the sea-wall after I had put Lady Brandling to bed. I thought she might
have left something there. I thought I should like to go there before
the others came. I thought Lady Brandling had seen something. I want
Lady Brandling to tell me truly if she saw something on the sea-wall."
I felt it was a struggle, perhaps a struggle for life and death between
her and me. I took a comb in my hand, to press it and steady me; and I
looked up in the mirror and faced Davies's eyes, ready, I knew, to fix
themselves on mine. "Perhaps I may answer your question later, Davies,"
I said. "But first you must answer mine: am I right in thinking that you
were set to spy upon my husband and me from the moment we first came to
St. Salvat's?"
A great change came over Davies's face. Whatever her intentions, she
had not expected this, and did not know how to meet it. I felt that,
were her intentions evil, I now held her in my hands, powerless for the
time being.
But to my infinite surprise, and after only a short silence, she looked
into my eyes quite simply and answered without hesitating.
"Lady Brandling is right. I was set to spy on Lady Brandling at the
beginning. I did not love Lady Brandling at the beginning; her husband
was taking the place of Sir Thomas. But I love Lady Brandling now."
I could have sworn that it was true, for she has shown it throughout my
illness. But I kept my counsel and answered very coldly,
"It is not a question whether you love me or not, Davies. You
acknowledge that you were the spy of Mr. Hubert and his brothers. And if
you were not spying for their benefit, why were you watching me as I
came up the glen the day I was taken ill? Why did you go to the sea-wall
to see in case I had left anything behind; and why did you treasure this
handkerchief as a proof that I had been there?"
Mrs. Davies hesitated; but only, I believe, because she found it
difficult to make her situation clear.
"Lady Brandling must try and understand," she answered. "I was not
spying for Mr. Hubert. I have not spied for Mr. Hubert for a long
while. I kept the handkerchief to show Lady Brandling that I knew what
had made her faint that day. Also to show her that others did not know.
Lady Brandling is safe. She must know that they do not yet know. If they
know what Lady Brandling perhaps shall have seen, Lady Brandling and her
husband are dead people, like the people in the ship; dead like Sir
Thomas."
Dead like Sir Thomas! I repeated to myself. But I still kept my eyes
fixed on hers in the glass, where she stood behind me, brush in hand.
"Davies," I said, "you must explain if I am to understand. You tell me
you love me now though you did not love me at first. You tell me you
were placed to spy over me by Mr. Hubert, and you tell me that you were
not spying for him when you went to see whether I had left anything on
the sea-wall. You have been good and kind beyond words during my
sickness, and I desire to believe in you. But I dare not. Why should I
believe that you have really changed so completely? Why should I believe
that you are with _me_, and against _them_?"
Mrs. Davies's face changed strangely. It seemed to me to express deep
perplexity and almost agonised helplessness. She twisted her fingers and
raised her shoulders. She was wrestling with my unbelief. Suddenly she
leaned over the dressing table close to me.
"Listen," she said. "I have learned things since then. Hubert told me
lies, but I learned. I am against _them_ because I know they tried to
kill my son."
A look of incredulity must have passed over my face, for she added,
"Aye; they only tried to kill one of my sons, Hugh, who I thought had
gone overboard, whom they thought they had drowned, but who has come and
told me. But--" and she fixed her eyes on mine, "they _did_ kill my
other son; I know that now. My other son of the heart, not the belly.
And that son, my Lady, was your brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Brandling."
