THE MAN WHO ROSE AGAIN
The servant opened the door of the drawing-room, which, although the sun
had set, was far from dark. The time was summer, and the air was so
clear that darkness seemed impossible.
"I will light a lamp, and then I will tell Miss Castlemaine that you are
here," she said.
"No, no," said Leicester, almost eagerly; "do not trouble about a lamp.
It would be a pity to spoil the light of the moon. Besides, it is almost
as light as day. Tell Miss Castlemaine that I am waiting here, will
you?"
The servant went away without a word; she did not pay much attention to
the gentleman's behaviour. What could be expected of these strange men
from the East? They could not be expected to act like civilised
Englishmen.
"Signor Ricordo is in the drawing-room, miss," she said to Olive. "I
wanted to light the lamps, but he asked me not to. He said the moonlight
was so very beautiful."
Olive laughed almost nervously. She had been in a state of suspense all
the day. She had expected him soon after breakfast, and she wondered,
with many fears in her heart, why he had not come. If she had known all
that had been in Leicester's mind that day, she would have feared still
more. More than once she had felt angry. To say the least, it was
strange that after she had promised to be his wife in the evening, he
should fail to come to her in the morning, and she realised more than
ever that strange dread of her promised husband. Besides, the thought of
Leicester had come back to her again. She remembered how, after they
were engaged, he spent every moment he could tear himself away from his
affairs at her side. This man, on the other hand, had spent the whole
day away from her, while only a narrow valley lay between them. All
sorts of strange questions haunted her, and especially was she anxious
when her father asked her why he had not come according to his promise.
Every hour of the day she had expected him, and when, after the storm
had passed, John Castlemaine drove away to dine at a neighbouring house,
a feeling of utter loneliness fell upon her.
But he had come now, and she hurried towards him. When she entered the
room, she saw him only dimly. He was standing in a part of the room
where dark shadows fell. She went towards him timidly, her heart beating
wildly. She no longer thought of Leicester now; this man filled the
whole horizon of her life. When she was within a few feet of him, she
stopped. Her heart became as heavy as lead. Why did he not come to meet
her? Why did he stand there in the shadow, without moving a step towards
her, after he had been away all the day?
"You are come at last," she said.
"Yes. Will you come and sit by me?"
Almost fearfully she did as she was bidden. The sofa on which they sat
was so much in the darkness that she could not see his face plainly;
only the dim outline of his form was visible. He acted in a most
unlover-like fashion. He did not even offer to take her hand. She almost
feared to sit by his side.
"Aren't you--you very late?" she stammered. "Is anything the matter?"
She hardly knew what she was saying, and the silence had become
oppressive.
"Yes," he replied, "something is the matter."
"You--you are not ill, are you?"
"I don't know--oh, no, certainly not--not in the way you think."
"Why did you not come earlier--this morning, as you promised?" she
asked. It was not a bit what she meant to say, but she had lost control
over herself.
"I've been very busy--that is, I've been finding out something."
"What?"
"I've been making inquiries about--Leicester."
"About whom?"
"About Leicester. I've discovered something."
Her heart ceased to beat. What did he mean by speaking to her like this?
What could he have discovered about Leicester? Besides, his voice was
strange. She no longer heard the low, fluid tones of an Oriental, but
the voice of the past.
"What?" she asked.
"I've discovered that Leicester is not dead."
"What!"
"I've discovered that Leicester is not dead. That is why I've been away
all the day. It has put everything that is--in a new light."
She sat as moveless as a statue. His voice sounded far away. It was very
strange too, and yet it was very familiar.
"Not dead?"
"No. There can be no doubt about it. He died, but he has risen again."
A strange feeling possessed her heart. She was not sure whether it was
an overmastering joy, or a terrible fear. Perhaps it was both. But the
news was also a great shock, and the room seemed to swim around her.
"But, but," she stammered presently, "how do you explain--the--the, that
is----"
"How do I explain the coroner's inquest, and all that was associated
with it? I will tell you. It is darker than I thought. Will you light
the lamp?"
Like one in a dream she did as she was bidden. Her hand trembled so that
she could scarcely hold the match to the wick of the lamp; but she
succeeded at length, and the mellow light filled the room.
"There," she said, and she tried to laugh, "I have managed to do it. But
tell me you are jesting with me."
"No, I am not jesting. Look at me."
She turned to him as he spoke, but she was powerless to speak a word.
"Did I not speak the truth? Has not Leicester come to life again?"
She looked at him like one spell-bound. There, standing before her, was
Leicester. The huge black beard and moustache were shaven off; he no
longer wore the fez which had helped to give him an Eastern appearance.
