REMORSE
Andrew argued with himself as he walked homeward. No one could suspect
him. No one? Wait! There was one. What about Thomas? Thomas was not a
man to be trusted. At any moment he might find it to his own interests
to tell what he knew. Andrew began to be afraid. “I was a fool,” he
said, “after all. I must escape, escape at once; I will not go home.”
He was not very clear in what direction to go. His original home was
near Carlisle, but for that reason he avoided it. He would go south, he
would make his way over the hills to Brough and Kirkby Stephen and then
strike for Lancaster.
He had plenty of money and was able to secure horses at Brough so that
he actually got as far as Lancaster the next night. Here he thought he
might escape notice and right thankful was he to get to his bed.
But he could not sleep. He was overtired and turned restlessly from
side to side, now drawing up his feet, now stretching them out. As he
lay there the thought of the black, glistening, silent moat returned
to him. “Meddlesome brat,” he muttered to himself, “you got what you
deserved.” The thought, however, would not depart but kept returning to
him, and his imagination would dwell upon something dark floating on
the surface of the water. “The fiends of hell get hold of thee,” he
uttered aloud in a hoarse whisper, sitting up in bed.
As he sat up he heard a noise as of some one at his door. “Could any
one be listening?” He rose softly and listened himself on the inner
side. No, there was surely nothing. He cautiously opened the door and
peered out into the shadowy passage. As he did so the door was drawn
sharply from his hand and closed. For a moment he dared not move, but
stood trembling, waiting, expectant. He heard a distant horse on the
cobble stones, then absolute silence save the low wailing whistle of a
gust of wind. It seemed to bring back Aline’s little white terrified
face as she tried to cry out when he held her in his grip with his
hand over her mouth. The cold sweat broke out on his forehead and then
suddenly the tension relaxed,--“The wind, the wind; it was the wind
that had blown the door out of his hand.”
He shivered and got back into bed. Again he heard horses’ hoofs; this
time they came nearer and nearer, they were surely coming to the inn.
Yes, they had stood still at the door. He leaped up and frantically
slipped on his clothes, while they were knocking for admission. Should
he try and escape down the stairs or through the window, down into the
yard of the hostel? He went to the other window and peeped out. It
was a man and a woman,--probably an eloping couple! He laughed a thin
mirthless laugh and once more got back into bed.
This time he slept and dreamed that he was looking out of the window
into the hostel yard. Gradually it filled with dark water nearly level
with the sill. Then he saw something on the other side, floating on
the surface. It seemed to be coming his way. Slowly it rose;--it
was Aline, her arms hanging limply from the shoulders and the head
falling over to one side, with the mouth open and a great gash above
the forehead. It came nearer still. He tried to get away from the
window, but something held him. He strove and struggled in vain. “Oh,
that terrible mouth, that blood in the long wet hair.” Then the figure
lifted a hand and pointed at him. In another moment she would touch
him. “Maria! God!” he shrieked, but slowly it came closer and closer.
He shut his eyes; there was a great shock and he woke. He was lying on
the floor with his heart beating violently and a pain in the back of
his head.
He did not dare to go back to bed this time; to sleep was worse than to
be awake. He sat down on the bed and held his throbbing brow between
his hands while his elbows rested on his knees; but gradually fatigue
overcame him and he fell asleep again. This time he found himself
standing among a crowd of other persons with lanthorns by the side
of the moat at Holwick. A little figure was being drawn up from the
water. He saw it carried in over the drawbridge, where the old arms of
the Mowbrays looked down,--argent, a cross engrailed azure;[11] but he
dared not follow. He seemed to stand there waiting for days and days.
“Would no one ever come out?” Then the funeral cortège appeared from
under the same gateway. He followed with the crowd, no one seemed to
see him, and there, in the ancient churchyard of Middleton, he saw the
little coffin lowered into the ground.
[11] I.e., the field of the shield silver or white, the cross blue
with an irregular border.
When every one had gone he still stood by the grave, dazed and
wondering. He was just about to leave, when a child’s figure in the
crowd turned back. It was Audry. She came slowly up to him and looked
from him to the grave and from the grave to him. Her face was filled
with unutterable reproach. “You,” she said, and lifted her finger at
him and was gone.
He tried to run after her, but it was like running in heavy clay; his
feet were as lead and he seemed to slip back a pace for every step he
took forward. Finally he abandoned the attempt and, putting his hands
over his face, he wept bitterly.
He was still weeping when he woke. “Holy Mother,” he cried, “why did
I do it?” The thought of the frail child bravely withstanding him in
the courtyard of Holwick came back to him,--“little St. Aline,” as the
villagers called her. Oh! how could he have done such a deed? “I am
lost, damned, and nothing I may do can ever bring her back. Cain! Cain!
unclean, branded and accurst!”
It was morning now, should he go back and give himself up? Give himself
up and be hanged! Surely it were better to slay himself with his own
hands than do that! But the love of life is strong. Though he were
dead, she would not come to life again; the only thing that seemed to
offer any interest or hope was that some day he might be able to serve
little Mistress Audry, Aline’s playmate, Aline’s friend, all that was
left to represent the sweet child.
So he rose and ate a few mouthfuls, by way of breakfast, and mounted
his horse, intending to make his way to London. But the agony of his
remorse would hardly allow him to sit his steed and, as he looked at
the bright sunshine, he shuddered and cursed it in his heart.