|IT had been observed, as I have already said, that my Lady had not left
the Abbey grounds for these many weeks; but there had been one exception
to that course of conduct. She had never omitted to visit, as usual,
her late husband's grave, and to lay upon it a posy of spring-flowers,
gathered by her own hands; but she did this now in the evening, instead
of the daytime, as heretofore. It was not, however, likely that any
intruder should be found there at any hour.
Whoever of the household saw her walking in the direction of the little
church--only a stone's-throw from the servants' offices--took
great care to avoid her, or to appear, if they needs must meet her,
unconscious of her errand; and while she was there, no domestic used
the little zigzag path among the grass-grown graves that formed the
short-cut to the village. The country folk were forbidden at all times
to approach the Abbey by that way, so the sacred spot was almost as
private as though it had been an appendage of the Abbey itself, as it
had been in the old times. Mirk lay quite out of the high-road, so that
no stranger “stretching his legs,” while the coach changed horses,
ever strolled into its God's-acre to spend a profitless five minutes
amid its solemn records; nor, indeed, was there anything in the
graveground, whatever might have been in the church, to attract such
persons, in the way of monument or effigy. Yet the humble graves were
all well kept; not broken or dinted in, as one too often sees them in
such places; nor did the head-stones lean this way and that, as though
they strove to wrench up the very mounds they were set to mark; nor were
the long rank grasses and the nettles permitted to overgrow the spot,
and hide it from the sun. Upon every slab, however, save one, time was
doing its work, covering with moss and lichen the gray surface, and
filling up the letters on the stones---just as in the hearts of the
survivors it was healing the sense of loss, and effacing the memory of
the departed one. The sole exception was the stone which commemorated
Sir Robert's death. His marble cross was without speck or flaw. It
stood in the western corner, in a little plot of garden-ground of its
own, and beside it was a vacant space, left there by his widow's
desire, that she might herself be laid there when God's good time
should come.
It is the evening of the day upon which Master Walter got up so early,
and my Lady has come, as usual, to her husband's tomb. Her hand
is resting on the top of it, whereon she has just hung a chaplet of
fresh-gathered flowers; but her look is fixed upon the western sky,
where the glory of the sunken sun yet lingers. It may be but a simple
faith that associates Heaven with the sky, but it is a very natural one.
My Lady's soul was longing to be at rest somewhere beyond those
quiet clouds which flecked that golden deep. Death is not so invariably
hateful to us as the divines would paint it; it has no terrors for the
Good--nay, sometimes not for the Bad either--while to the Wretched it
would often be more welcome than the dawn. “If I could only 'fall
asleep,' as is said of the saints,” thought my Lady, “here, and at
this instant, how well for all would it be! Some only live for others,
they say, but the best that could possibly happen to all I love would be
that I should be laid in my grave. And some have died for others, as God
knows I would die for any one of my dear ones, and yet it would be
sin in me to die. Ah, husband, husband! thou that liest here under the
flowers and the sky, I would to Heaven that I could lie down beside thee
now, and never wake! I trust thou dost not know this thing that troubles
me, and threatens mine and thine, or thy dear heart would be wrung with
pity, although thou wert an angel and in eternal bliss. And but that the
Almighty has fixed his canon against self-slaughter---- Those were happy
days in which I first read that!” mused she, interrupting herself,
and carried involuntarily into another current of thought; “we read it
together, you and I, Robert. My new life was just beginning then; never
had pupil such a kindly teacher as thou wert. I can bear to think
of that; but of thy love, thy noble generous love, thy patient
tenderness------ Spare me, great Heaven! I did so worship this dead man,
and now I live alone; and yet I would not have him here alive, to know
what I know, to feel what I feel, to dread what I dread--no, not though
we should be permitted to live together for years, and die within the
selfsame hour, as I used to pray we might. I thank thee, merciful God,
that I am bearing this heavy cross alone; give me strength to carry it,
and suffer me to do so--if it please thee--to the end, alone. It is my
fault, husband; all mine. When you pressed me to marry you, and I said
'No,' I should have said it more firmly. We were not fit for one
another.--No, no; not that! I will not say that. You made me what I am;
a wife fit for yourself, I do believe; not good, like you--not wise,
like you--but one who was a faithful and true helpmate, and with whom
you were content. If you could make a sign to me from the earth, or in
the air, this moment, I should not be afraid but that it would be one
of love. If you, perchance, have come to know every thought in my heart
that was in your time--or if you have read it since you died--or if you
read it now--still I should not be afraid! I will endeavour to do my
duty still; but ah! how foolish are they who say we always know what
_is_ our duty! O Robert, what is mine?”