His face was paler. He was stouter than the Leicester of old, and there
was still a suggestion of strangeness about him; but the black beard and
moustache, the fez, and the Eastern appearance were gone. She could not
doubt her eyes.
[Illustration: She gazed at him dumbfounded.]
She thought that for the first time in her life she was going to faint.
Her blood ran through her veins like streams of ice; her head swam.
Presently she mastered herself, however.
"I swore that I would come back again, and I have come; but do not fear,
Olive."
Still she stood looking at him with wide-open eyes. She could realise
nothing yet. Where was Ricordo, the man she had promised to marry? And
why was Leicester there? How had she been deceived? What was the meaning
of it all?
"Before you drive me away again, I have something to tell you," he went
on, "something which you must hear. It is a strange story, but you must
hear it."
"But tell me," she said; "I cannot understand. You are----"
"I am Radford Leicester. There is no Signor Ricordo, there never was any
Signor Ricordo--except in name."
He spoke quite calmly, yet his voice trembled somewhat. Again she
looked, and the truth became clearer to her; nevertheless she could not
quite understand what had happened.
"Will you not sit down?" he said. "Do not fear; I quite understand your
feelings. I will not sit near you. But before I go away I want to tell
you something. I want to remove all haunting fear from your mind.
Naturally you loathe my presence--as you said long ago; naturally you
feel defiled at the thought of my being near you. I quite realise that;
you told me so, on our wedding-day, at The Beeches. Still, you will be
glad to know what I have to tell you. After that I will go away into the
darkness, never to trouble you by my presence again."
"But tell me," she said almost piteously, "I--I am afraid I am ill, and
don't understand. But you are Radford--that is, Radford Leicester; and,
as for the other----"
"There is no other, there never was any other. He was simply my great
lie, the lie by which I wished to work my will. Radford Leicester never
died, really died--he only pretended. He practised a fraud, a cruel,
unworthy fraud; but he never died. He died to the world, that is all. I
have been the Eastern stranger all the time--an Eastern stranger with a
strange appearance. I have been that to deceive you. I am going to tell
you why; then everything will be plain, and then I will go away again."
He took a few steps across the room, and as he did so she saw the
Leicester she had known of olden time, and yet a new Leicester, with a
new light in his eyes, and with a ring in his voice she had never heard
before. Somehow, she did not know why, but in the dazed state of her
mind Ricordo had faded away. As Leicester had said, there was no Signor
Ricordo--there never had been such a person.
"I must needs speak of things that are painful to you," he said; "and
yet perhaps they will not be. They are painful to me. You remember the
day which should have been our wedding-day? You know that I came to you
with Winfield. The man Sprague had sent you a letter about me. Well, the
letter was true, and yet it was black lies. I tried to explain
everything to you, but you would not listen. You know whether you were
right in refusing."
He related the story of the wager. He did not spare himself; he only
told the bare, unvarnished truth. It was not a pleasant story to tell;
but he told it truly, while Olive sat and listened without sign or
motion.
"Yes, I did love you," he went on, "but I was not worthy of you. My
seeming reformation was only a mockery. I thought it was real at the
time, but it was not. If you had married me, I should have fallen again,
and perhaps I should have cursed you. I know it now and you will see
presently why what I say is true. But I was mad with anger, and I gave
way to my old vice. You had helped me to conquer it for a time, but all
the time I was at heart a bad man, all the time I was a drunkard. If you
had saved me really, I should not have given way again; I should not
have flown to it the moment you cast me off. Yes, I loved you, all I was
capable of loving; but it was a love of self in the main.
"You know what took place at Taviton--the drunkenness, the degradation,
the disgrace. I was hooted out of the town, and I laid the blame to your
doors. I went away on the moors and tried to think of what I should do,
vowing vengeance on you all the time, yet never seeing how my vengeance
was to be wreaked. I returned to London, and stayed there some time in
hiding. No one knew where I was, save an old lawyer who had managed my
money affairs. One night I saw at Blackfriars Bridge the body of a dead
man. It had been washed on the steps, and left stranded there. It was
beyond recognition; evidently it had been in the water some time. I put
a letter of mine in the pocket of the dead man's clothes, and then
waited. Everything turned out as I expected. No one had any doubts. I
had committed suicide, and this was my body. I will not dwell any longer
on that; there is no need. I went away to the East. I did so of a set
purpose. I went away so that the world might forget me, and on the whole
it did forget me. But I did not forget. One purpose filled my mind and
heart; I will tell you what it was presently. I was a bad man when I
first saw you; bad with the veneer of respectability and pride.