And then Davies made a strange imperious gesture, and I must needs
listen to her talk. I have since pieced it together out of her odd
enigmatic sentences. My late brother-in-law, after years of passive
connivance in _their_ doings, which paid for his debaucheries in foreign
lands, became restive, or was suspected by his uncles, and condemned by
them to death as a danger to their evil association. Sir Thomas was
decoyed home, and, according to their habit in case of mutiny, taken
out, a prisoner, to the deepest part of the channel, and drowned. The
report was spread that he had been killed in a drunken brawl at Bristol,
a show of legal proceedings was instituted by his uncle in that city
(naturally to no effect, there being no murderer there to discover), and
a corpse brought back by them for solemn burial at St. Salvat's. But
instead of being interred in the family vault, the body of the false Sir
Thomas was destroyed by the burning of the Chapel during his wake. The
suspicions of Mrs. Davies appeared to have been awakened by this fact,
and by the additional one that she was not allowed to see the corpse of
her beloved foster-son. Her own son Hugh, Sir Thomas's foster brother,
disappeared about this time; and Hubert appears to have made the
distracted mother believe that her own boy was the murderer of Sir
Thomas, and had met with death at his hands; the whole unlikely story
being further garnished for the poor credulous woman with a doubt that
the murder of her foster-son had been, in some manner, the result of a
conspiracy to bring about the succession of my husband. All this she
seems to have believed at the time of our coming, and for this reason to
have lent herself most willingly to spy upon my husband and me, in hopes
of getting the proofs of his guilt. But her suspicions gradually
changed, and her whole attitude in the matter was utterly reversed when,
a few days before the wreck of the great Indiaman and my adventure on
the sea-wall, her son, whom she believed dead, had stolen back in
disguise and told her of an expedition in which the uncles had carried a
man to the high seas, gagged and bound, and drowned him: a man who was
not one of their crew and whose stature and the colour of whose hair
answered to those of the nominal master of St. Salvat's. Her son, in an
altercation over some booty, had let out his suspicion to my uncles, and
had escaped death only by timely flight masked under accidental drowning
from a fishing boat. Since this revelation Davies's devotion to the dead
Sir Thomas had transferred itself to Eustace and me, and her one thought
had become revenge against the men who had killed her darling.
Davies told me all this, as I said, in short, enigmatic sentences; and I
scarcely know whether her tale seemed to me more inevitably true or more
utterly false in its hideous complication of unlikely horrors. When she
had done:
"Davies," I ask her solemnly, "you have been a spy, you have, by your
saying, been the accomplice of the most horrid criminals that ever
disgraced the world. Why should I believe one word of what you tell me?"
Davies hesitated as before, then looked me full in the face "If Lady
Brandling cannot believe what it is needful that she should believe, let
her ask her husband whether I am telling her a lie. Lady Brandling's
husband knows, and he is afraid of telling _her_ because he is afraid of
them." Davies had been kneeling by the dressing-table, as if to make
herself heard to me without speaking above a whisper.
I mustered all my courage, for these last words touched me closer,
filled me with a far more real and nearer horror than all her hideous
tales.
"Davies," I said, "kindly finish brushing my hair. When it is brushed I
can do it up myself; and you may go and wash that handkerchief."
The old woman rose from her knees without a word, and finished brushing
my hair very carefully. Then she handed me the hairpins and combs
ceremoniously. As she did so she murmured beneath her breath:
"Lady Brandling is a courageous lady. I love Lady Brandling for her
courage." She curtsied and withdrew. When the door was well closed on
her I felt I could bear the strain no more; I leaned my head on the
dressing table and burst into a flood of silent tears.
At that moment Eustace came in. "Good God!" he said, "what is the
matter?" taking my hand and trying to raise me up.
But I hid my face. "Oh, Eustace," I answered, "when I think of our
child!"
But what I was saying, God help me, was not true.
_October_ 1, 1773.
What frightful suspicions are these which I have allowed to creep
insidiously into my mind! Did he or did he not know? Does he know yet?