She wrung her hands in pitiful distraction, and throwing herself down by
the graveside, whispered, as though to the deaf ear beneath: “The sea
has given up its dead to shame me, and thy children, because of me. What
is there for me to do for them except to die?”
“Hollo, missus! what's wrong wi' _you?_” inquired a deep hoarse
voice. “Drunk or sober, I never could abide seeing a woman cry.”
At such a time and place, the sudden and unexpected interruption might
well have sent a shudder, to any woman's heart, and it was no wonder
that my Lady trembled in every limb. But she gathered herself together
with a great effort, and drawing her thick crape veil over her face,
arose, and steadily confronted the intruder.
“Why, it's my Lady herself!” cried the new-comer
derisively--“the party as I've promised myself a good look at before
I left these diggings. And, dam'me, but now I'll have it. If I'm
anyways rude, you will please to put it down to the brandy in which I
have been drinking to the very good health of the big black horse.
Now, don't be so cursedly proud; your son and I--not Sir Richard,
for he's a---- Well, you're his mother, so I won't say what I
was agoing to about _him_; but Master Walter, he and I are great
friends.--Now, why do you wince? _He_ ain't so high and mighty but
that he can borrow money of your humble servant; but there--there's no
obligation in that, for I love the lad. He's like--like a dear friend
of mine, who was drowned in the sea, years and years ago. Lord, how you
do tremble! Why, I'm the last man in the world to hurt a woman, bless
you. My nature is altogether soft where they're concerned; and if it
were not so, there was a woman once, my Lady, drowned and dead--the same
as I was speaking of--for whose sake every woman since has been in my
eyes sort of sacred-like; that is, unless I was in drink.”
It was painfully evident to my Lady that the person who was speaking to
her was in the unhappy condition he had just referred to, for he lurched
from side to side until he had bethought him of steadying himself by the
marble cross; but there was a sort of pathos in his voice, too, which
was not the mere maudlin tenderness of the drunkard. If he had not been
drunk, he might not have been tender, but there was evidently genuine
feeling in the man, which seemed to deepen as he went on. “Now, though
you do not speak, I know you're sorry for me. If I should lift your
veil--there, I'm not agoing to do it--I am sure you would have a tear
for a poor fellow who has been knocked about the world for three parts
of his life, and has not made a single friend--not one, not one; and if
he went back home, who would not see a face he knew--it is so long ago
that he was there--and who needs a woman's voice to comfort him if
ever a man did.”
“What's all this to me, sir?” asked my Lady in low and broken
tones. “I wish to be left alone here--by this grave.”
“What--is--all--this--to you?” returned the man with vindictive
deliberation, “Have you no heart, then, you proud woman, like your
eldest son?” Then once more altering his manner, he continued: “Now,
do not be angry with me, or you may be sorry for it, but rather pity me.
This grave contains what is dear to you, it seems; but you have those
alive who love you also! Now, I have not even a grave. The only creature
on earth who ever loved _me_--and I loved her too, ah how dearly, though
I could not keep even then from drink--she lies buried beneath the
stormy waves. I cannot come, as you can, to this tomb, and say: 'Here
she sleeps,' and weep over it, and be sorry for my sins, for I know
not where, in all the waste of ocean, her bones may lie. So, for many
years I never looked upon the sea without the sense that I was looking
upon one great grave. Am I speaking truth or not?”
