LET SILENCE BE ABOUT HER NAME.
BELLA was dying. The doctors had pronounced their verdict. The spine
had been fatally injured. A few hours of life--hours in which there
would be happily little or no suffering--alone remained to Mr. Piper’s
second wife. Very brief had been the story of his courtship and
marriage.
He had sent off a groom to Great Yafford on one of the carriage horses
to summon the most famous surgeon in the town, but Dr. Milroyd, who was
a physician of some standing, and the humble Mr. Namby, who was not
without experience in surgery, assured Mr. Piper that the whole college
of surgeons would be powerless to prolong Bella’s life for an hour
beyond the natural running out of the sand in a glass that had been
turned for the last time.
‘You can go and sit by her if you like,’ said Mr. Namby, kindly. ‘It
can do no harm. She would like you to be there, I dare say, poor
thing. And don’t you think her family ought to be sent for?’
‘Yes,’ answered Mr. Piper. ‘I dare say she’d like to see them.’
They were standing in the corridor outside Bella’s room. That strange
tranquillity of Mr. Piper’s impressed the doctors. They ascribed it to
the intensity of his grief. He was stunned, no doubt, poor fellow, by
the sudden calamity.
Ebenezer Piper went into the apple-green bedroom where his wife was
lying, the wife who was so soon to drift away from him down that dark
stream which led he knew not whither. The certainty of impending death
made her sacred. She was beyond punishment or upbraiding. One could
scarcely say hard things to the vilest criminal, when his hour of doom
was fixed and the rope round his neck. The final irrevocable sentence
stultifies all lesser penalties.
Bella was lying with her face turned away from the light, her lovely
auburn hair rippling over the pillows--that hair whose luxuriance
had been one of her charms. One little hand lay inert upon the satin
coverlet. How pretty she was! The sense of her beauty struck her
husband with actual pain. So lovely, so innocent-looking, and so false!
‘If she had lived I would have never seen her face again,’ he thought,
‘but now it doesn’t matter.’
He sat down in the arm-chair by her bed, and waited for her to speak.
For himself there was nothing that he could say to her. There was an
aching pity for her untimely fate in his heart, coexistent with his
burning indignation at her treachery. The fact that she was speedily
to die might touch him with compassion, but it could not lessen the
baseness of her ingratitude or make her falsehood pardonable.
She moved her head restlessly on the pillow, and gave a sigh of
weariness.
‘Who’s that?’ she asked.
‘Your husband,’ Mr. Piper answered, quietly.
‘Can you forgive me for hunting without your permission?’ she said in a
low voice. How often had that dulcet voice charmed her husband! ‘It was
very wrong, very foolish, but you see I have to pay a big price for it.’
‘Is there nothing else you have to ask forgiveness for?’ he inquired,
bitterly. ‘You had better make a clean slate while you are about it. Is
there nothing else you are sorry for--on your deathbed?’
There was a pause. Almost unawares the husband took one of those long
silken tresses and twined it round his fingers, the bright soft hair he
had loved so well.
‘Perhaps I have not been grateful enough for all your kindness,’
faltered Bella. ‘You have been very good to me--very generous. Yes, I
ought to have been more grateful.’
‘Do you really think so?’ asked Mr. Piper, with keenest bitterness.
‘Can you really find a speck or flaw in your conduct? Don’t you think
you have been a perfect wife?’
Bella began to cry.
‘I am sure I have tried to do my duty,’ she said. ‘I have tried to make
your home pleasant to you--and to improve your position in society.’
‘Yes,’ answered the husband, with an uncontrollable gust of passion.
‘You have made me acquainted with Captain Standish.’
Bella’s quiet weeping changed to hysterical sobbing. Her whole frame
was shaken.
‘Yes,’ pursued Mr. Piper. ‘You have tried very hard to improve my
position in society. You have held me up to scorn and ridicule. You
have made me the laughing stock of my old friends, as the fond deluded
husband--the middle-aged dupe of a pair of blue eyes and a rosebud
mouth. While my first wife lived I was a respectable man. You have made
me--what? A door-mat for Captain Standish.’
‘I have done nothing really wicked,’ pleaded Bella. ‘I have been
foolish, perhaps. I have let him pay me compliments--and--and--that
kind of thing. But I have not broken one of the commandments. I could
kneel in church and hear them read without feeling myself a castaway.’
‘Don’t cry,’ said Mr. Piper. ‘There’s no use in talking about it. I
have read Captain Standish’s letters to you.’