Every time we meet I feel my eyes seeking his face, scanning his
features, and furtively trying to read their meaning, alas! alas! as if
he were a stranger. And I spend my days piecing together bits of the
past, and every day they make a different and more perplexing pattern. I
remember his change of manner on receiving the news of his brother's
death, and the gloom which hung over him during our journey and after
our arrival here. I thought then that it was the unexpected return to
the scenes of his unhappy childhood; and that his constraint and silence
with me were due to his difficulty in dealing with the shocking state of
things he found awaiting him. It seemed natural enough that Eustace, a
thinker, a dreamer even, should feel harassed at his inability to clean
out this den of iniquity. But why have remained here? Good God, is my
husband a mere pensioner of all this hideousness, as his wretched
brother seems to have been? And even for that miserable debauched
creature the day came when he turned against his masters, and faced
death, perhaps like a gentleman. Death.... How unjust I am grown to
Eustace! I ought to try and put myself in his place, and see things as
he would see them, not with the horrified eyes of a stranger. Like me,
he may have believed at first that St. Salvat's was merely a nest of
smugglers.... Or he may have had only vague fears of worse, haunting him
like bad dreams of his childhood....
Besides, this frightful trade in drowned men and their goods has, from
what Davies tells me, been for centuries the chief employment of this
dreadful coast. Whole villages, and several of the first families of the
country, practised it turn about with smuggling. Davies was ready with a
string of names, she expressed no special horror and her conscience
perhaps represents that of these people; an unlawful trade, but not
without its side of peril, commending it to barbarous minds like highway
robbery or the exploits of buccaneers, whom popular ballads treat as
heroes.
But why have I recourse to such explanations? Men, even men as noble as
my husband, are marvellously swayed by all manner of notions of honour,
false and barbarous, often causing them to commit crimes in order to
screen those of their blood or of their class. Some words of Hubert's
keep recurring in my memory, to the effect that all the Brandlings were
given up to what the villain called pilchard fishing, and _none more
devotedly than Eustace's own father_. I remember and now understand the
tone in which he added "all of us Brandlings except this superfine
gentleman here." Those words meant that however great his horror of it
all, Eustace could not break loose from that complicity of silence. For
to expose the matter would be condemning all his kinsmen to a shameful
death, to the public gallows; it would be uncovering the dishonour of
his dead brother, of his father, and all his race.... What right have I
to ask my husband to do what no other man would do in his place?
But perhaps he does not know, or is not certain yet.... To what a size
have I allowed my horrid suspicions to grow! Behold me finding excuses
for an offence which very likely has never been committed; and while
seemingly condoning, condemning my husband in my mind, without giving
him a chance of self-defence! What a confusion of disloyalty and
duplicity my fears have bred in my soul! Anything is better than this; I
owe it to Eustace to tell him my suspicions, and I _will_ tell him.
_November_ 2, 1773.
I have spoken. O marvellous, most unexpected reward of frankness and
loyalty, however tardy! The nightmare has vanished, leaving paradise in
my soul. For inconceivable as it seems, this day, on which I learned
that we are prisoners, already condemned most likely, and at best doomed
to die before very long, this day has been of unmixed, overflowing joy,
such as I never knew or dreamed of.
Eustace, beloved, that ever I could have doubted you! And yet that very
doubt, that sin against our love is what has brought me such blissful
certainty. And even the shameful question, asked with burning cheeks,
"Did you know all?" has been redeemed, transfigured, and will remain for
ever in my soul like the initial bars of some ineffably tender and
triumphant piece of music.
Let me go over it once more, our conversation, Love; feel it all over
again, feel it for ever and ever.
When I had spoken those words, Eustace, you took my hand, and looked
long into my face.
"My poor Penelope," you said, "what dreadful thoughts my cowardice and
want of faith have brought upon you! Why did I not recognise that your
soul was strong enough to bear the truth? You ought to have learned it
from me, as soon as I myself felt certain of it, instead of my running
the risk of your discovering it all alone, you poor, poor little
child!"
Were ever those small words spoken so greatly? Has any man been such a
man in his gentleness and humility? And then you went on, beloved, and I
write down your words in order to feel them once more sinking into my
heart.
"But Penelope," you said, "'twas not mere unmanly shirking, though there
may have been some of that mixed with it. My fault lies chiefly in not
having been able to do without you, dearest, not having left you safe
with your mother while I came over to this accursed place; and in
putting the suspicions I had behind me in order to bring you here.