He stopped and clutched her by the arm, and fiercely bade her tell him
if she believed his words or no.
“I do believe you, sir,” returned my Lady firmly. “Beneath your
bronzed and bearded face, I see your woes at work, and I am sorry for
you.”
“Thank you, Lady; you have a pleasant and kind voice, with music in it
such as I have not heard for many a day. You are sorry for me, but you
know not half my woes; I have never told them to any human ear; although
at times, when I have been all alone--upon the treeless prairie, not
knowing whether I was on the right track or lost, or on the mountain-top
in strange and savage lands, and chiefly when a solitary man on
shipboard, keeping watch while others slept--then have I spoken of these
things aloud, and asked of Heaven why it used me so. But now--as some
black cloud will overpass a mighty plain, and never shed a drop, but
presently, on coming on a little valley fenced with round green hills,
will straight, dissolve in rain, so I, who have been so silent for so
long, am moved to speak by you. What magic is this you bear about you,
woman? Let me see your face.”
“There is no need for that, sir,” answered my Lady, stepping back,
and motioning with her arm with dignity. “The magic of which you speak
lies only in a feeling heart and an attentive ear. If it is any comfort
to you to tell your story, I will gladly listen to it.”
“Yes, it seems to be a comfort,” replied the other thoughtfully,
“although I never cared to speak of it before. You see me, Lady, now, a
brawling, drunken wretch--upon whose reckless soul there may be murder,
to-morrow or next day, as like as not--but anyhow a broken man. I was
not always thus. When I was young, I was a hopeful and hard-working lad
enough--only a little thoughtless. I was honest, too, notwithstanding
that the law and I fell out; but I was fond of jovial company and good
liquor, and what I got at sea--for I had a smack of my own at
Bleamouth--that I spent very quickly on shore. If I had had a wife, or
even a mother, I think it might have been different; but I had no
relations, or at least none who were my friends. I could not bear
advice, and much less interference and dictation, and so, you see, I was
alone in the world--until I met with Lucy Meade---- You shiver, my Lady.
Am I keeping you too long in the night-air?”
Lady Lisgard shook her head, and murmured: “No; go on.”
“'Tis thirty years ago this very year--that's many thousand days,
and tens of thousand leagues have I sailed since then--and yet, I swear,
it seems but yesterday I crossed those water-meadows with my gun--for I
was after moorfowl--and came upon her cottage on the Blea. White-walled,
white-roofed--for in those parts they paint them so--it nestled under
a rocky hill, crested with heather; and in front the river ran, swollen
with recent rains, through a broad weedy flat, and so, between the
rounded sand-hills, to the sea. Before the cottage was a porch with
honeysuckles trained upon it, and one full-flowering fuchsia upon either
side. Then, as I drew near, I saw her sitting in the porch mending her
father's net. Ah, Heaven, I see her now!”
The speaker paused and sighed; but looking out into the viewless air,
as if upon some picture hung in space, he did not mark my Lady start
and clasp her hands, as though some dreadful thing had come upon her
suddenly, against which none could help her but only God alone.
“It is a story, Lady Lisgard, that you doubtless know,” continued
the man, “for even among lords and ladies love will come. I asked
her for a drink of water, and she brought me with it Hope, Resolve,
Repentance--I know not what. From that moment forth, I lived my life
anew. Then the next day, and the next, I sought the cottage; and when I
had won my way with Lucy--that was her name, my Lady--did I tell you?--I
pleaded my cause with the old fisherman, her father--her mother being
already ours--but for a long time in vain.
“She was his only child, his only prop and stay, and he was proud of
her, as well he might have been, for she was gentle of speech as you
yourself or any lady born, and scholarly and wise beyond her humble
state, and, young as she was, already had had many a suitor; but she had
never loved but me. 'Tis like enough you cannot fancy that; but then
my former self was not like this.” He pointed to his heart with a
scornful gesture, as though something loathsome had taken the place of
what had wont to be there.