‘You have broken open my desk,’ cried Bella, in sudden alarm.
‘Yes, I have seen his presents, and read his letters, and I can guess
what he thought of you when he wrote them, and what he meant to be the
end of your acquaintance.’
‘He asked me to run away with him, and I refused,’ protested Bella.
‘That was the first time,’ said Mr. Piper, coolly. ‘You refused me the
first time, you know. The captain meant to ask again, you may be sure.’
‘I have been selfish and ungrateful,’ sobbed Bella.
‘God made you so, I think,’ answered Mr. Piper, excusingly. ‘I believe
it’s in the grain. Don’t cry, poor thing. If you had lived there must
have been a bitter reckoning between you and me--but death squares
everything. If God can forgive you, I must not stand out. He’s the
largest creditor.’
He took the little cold hand lying loose upon the coverlet, and pressed
it gently. It was not in his nature to be unmerciful. And then she was
passing away from him--she was drifting out of his jurisdiction. There
was that awe upon him which the hardest must feel in the presence of
death. At that friendly pressure Bella gave a sob of relief.
‘Oh, if you can only forgive me, I think I can die in peace,’ she
said. ‘It seems hard to die--so young--and just as life was so bright.
But I have been very wicked--to others as well as you. There is some
one to whom I must make atonement. Send for Mr. Culverhouse.’
‘Wouldn’t you rather see Mr. Dulcimer?’ asked Mr. Piper, thinking that
the Vicar ought to be a more powerful friend at this crisis.
‘No, no, Mr. Culverhouse. I cannot die in peace till I have seen him.’
‘He shall be sent for this minute, Bella. Don’t agitate yourself.’
Mr. Piper went out of the room and gave his orders, and then came back
and seated himself quietly by the bed, and kept silence. It was not
quite two years since he had sat by poor Moggie’s death-bed, and heard
her talk of heaven, and how they two were to meet there and know each
other again, and have all their children join them one by one in due
time, like an affectionate Irish family whose elders had emigrated to
America. To Moggie’s simple soul death had seemed verily emigration.
It was night when Cyril Culverhouse answered Mr. Piper’s summons. He
had been for one of his long rounds in outlying districts, and only
came home at ten o’clock, to hear of the calamity at the Park. To Bella
those hours of waiting had seemed endless.
‘If I die without seeing him, I am a lost creature,’ she said.
‘But, Bella, if there’s any weight upon your conscience, can’t you
trust your husband?’ asked Mr. Piper. ‘Surely there’s no one with a
better right to know.’
‘It’s nothing that concerns you,’ answered Bella, impatiently. ‘You
have found out the worst about me. This is a deeper wrong. This is
something wicked that I did when I was a girl. It didn’t seem much to
do, but it has weighed upon me ever since.’
Mr. Piper wondered at this confession. He had never seen any indication
of a troubled conscience in his wife’s manner or conduct.
Presently Mr. Culverhouse was announced. Mr. Piper went out into the
corridor to receive him.
‘My wife is uneasy in her mind about something,’ he said. ‘I dare say
she’d like to see you alone. Don’t be hard upon her, Mr. Culverhouse,
if she has done anything wrong. She has only a few hours to live. She
has thrown her foolish young life away to gratify the whim of the
moment.’
‘Hard upon her!’ exclaimed Cyril. ‘You need not fear.’
Cyril went alone into the apple-green bedroom. Mr. Piper walked up and
down the corridor, waiting for the interview to be over. He was passing
Miss Porkman’s door when Vanessa put her head out.
‘Oh, Mr. Piper, mayn’t I go to her?’ she asked. ‘The doctors have told
me that they can’t save her. I feel so miserable. I feel as if it were
my fault.’
‘It’s everybody’s fault,’ said Mr. Piper. ‘We’ve all been fools. I
indulged her like a fool, and she made a foolish use of my indulgence.
See what it has led to--a life thrown away.’
‘It’s too dreadful,’ said Vanessa, who had never before been face to
face with the tragedy of life.
‘How did it happen?’ asked Mr. Piper. ‘You were with her, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, I saw it all. She had set her heart upon hunting, you know.
And Captain Standish said the horse was a splendid hunter--and so he
seemed, poor foolish thing, till he took that fatal jump. We went to
the meet, and then when the hounds went off we followed them with the
rest. It was lovely, the thing I had been longing for ever since I
began to ride. For the first hour or so it was the easiest thing in
the world--riding a little, and waiting about a good deal; and then
they found the fox, and there was a rush, and we started at a splendid
pace, Bella and I side by side, and Captain Standish close to us.