Afterwards I became bad without that veneer. Think your worst about me,
you will not think too badly, save in one thing--I would conquer my
craving for drink. Nothing was possible if I did not do that. And I have
done that. Never since I left England, more than six years ago, has
alcohol ever passed my lips. I need not describe the hell in which I
lived, save to say that all the time I brooded over my dream of
vengeance on you. I determined that, as far as you and--Sprague were
concerned, there should be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I
told you years ago, that my faith in God was but little. During those
years I lived in the East, I learned to believe in a God; but it was a
God of terror, a God that seemed to consent to my dream of revenge.
"Sometimes I have thought I was mad. Perhaps I was, but it was a madness
which no one suspected, and it was a madness with a purpose. After I had
been away two years, I was able to render a service to the head of the
Great Tripoli Company. I need not describe how; but by a piece of good
fortune I saved, not only his life, but his honour. He also said that I
saved the fortunes of the great company. Be that as it may, those who
were his enemies never dreamed that I should be able to help him. I was
only an ignorant muleteer, who did not know their language, and who
could not fathom their designs. But I did both, and I saved this great
man. It seems like some far-fetched melodrama, doesn't it? But the thing
is true. It leaked out little by little, I suppose, that I was a man of
some education and ability, and by-and-by I became bound up in the
fortunes of this great trading concern.
"It all fell in with my plans. I had learnt to hate you more and more,
and I determined that nothing should baulk me in my purpose. Only once
did I fear that I should fail in that which I had sworn to do. I was
stricken with a plague common to that part of the world, and I was given
up for dead. Even in my prosperity my great desire to live was that I
might express my hatred for you. But I got better, and I felt as though
the God in whom I had learnt to believe would deliver you into my hands;
for there was one thing that illness did for me, it altered my
appearance very materially--so much so that when I came back here no one
suspected who I was.
"I shall soon come to the end now. As soon as I was able I came to
England, determined that I would work your ruin, your disgrace. Nay, do
not fear; I am only telling you this that you may know what is your
right to know. I did not know what had happened to you; but I determined
that, wherever you were, I would find you, and whatever your
circumstances were, I would accomplish my purposes.
"I found you here--still unmarried, but apparently happy. I also found
that you were much admired, and that you were contemplating marriage
with that young squire. I made my plans. I will tell you what they were.
I would win your love; I felt sure I could do it; even if I could not
win that, I believed in the devil sufficiently to be sure that I could
gain your consent to marry me. I remembered, too, that I had won you in
the old days, and I hoped that I possessed something of the power by
which I won you then. Even if I failed, my purpose to have my revenge
should not be frustrated, for I hated you with all the intensity of my
being."
All the time Olive sat with wide, staring eyes and blanched face.
Sometimes she felt as though the recital were only a ghastly nightmare,
but when she looked into the man's face she felt its reality. The man
was Leicester, the man whom she believed had died six years before; but
even yet she could not understand everything. What was this scheme of
vengeance which he was going to work upon her? It would be difficult to
analyse her feelings just then. The past and the present, the known and
the unknown, were so inter-woven that nothing seemed real.
"You wonder how a man can hate so?" he went on. "So do I now; but after
all, man is only an incipient devil when he gives way to his passions,
and I was only a reversion to type. This was the thought I had nursed;
through you I had been scorned, disgraced, through you I had been cast
into hell. I did not realise all that went before; I only remembered
those things which fed my hatred. And this is what I determined to do."
He hesitated a second, as though he feared to go on.
"It seems mean, it seems devilish," he said presently, "and it is what
it seems. I vowed that I would marry you with all the display of a great
wedding, and then when it was all over, when we were known to the world
as man and wife, I would tell you who I was, and I would tell you that
you were no wife at all, because I had married another woman elsewhere.
This also I would tell the world and leave you, disgraced, ruined, the
topic for scandal, the woman who had become the dupe, the plaything of
an adventurer, who was the husband of another wife, the father of
children in another part of the world."
Again he walked across the room and returned.
"Oh, I know it seems paltry, and it is paltry, the scheme of a
harlequin; all the same, I knew that it would make you feel what I had
felt. I knew your proud nature, and that you would never be able to hold
up your head again. I was sure that this would wound you a thousand
times more than poverty, or any other calamity which men fear. As for
Sprague, I had prepared for his fall. He should be ruined, disgraced, a
penniless vagrant.
"You despise me. Yes, yes, I know; but it was my plan of revenge, and
knowing you as I do, it was the most fiendish thing I could conceive of.