Nothing can wipe out that, and I am paying the just price of my
weakness, and seeing you pay it!... But once here, Penelope, and once
certain of the worst, it was impossible for me to tell you the truth.
Impossible, because I knew that if you knew what I had learned, it would
be far more difficult for me to get you away, to get you to leave me
behind in this hideous place. Do you remember when I proposed sending
you to Bath for our child's birth? It seemed the last chance of saving
you, and you resisted and thought me cruel and unloving! How could I say
'Go! because your life may any day be forfeited like mine, and go alone!
because--well--because I am a hostage, a man condemned to death if he
stir, a prisoner as much as if I were chained to the walls of this
house.' Had I said that, you would have refused to go, Penelope. But
now, my dear...." And you bent down and kissed me very mournfully.
"But now, Eustace," I answered, and I heard that my voice was solemn,
"but now I can stay with you, because I know as much as you do, and they
will soon know that I do so, even if they do not know yet. I may stay
with you, because I am a prisoner like you, and condemned like you. We
can live, because we have to die--together."
Eustace, you folded me in your arms and I felt you sob. But I loosened
your hands and kissed them one by one, and said, "Nay, Eustace, why
should you grieve? Do we not love each other? Are we not together,
quite together, and together for always?"
We are standing by the big window in my room, and as we clasped one
another, our eyes, following each other's, rested on the sea above the
tree tops. It was a silvery band under a misty silver sunset; very sweet
and solemn. Our souls, methought, were sailing in its endless
peacefulness. For the first time, I was aware of what love is; I seemed
to understand what poetry is about and what music means; death, which
hung over us, was shrunk to its true paltriness, and the eternity of
life somehow revealed all in one moment. I have known happiness. I thank
God, and beloved, I thank thee also.
IV
Here ends the diary kept half a century ago by the woman of twenty-two,
who was once myself. Those of whom it treats, my mother, my husband,
poor faithful Davies and the wretched villains of St. Salvat's, have
long since ceased to live, and those for whose benefit I gather together
these memories--my sons and daughters, were not yet born at the time
this diary deals with.
In order to complete my story I can, therefore, seek only in my own
solitary memory; and, standing all alone, look into that far away past
which only my own eyes and heart are left to descry.
* * * * *
After the scene with which my diary closes, and when we could compare
all that each of us knew of our strange situation, it appeared to my
husband and me that we had everything to gain, and at all events nothing
to lose (since we knew our lives in jeopardy) by a desperate attempt to
escape from what was virtually our prison. Eustace had summed up our
position when he had said that we were hostages in the hands of the
uncles. For these villains, unconscious of any bonds of family honour,
made sure that our escape would infallibly bring about the exposure of
their infamous practices.
It appears that after the murder of my brother-in-law, whom the most
violent of the gang had put to death on a mere threat of betrayal, the
uncles had taken for granted that Eustace would accept some manner of
pension as his brother had done, and like him, leave St. Salvat's in
their undisputed possession. And they had been considerably nonplussed
when my husband declared his intention of returning to Wales. The
perception of the blunder they had committed in getting rid of my
brother-in-law, made them follow the guidance of Hubert, who had opposed
the murder of Sir Thomas, if not from humanity, at all events from
prudence. It was Hubert's view that since Eustace refused to stay away,
no difficulties should be put in the way of his coming, but on the
contrary, that he be taken, so to speak, in a trap, and once at St.
Salvat's, persuaded or compelled into becoming a passive, if not an
active, accomplice. Hubert had therefore written so pressingly about the
need of putting the property to rights, of making a new start at St.