She rode beautifully, and the horse behaved beautifully. The captain
praised her for her pluck. She jumped three or four low hedges--and a
ditch or two--and did it as easily as if she had been hunting all her
life--and then we came to a stretch of open country, and the horses
flew. We were among the first all through, and Bella was in raptures
with her horse--and then--and then--the rest seems like a dreadful
dream--all dimness and confusion--we came into a big ploughed field
with a bullfinch at the end. “There’s a gap,” cried somebody, and I
was just riding off with some of the others towards a corner of the
field, when Captain Standish called to Bella very loud, “Don’t try it,”
and in the next minute I saw the black lift himself up for the jump
beautifully--and then his hind feet caught in the top of the quickset
hedge, and he rolled over into the next field with Bella under him. It
was all done more quickly than I can tell it.’
There was a long pause, and then Mr. Piper gave a shuddering sigh.
‘Did you know she was following the hounds without her husband’s
knowledge or consent?’ he asked.
‘I’m afraid I did,’ answered Miss Porkman, with a contrite air. ‘But
I did not think any harm would come of it. She rode so well, and the
horse was a clever hunter. Captain Standish tried him two or three
times. It was poor Bella’s inexperience; she went straight at that tall
thick quickset hedge--an awful thing--like a wall.’
‘I don’t think it will be a particularly pleasant recollection for you
to carry about with you during the rest of your life, Miss Porkman,’
said Mr. Piper.
‘Oh, Mr. Piper, surely you can’t blame me,’ remonstrated Vanessa,
tearfully.
‘I do blame you for aiding and abetting my wife in disobedience,’ Mr.
Piper answered, severely.
While this conversation was taking place in the corridor, Cyril
Culverhouse sat in Mr. Piper’s chair by Bella’s pillow, and waited for
the departing sinner’s confession, ready with words of comfort and
exhortation.
‘I have been dreadfully wicked,’ she began, falteringly, ‘but it was
all Mrs. Dulcimer’s fault.’
‘Mrs. Dulcimer! How could Mrs. Dulcimer cause you to do wrong?’
‘She put a foolish idea into my head, and it took root there, and
poisoned my life. She told me that--I hate myself when I think how
easily I was duped--that you cared for me.’
‘Hush!’ said Cyril, gently. ‘Why talk of that now? It was foolish of
Mrs. Dulcimer. She has made a good many mistakes of that kind--out of
kindness. But the error did not last long. I told her frankly that my
heart had been given elsewhere--that you could never be more to me than
a friend whose amiability and sweetness I admired. Why recall that? You
have been happily married to a good man. He deserves all your pity in
this dark hour--your affectionate consideration. And you have to think
of God. You may have offended Him in many things. Give the short hours
He has left you to prayer and meditation.’
‘I must recall that wretched mistake,’ said Bella, feverishly. ‘I tell
you it was that which made me wicked. I have been very wicked. I have
injured my kindest friend.’
‘What friend?’ asked Cyril, very pale.
‘Beatrix Harefield!’
‘You have injured her?’
‘Yes. Do you see a jewel-case on the dressing-table over there--a large
morocco case? Take my keys from under my pillow. I have no power to
move myself--but I made the doctor put my keys under my pillow. It is
the smallest key of all,’ she went on, when Cyril obeyed her. ‘Now open
the jewel-case, and press the little gilt knob at the right side of the
tray. That opens a drawer, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, the drawer has come out. There is a letter in it,’ said Cyril.
‘Take that letter. I found it on the table in Mr. Harefield’s library
the morning after his death. It is addressed to his daughter.’
‘And you have kept it ever since? This letter--left for his daughter to
read after his death. You are indeed a wicked woman.’
‘I did not think how wicked it was at the time,’ faltered Bella. ‘But
some devil prompted me to take it, and hide it--till--till I should
feel inclined to give it up. And then--oh, why do you make me tell you
all my wickedness? I knew that you loved her, and I thought--if--if
people believed her guilty of her father’s death, you would not marry
her. That awful suspicion would part you. The letter might have put an
end to the suspicion, perhaps. I did not know what was in the letter.
I never broke the seal, you see. Yes, I was steeped in wickedness when
I did it. I would have sold my soul to Satan to part you and Beatrix.
Do you think God will forgive me?’