Not that I have a wife; no, great God, after knowing you, I could never
marry another, but this was my plan. I determined, too, that a history
of the man you had married, this Leicester whom you had scorned, should
be published in all the newspapers--a history which told of him as one
who for six years had lived in the foulest corruption. I fancied your
being discussed in every clubroom in London, in every ale-house in
England, that you, the proud Olive Castlemaine, who had driven away
Radford Leicester because of your pride, had afterwards married him--him
who was the husband of another woman, and the most corrupt blackguard
who ever walked God's earth.
"Yes, yes, it was mean enough, paltry enough, but it was cruel too, and
I gloated over my plan, for the devil possessed me. I had risen again
from the dead to wreak my vengeance.
"Well, you remember last night? You promised to be my wife. I held you
in my arms, I kissed you, you kissed me. For a moment I ceased to hate;
I loved again, and the love was heaven. But when I left you, I vowed
that I would not turn aside from the path I had marked out. This morning
I could not come to you, I wanted to go away on the hills alone, I
wanted to visit the scenes in which I had made my vows years ago.
"I went into a farmhouse where a simple and pure farmer's dame talked to
me in the old days. To-day she talked to me again, and she made me feel
that I was a fool. She made me realise that if I dragged you into hell,
I should go into a deeper hell myself. She made me realise that there
was a God in the world other than I knew of. Still I determined to go on
as I had begun."
He stopped again, as if not knowing how to proceed with his story; then
he told her of his walk across the moors, and of that wondrous
experience which was too deep for words, of how God had come to him and
had given him a new heart.
"Ever since last night I have known that I love you," he said; "ay, I
knew that I loved you with a love too deep for words, but I would not
confess it to myself until to-day. But I knew, too, that it was too
late, because if I were unworthy of you years ago, I am a thousand times
less worthy now. Then God told me to tell you what I have told you."
Leicester rose to his feet.
"Now I have told you--what I came to tell you," he said. "It was right
that you should know, and I have told you. That is all, I think; so I
will go. I do not ask you to forgive me--I do not, cannot expect that.
Good-night."
He hesitated a second as though he expected her to speak, but not a word
escaped her lips. He thought the look in her eyes hard and repellent. As
he moved towards the door he took a last look at her, but she made no
sign, nor spoke a word.
"Good-night, good-bye," he said, and was gone.
She heard him go into the hall, and open the front door; afterwards the
sound of his footsteps on the drive reached her; but she did not move.
The man's revelations had stunned her; she felt incapable of acting or
thinking. All she knew was that a feeling of utter desolation possessed
her.
She was glad her father was out of the house, for she had a great dread
of meeting any one just then. In a vague way she had a longing to
understand the meaning of what she had heard. For more than an hour she
sat in utter silence. Little by little the reality of Leicester's story
came to her. Leicester was not dead. He had come back to wreak his
revenge on her.
At first she was angry. That he whom she had driven away should come
back as a stranger in order to drag her into disgrace, hurt her pride.
But the anger did not long remain. She reflected that he had renounced
his plan of revenge. Nay, more, he had come to her almost humbly, and
told her that he had learnt to be ashamed of his unworthy designs.
Without knowing it she began to analyse her feelings. What was to become
of her? Ricordo was gone--there never had been a Ricordo, except in
name. And yet she had loved him. The night before, when she had promised
to be his wife, and felt his lips upon hers, she knew that her life had
gone out to his. Even although she could not understand it, she knew it
was so. In spite of the fear which had possessed her, her heart had
responded to his pleadings. Even then the thought of it was strange. If,
years before, any one had told her that she would have given her heart
to a man with Ricordo's professed antecedents, she would have laughed at
such a suggestion as impossible. And yet, in spite of herself, she had
loved him, she did love him. And yet there was no Ricordo; there never
had been.
Then, like a flash, the whole truth came to her. It was Leicester she
had loved all the time. She realised now why, even at their first
meeting, he had such an influence over her. It was not a stranger with
an Italian name, it was Leicester, the man who had won her years before,
and whom she had sent away in anger, but whom she had never been able to
forget. Her heart had thrilled its recognition of the man, even although
she thought him to be a stranger. It was Leicester all the time.
Everything was plain to her now; there never had been any Signor
Ricordo; at most he was only a name, a fancy. That was why, the night
before, it had seemed to her that it was Leicester who had kissed her.
It was not a new love at all. It was but the resurrection of an old
love, the one love of her life.