“Besides, the fairest, purest creature upon earth was she, and she took
all things for pure. Not that there was much against me either, except
that I loved good liquor; besides, I only drank for pleasure then, and
now---- But let that be. Well, we were married. We lived with the old
couple at the cottage, as Lucy wished, partly for their sakes, partly,
as I have often thought since then, for mine--that I might be kept out
of bad company, such as there was plenty of at Bleamouth at that time
--poachers, smugglers, and idlers of all sorts. But this was done too
late. I have said that the Law and I fell out: that was for poaching
--and Curse the law, say I, which rich men make for the poor perforce to
break. I never poached after I married, but before that time I had shot
a hare or two; and once--but months ago--there had been a fray with
keepers, and I had clubbed my gun, and struck my hardest, like the rest.
There had been broken bones on both sides, but the matter had blown
over, as I thought, when all of a sudden I received certain news that I
was marked for one of the offenders, and that men were coming to take me
from my Lucy's arms to jail. I told her this, for I had kept nothing
from her all along, and I knew that she had courage, or she would never
have married such a man as me; but I forgot, in my selfish roughness,
that it is one thing to be brave in things that concern one's self,
and another to be able to bear to see others suffer. 'Ah, Heaven!'
exclaimed she, 'but this will kill my father! To have his honest house
entered by men in search of felons, and to see his daughter's husband
with the gyves upon him--that will be his death, I know.' The auld
wife said so likewise.
“They were right, I think, for when we came to break the thing to him,
and warn him of what might happen, although all was said to excuse what
I had done, and to soften the consequences that might come of it, he
raved like one distracted. 'Let him leave my cottage!' cried
he; 'he has worked mischief enough already; he has robbed me of my
daughter's love, and now he would take from me my good name. Let him
leave this honest roof!' 'But where he goes, I must go, father,'
replied Lucy, with her arms about the old man's neck; and in the end
he was brought to see that it must be so. So I changed my name to that
of Derrick, which I bear now, and fled from home to a great seaport, and
there, on board an emigrant-ship bound for the other side of the world,
took passage not only for myself and wife, but for her parents. It was
agreed that all were to begin life again in a strange land, so that I,
too, might begin it once more with that fair start which I had lost in
my own country. Thus the poor old man and his wife were torn from the
comfortable home that had sheltered them for half a century, and forced
in their old age to cross the seas. No, not to cross them: would to
Heaven they might have been suffered so to do! It was ordained that I,
who had thus far caused their wretchedness, should also be the means of
their death. A most terrible storm overtook us at midnight, while yet
in sight of lights on English land, and in the midst of it our vessel
sprung a leak. I knew that I had a brave woman for my wife, but then I
found she was a heroine; I knew my Lucy was good as she was fair, but
then she proved herself an angel. There were men on board who screamed
and wailed like children. She never uttered a cry or shed a tear. She
felt that she was going to heaven with all she loved (for she always
thought the best of every one), and therefore death had no terrors for
her. But I--I felt myself a murderer. I did what I could to save the two
old people, and got them into the only boat that left the ship; but it
had not parted from us twice its length, before it capsized before our
eyes. Lucy had refused to leave me, and when the vessel began to sink,
I lashed her to a spar, and then myself; and so for a little time we
floated. But the great waves drenched us through and through, and dashed
upon us so that we had hardly time to breathe. The spar was not large
enough for both our weights, which sank it too low in the water; and
so I secretly unloosed the cords that fastened me, and clambered to my
Lucy's side, and kissed her cold wet cheek, and whispered: 'Fare
well, Lucy.'”
Here the speaker paused, and covered his rough face. My Lady, too, was
deeply moved. For near a minute, neither spoke. Then the man resumed:
“I slipped into the sea, and struck out aimlessly enough, but with
the instinct of a swimmer. Fool that I was to wish to live!” Again he
paused; but this time, to mutter an execration.
“And did not all your care and unselfish love suffice to save her?”
asked the listener tenderly.
“No, Lady. She was drowned. I never expected otherwise in such a sea.