‘God’s mercy is infinite, and forgives even treachery,’ answered Cyril,
coldly. He was standing by the dressing-table, holding Christian
Harefield’s letter in his hand. ‘But it is a sin that man finds it hard
to forgive. What you did was a vile and cruel act. I cannot palter
with the truth because your hours are numbered. That is the reason why
I should speak all the more plainly. If I were a stranger to Beatrix
Harefield, I should look upon your conduct with horror--but I--I--who
loved and wronged her--wronged her by a suspicion which this letter
might have set at rest for ever--how can I think of your conduct
calmly? How can you expect pardon or pity from me?’
‘I don’t expect either,’ whimpered Bella. ‘I’m glad I am going to die.
I have made a wretched use of my life. I am almost glad it is over. And
yet it seems hard to die before one is five-and-twenty.’
Her hand, straying idly in its feverish unrest, entangled itself in a
tress of auburn hair.
‘Isn’t it bright and long?’ she said, with a bitter little laugh. ‘With
most women beauty dies first. They die piecemeal, a little bit at a
time, till there is no trace left of the girl people used to admire.
That must be dreadful. To look in the glass some morning, and see the
change all at once, and cry, “Can this really be I?” I am glad I have
escaped that.’
Cyril stood with the letter in his hand, silent.
‘Why don’t you open that letter?’ asked Bella. ‘It will solve the
mystery, no doubt.’
‘Whether it can or no, I shall not break the seal,’ answered Cyril. ‘It
shall be my business to put this letter into Beatrix Harefield’s hand.’
‘And you will tell her how wicked I was, and how I hated her from the
moment I knew she had stolen your love.’
‘Her excellence commanded my love. She did not steal it. My heart never
belonged to any other.’
‘Why do you quarrel with a poor dying creature about words? To me it
seemed that she stole your heart. She came between me and the only man
I ever loved. How could I help hating her?’
‘Why will you think and talk of these things?’ pleaded Cyril, going
back to his seat by the bedside, determined, if it were possible, to
bring this frivolous soul to the contemplation of eternity. She was so
soon to be adrift on the wide ocean, and yet lingered so idly to trifle
with the shells upon the shore.
‘Remember all your past life only as a dream that you have dreamt, a
vision darkened by sin and folly. You were guilty of a great sin when
you stole that letter, for you must have known that you were injuring
a fellow-creature. You took the letter deliberately, to that end. But
the motives that prompted you to that act are of little moment now.
Think of it only as a sin to be repented of, with deep and heartfelt
contrition.’
Then he spoke to her in his sacred character, and would not again
suffer her mind to wander back to earthly things. He was with her,
reading to her, talking to her, praying with her, for a long time, and
he left her at last with a mind that was at peace with God and man.
‘You will see Beatrix,’ she said at the last. ‘Tell her that I was very
fond of her--once. That the old love comes back now that I am dying.
Tell her that it is sweet to me now to think of her being reunited to
you. Ask her to forgive me--if she can.’
Cyril promised to come again early the next morning. She should have
her husband and her family gathered round her bed, in that last sad
communion, where the prayers of the living and the dying mingle in a
solemn farewell.
But when Cyril came next morning, shortly after dawn, with Mr. and Mrs.
Scratchell, and Bella’s eldest brother and sister, they were met on the
threshold of the house by Mr. Piper, who told them all was over. She
had died very peacefully, in the chilly hour just before daybreak, with
her hand clasped in his.
‘Poor little woman!’ sighed the tender-hearted Piper. ‘She spoke to me
so sweetly just at the last.’
And Mr. Piper forgave even the treachery of an intrigue carried on
before his face. Had his wife lived, pardon would have seemed to him
almost impossible; but anger died in his heart as he stood beside the
fair marble figure, and looked at the flower-like lips that could never
speak falsehood any more.
He made Captain Standish’s worthless letters and valuable gifts into a
parcel, and had it delivered at that gentleman’s quarters. The servant
who carried it heard incidentally that the captain had had a bad fall
from his horse on the Great Yafford road on the evening after Mrs.
Piper’s fatal accident, and had gone home to be nursed.
This report caused Mr. Piper to smile, for the first time since his
discovery of his wife’s falsehood.
‘I believe I’ve put a mark upon him that he won’t get rid of very
quickly, even with her ladyship’s sick nursing,’ he said to himself.
This was true. The broken head which the captain had got that evening
in the portico left a scar that was not likely to be cured, let him
live as long as he might. But for once in his life Captain Standish
felt himself constrained to take his punishment quietly. He had no
redress against the man whose wife’s loyalty he had perverted, and whom
his folly had widowed.