Salvat's, and of therefore bringing me and settling at once in the
place, that Eustace had judged the rumours concerning the real trade of
his kinsmen, and his own childish suspicions, to have been mere
exaggeration, and imagined that the uncles, brought to order by so
superior a man as Hubert, were perhaps even willing to abandon the
dangerous business of smuggling which had been carried on almost
avowedly during the lifetime of his father. Such was the trap laid by
Hubert; and Eustace, partly from guilelessness and partly from a sense
of duty to St. Salvat's, walked straight in, carrying me with him as an
additional pledge to evil fortune. He was scarcely in, when the door,
like the drawbridge which had risen after our entry into that frightful
place, closed and showed him he was a prisoner. It was Hubert's plan to
make use of our presence (which, moreover, put an end to his own
isolation among those besotted villains) in order to remove whatever
suspicions might exist in the outside world. The presence of a studious
and gentlemanly owner, of a young wife and possible children, was to
make people believe that a new leaf had been turned over at St.
Salvat's, and that the old former pages of its history were not so
shocking as evil reports had had it. So, during the first weeks after
our arrival, and while the brothers were being coerced into an attempt
at decent behaviour, Eustace was being importuned with every kind of
plan which should draw him into further complicity, and compromise him
along with the rest of the band. Hubert, being a clergyman, had since
his elder brother's death, also been the chief magistrate of the
district; and, shocking to relate, this wrecker and murderer had sat in
judgment on poachers and footpads. Having made use of this position to
silence any inclination to blab about St. Salvat's, he was apprehensive
of this scandal getting to headquarters, and therefore desirous of
putting in his place a man as clear of suspicion and as obviously just
as Eustace, yet whom he imagined he could always coerce in all vital
matters. But Eustace saw through this fine scheme at once, and
resolutely refused to become a magistrate in Hubert's place. This was
the first hint Hubert received that it was useless to seek an accomplice
in his nephew; and this recognition speedily grew into a fear lest
Eustace might become a positive danger, particularly if he ever learned
for certain that Sir Thomas had not been murdered at Bristol, but at St.
Salvat's. The situation was made more critical by the fact that on
discovering what manner of place the castle really was, Eustace had
declared with perfect simplicity, his intention of taking me back to my
mother. It was then he had learned in as many words, that both he and I
were prisoners, and that he, at all events, would never leave St.
Salvat's alive. Thus the terrible months had been spent in gauging the
depth of his miserable situation, in making and unmaking plans for my
escape, for sending me away without letting me guess the real reason,
all of which had been frustrated by my miscarriage and the long illness
following upon it. And meanwhile, Eustace had had to endure the constant
company of his gaoler Hubert, the wretch's occasional attempts to
compromise him in the doings of the gang; and what was horridest of all,
Hubert's very sincere pleasure in our presence and conversation, and his
ceaseless attempts to strike up some kind of friendship.
Now, the discovery that I was aware of the frightful mysteries of the
place, had entirely altered our position: first, because it was probable
that the uncles now considered me as much of a danger as my husband, and
therefore as an equally indispensable hostage; and secondly, because it
was evident that I could no longer be induced to leave St. Salvat's by
myself. Our only remaining hope was flight. But how elude the vigilance
of our gaolers and overcome the obstacles they had built up around us?
Day after day, and night after night, Eustace and I went over and over
our possibilities; but they seemed to diminish, and difficulties to
increase, the more we discussed them. The house and grounds were
guarded, and our actions spied upon. We were cut off from the outer
world, for we had long since understood that our letters, even when
despatched, were intercepted and read by Hubert. But the worst
difficulty almost was the lack of money. For some months past, Hubert
had taken to doling it out only in trifling sums and on our asking for
it, and he supplied our needs and even fancies with such lavishness,
forestalling them in many instances, that a request for any considerable
sum would have been tantamount to an intimation of our intended flight.
Such were the external obstacles; I found, moreover, that there were
other ones in the character and circumstances of my poor fellow
prisoner. My husband's natural incapacity for planning active measures
and taking sudden decisions, was not at all diminished, but the reverse,
by his fear for my safety. And his indecision was aggravated by all
manner of scruples; for he considered it cowardly to leave St. Salvat's
in the undisputed possession of the villains who usurped it; and he
wavered between a wish to punish the murder of his brother and that
prejudice (which I had rightly divined) against exposing his kinsmen and
his dead father to public infamy, however well earned by them.