The whole ship's company were lost, except myself. When nearly spent,
I came upon a huge piece of the wreck, and held on to it till daylight,
when I found myself at sea. I would to God that it had not been so! I
was nearer Heaven at that time than I have ever been since, and I ought
to have perished then, when all which made life precious had already
gone: it would have been far better to have died with her, than to live
without her. But I did live. After two days and three nights of hunger
and thirst, a vessel picked me up, a sodden mass of rags, half-dead and
half-mad. They nursed me and made me well--it was a cruel kindness--and
after many days, I was able to tell them what had happened. 'Ay,
then,' said they, 'the pilot was right who came to us off Falmouth.
It was the _North Star_ that went to pieces in the storm; you are the
sole survivor, man, of all on board. Nothing came on shore that
night, or could have come on such a coast as that, save spars and
corpses.'”
There was silence for a minute's space: the strong man's chest
laboured in vain to give him breath for utterance; in vain his horny
hand dashed the big tears from his brown cheeks; they still rained on.
“Alas, poor man!” said my Lady, in a broken and pitiful voice, “I
feel for you from my very soul. And when you found your three-weeks'
bride was dead--I think you said you had married her but three
weeks--what then became of _you?_”
“What matters?” asked the man half-angrily, “It mattered nothing even to
myself. The vessel took me--it was all one to me whither she was
bound--to New South Wales. And in the New World I did indeed begin a new
life--but it was a far worse one than in the old, I was reckless,
hopeless already, and I was not long in becoming Godless. When that is
said, a man's history is the same, wherever he lives, whatever he does,
and however he ends.”
He stamped his foot upon the ground, as though he would keep down some
rising demon, and his voice once more resumed the hoarseness it had
exchanged for something almost plaintive throughout his story.
“Ralph, Ralph,” began my Lady reprovingly, and touching his rough
sailor's sleeve with her gloved hand----
“And how the devil should you know my name is Ralph?” interrupted
the other in blank amazement.
“My maid, Mary Forest, told me it was Ralph,” returned my Lady
calmly.
“Did she? Well, that's no reason why _you_ should call me by it.
However, since you seem to feel so unexpected an interest in your humble
servant, I will make bold to ask a favour of you.” His manner was
rough and defiant as ever now, like that of a sturdy vagrant soliciting
alms of a defenceless woman.
“You are angry with yourself,” said my Lady quietly, “for having
given way to feelings which do you honour; that is a base sort of regret
indeed. You try to persuade yourself that I have affected a sympathy
which I did not feel, but you do not succeed. I cannot but be interested
in one who, with all his faults, has certainly in the hour of death and
danger behaved nobly, and who must, I feel assured, have the seeds of
good in him yet, despite his wild and despairing talk.”
“No, woman, I have not,” returned the man with vehemence. “Dismiss
that from your mind at once. Ralph Derrick is no hypocrite, whatever he
is, and he tells you now that he is a lost man, in the sense which such
as you understand it. I don't know why I have spoken to you as I have
done just now--some springs of feeling that I had deemed were quite
dried up flowed at your voice as they have not done these thirty
years--but don't imagine that I am soft-hearted. I am not a bad fellow
when I'm sober, and not put out; but then I'm seldom sober, and
I'm very easily put out. Your son, Sir Richard, has put me out, for
one. I should be sorry for him if he and I had much to do with one
another.--But there, you need not turn so pale; for, for your sake--and
for Master Walter's sake, who has got my Lucy's eyes, and look, and
voice, God bless him--Sir Richard is safe from me; albeit I have let fly
a bullet before now at men who have wronged me less than he has done--an
insolent young devil! It was a man like him, one of your landowners,
forsooth, whose persecution drove me from my native shore, and
drowned my wife and the old couple. Damn all such tyrants, says Ralph
Derrick”----
It was difficult to associate the depressed and solemn speaker of a
few minutes back with this passionate and lawless man, his huge fingers
opening and shutting in nervous excitement, his eyeballs suffused with
blood, and each hair of his vast beard, as it seemed, bristling with
vengeful fury.
