grandmother so. Of course there were many reasons why
Theobald should not have written. He was very gay in India, much in
demand in his spare time for all sorts of entertainments.
"If there had been any serious reason for his not writing we should have
heard fast enough, Gran," I said.
"Why, that is true, Bawn," she replied. "Still, where one loves one is
unnecessarily anxious."
I felt the rebuke of her words, though I knew she had intended no
rebuke, and made up my mind with a rush of compunction to write a long
letter to Theobald in the morning.
Miss Champion was staying the night at Aghadoe; and I thought it would
be well to leave her and my grandmother together that they might talk
over things. Besides that, I had not yet read my letter and the moment
was approaching when I might do so. And all at once my patience seemed
to have given out, to be quite exhausted. So I took my bedroom candle
and went.
When I had reached my own room I locked the door lest by any chance I
should be disturbed; although that did not seem likely. I lit four
candles and made quite an illumination in the great, dim room. Then I
took the letter from where it had lain all day over my heart, and I set
it on the table in the candle-light. I got into a loose gown and
slippers with a kind of painful, yet sweet deliberation. Now that the
moment had come for my joy I dallied with it.
My first love-letter! I realized all at once that Theobald's fond,
boyish epistles had no real, man's love in them. I was only the dear
companion, the sister, to him. I was sure of it, else I had been very
unhappy.
Then I took the letter and held it to the candle-light with a throbbing
heart. And this is what I read:
"My dear Miss Bawn,
"For a moment I forgot my white head and my years, and for that
foolish presumption you must pardon me and never think less kindly
of me. From your old servant's lips I learned the truth: that you
had a lover of your own age, whom I pray God may be worthy of you.
After all, since my dream of treasure here was but a dream, I have
reconsidered my refusal, and shall join the expedition in search of
mere earthly treasure. If we never meet again, think kindly of him
who would die for you.
"Your faithful friend and servant,
"Anthony Cardew."
I was like one who has had a blow and a bad one, and I felt a curious
quietness steal upon me and numb me. Despite the sweet, warm air of the
summer night I was cold. In the quietness I heard the Abbey clock strike
twelve; I heard soft stirrings in the leaves outside; a thousand little
sounds which I would not have noticed at another time, that were
distinct in the stillness that had come upon me.
I went on making my preparations for bed as though nothing had happened.
I omitted nothing, but all the time I felt as though I were somehow
outside my body and knew the dull numbness of it as a thing apart.
When I was ready at last I unlocked the door so that the maid who came
with my morning tea and my bath-water should not find it locked. Then I
blew out the candles, and, taking the letter in my hand, I crept into
bed.
That night I was awakened by the crying in the shrubbery outside which I
had not heard for a long time, and I listened to it, cold in the
darkness, till the cocks began crowing and then it ceased. I knew that
the ghosts always came for trouble at Aghadoe, and I prayed hard that
the trouble might be only mine and might spare the two dear old people.
The thought of Theobald, and that I had not even noticed the absence of
his letters, stung me sharply. What if harm should come to Theobald? As
the cocks crew and the grey turned to blue and then to gold in the room,
I lay staring up at the ceiling, praying that harm had not come to
Theobald, that he might be well and happy although I must be miserable
for ever.