For a moment she forgot everything in this one great thought. Leicester
was still alive, that she still loved him, and that she had never loved
any one else. She had only cared about the stranger because her heart
knew it was he.
Then she realised that he had gone, and with that realisation a great
blackness fell upon her life. In spite of all he had told her, she loved
him still. She might be angry at the revenge of which he had told her,
her anger was lost in her longing for him. Nevertheless he had gone, and
left her desolate.
Where was he now? she wondered. He had meant what he said when he had
told her that he was leaving her for ever. He believed that she scorned
him now as she had scorned him years before, and he would not wait to be
driven away, as he had been driven then. He had gone away, and she would
never see him again. If he only knew!--oh, if he only knew!
The room was oppressive; she could scarcely breathe. She went to the
casement window and opened it wide. The sweet pure air of the summer
night was wafted to her, and there, lying beneath the moon's rays, was
one of the loveliest sights in England. But she thought not of it; her
heart was torn at the thought that she had bidden good-bye to the only
man she had ever loved or could love.
Slowly she dragged her feet to her own bedroom, and tried to face the
thought of the future. She had lived the past six years without him, and
she must face the prospect of living her whole life without him. He did
not know of her love, and he never would, except she told him, and that
she could never do, for she knew he would never come to her again.
For a long time she sat alone, and faced what seemed to her inevitable
darkness, then suddenly she started to her feet. It was her pride which
caused her to drive him away six years before, and it was still pride
that kept her from letting him know the truth now. She was allowing a
poor and unworthy vanity to stand between her and happiness.
A few minutes later she was on her way to the Manor Farm. There had been
a battle between love and pride, and love had won. She believed that not
only her happiness, but his was at stake. She almost flew across the
park, so eager was she to reach him. Pride was gone, the fear of what
the world might think, if the world knew, was gone. She only knew that
she loved, and that she would, if needs be, plead for forgiveness.
Crossing the bridge which spanned the river, she made her way up the
footpath, until she reached the garden gate. A minute later she was on
the lawn outside his window. For a moment her heart seemed to stop
beating. What if he should drive her away, as she had driven him? Could
she go to him, and offer him a love that might be repulsed? Standing
there on the lawn, she could see him plainly. Evidently he was preparing
to leave. In the middle of the room was a large box, in which he was
placing his belongings. Like one fascinated she watched. Now and then he
would stop in his work and stand still seemingly staring into vacancy,
and then, as if spurred on by some secret thought, would eagerly
continue his work.
The room in which she saw him was the Manor House parlour, a low ceiled
apartment, with large casement windows opening out on the lawn. The
light from the window fell upon the spot where she was standing, but he
did not see her. She, however, could see his face plainly. She wondered
how she had failed to recognise him, even although he had been disguised
by his thick beard, for as she watched him she saw the Leicester she had
known years before. But his face seemed terribly hard and stern, and she
did not understand the look in his eyes. How dare she go to him, and
tell him what was in her heart? Would he not scorn her, as she had
scorned him? Thus minute after minute she waited, afraid to do what she
had set out to do. So hard and unforgiving did his expression seem to
her that she was almost on the point of turning away, when she saw him
sit down like a man overcome, and pillow his face in his hands. Then she
hesitated no longer. Approaching the window, she knocked gently, and
instantly he lifted his head with a look of eager inquiry.
With trembling hands she opened the window and entered.
"Olive--Miss Castlemaine!" he said, like one dazed.
She went straight to him.
"Radford," she said, "I have come to ask you something, to tell you
something."
He did not speak, but looked at her with eager, inquiring eyes.
"I have come to ask you to forgive me," she said, "and to tell you
that--that it was you I loved--all the time. There never was any
stranger, Radford. I loved him because my heart knew it was you."
For a moment he could not understand, but when her meaning came to him
his eyes burned with a new light, his heart sang for joy, he knew what
heaven meant.
"Forgive me, Radford, will you?" she went on. "I do not deserve it from
you, I know. I put my pride before my love, and I drove you away from
me. But, Radford, forgive me, will you? All my foolish pride is gone
now. I love you, Radford--and--will you take me back to your heart?"
Then Radford Leicester knew that God had forgiven him, and from that day
life would in very deed have a new meaning.
"Will you--Radford?" she said, pleadingly.
For answer he put out his arms, and a moment later he held her to his
heart.
What they said to each other, or the explanations that were made, it is
not for me to place on record, but I know a little later, when Radford
Leicester and his promised wife went back to her home, the sky of their
lives was as cloudless as the great dome of blue above them, for each
knew that God had willed their happiness.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Man Who Rose Again, by Joseph Hocking