“You were saying that you wished to ask a favour of me, Mr Derrick?”
interposed my Lady quietly. “What is it I can do for you?”
“Well, you can do this,” returned he roughly: “you can cease to
set your waiting-maid, Mary, against me, as you have hitherto done. I
am not a bad match for her, as she knows, in point of money; and if she
finds herself able to put up with little starts of temper, and not to
grudge me a drop o' drink at times, why, what is that to you?”
“Have you told her, may I ask, of what you have been telling _me_, Mr
Derrick?”
“Yes; at least I told her I was a widower; I never felt a call to tell
her more; she would not understand, look you. She asked me what this
leaden locket was I wear about my neck, with this poor broken piece of
stick in it, and something withered clinging to it still, and I told her
it was a charm against the ague. Now, you--I'll wager you can tell me
what it holds.”
“No, not I. How should _I_ know?” inquired my Lady hurriedly.
“You _do_ know, anyway. This fellow is not the sort of man to carry
charms, you think; and all that's sacred to him in the world or out
of it hangs on his love that's drowned. This, then, must be some
token--were there not fuchsias upon either side the porch where first
they met? There, now, you have it, I can see.”
“You plucked, perhaps, a piece of fuchsia when you plighted troth,”
murmured my Lady.
“Ay, when we plighted troth,” answered the other mournfully; “and
breaking a twig in twain, all blossoming then, but now--see, dried to
dust--each kept a half. I have seen far up the hills in Mexico a piece
of the true Cross, that's held to be the richest possession that the
Church calls her own in those parts; well, that's not sure; it may be
or it mayn't be what they term it; but this poor twig has never been
out of my sight or reach, and so I kiss and worship this, my relic, as
no devotee can do.--Now, what would Mary Forest say to that? She is not
like my Lucy; no, indeed, no more than I am like the Ralph of those old
days; and if she were, should I be fit for her? My Lucy married to a
drunken, gambling ruffian! Tis blasphemy to think upon it. But as for
this wench, your waiting-maid, she and I are suited well enough. She
wants a husband, and is willing to take me; while I, who have been
tossed so long on the stormy billows of life, shall be glad to come to
anchor. It is you only--she told me so herself--who stand in the way.”
“And would you have me, then, advise this woman--being my faithful
friend as well as my servant--to unite her fortunes with a man who, from
his own lips I learn, is hopeless, reckless, Godless, a drunkard and a
gambler”----
“Hell and Furies!” broke forth the other impatiently, “will
you dare to use what I have just now told you against myself! Beware,
beware, proud woman, how you cross a desperate man! Since my life is
worthless, as you paint it, you may be sure that I shall hold the risk
of losing it lighter than better men: there is nothing that I dare not
do to those who cross me.”
“I have no fear for myself, sir, and least of all things, Ralph
Derrick, do I fear death,” answered my Lady calmly. “Yet willingly I
promise that I will never breathe one syllable to human ear of what you
have said to-night.”
“So far so well, my Lady. When I found you here, I was on my way to
court your waiting-woman, but she does not expect me. She has written
me her answer 'Yes' or 'No' before this, and I shall get it
to-morrow in London: it was agreed between us she should do so. I was
to have started to town this afternoon, but I overslept myself--not but
that I got up early enough, as Master Walter will witness--and missed
the train from Dalwynch. I am going thither to-night; but, in the
meantime, I thought I could come back and take a farewell kiss from
Mary, and her 'Yes' from her own lips. I will receive no other
answer, and if such should reach me, I shall know from whom it comes.
The matter is in your hands, I know; come, let us part friends.”
“God forbid we should part enemies,” replied my Lady fervently;
“I will wrong you in nothing, but be assured I shall do my duty at all
hazards.”
“And be assured I shall have my way, Lady Lisgard, at all risks,”
returned the other grimly. “Are you too proud to take my hand at
parting?”
For a single instant, my Lady hesitated; then reaching out her fingers,
they met his own stretched out at fullest length, for the tomb lay
between them. They shook hands across Sir Robert Lisgard's grave.