The Hour
Lightly they stepped over the snow that lay upon the broad steps, and
entering the door saw the dim figure of their sister, already in the
large and faintly-lighted hall. One candle in the hand of her scared
maid, and one burning on the table, leaving the distant parts of that
great apartment in total darkness, touched the figures with the odd
sharp lights in which Schalken delights; and a streak of chilly
moonlight, through the open door, fell upon the floor, and was stretched
like a white sheet at her feet. Lady Mardykes, with an exclamation of
agitated relief, threw her arms, in turn, round the necks of her
sisters, and hugging them, kissed them again and again, murmuring her
thanks, calling them her "blessed sisters," and praising God for his
mercy in having sent them to her in time, and altogether in a rapture of
agitation and gratitude.
Taking them each by a hand, she led them into a large room, on whose
panels they could see the faint twinkle of the tall gilded frames, and
the darker indication of the old portraits, in which that interesting
house abounds. The moonbeams, entering obliquely through the Tudor
stone-shafts of the window and thrown upon the floor, reflected an
imperfect light; and the candle which the maid who followed her mistress
held in her hand shone dimly from the sideboard, where she placed it.
Lady Mardykes told her that she need not wait.
"They don't know; they know only that we are in some great confusion;
but--God have mercy on me!--nothing of the reality. Sit down, darlings;
you are tired."
She sat down between them on a sofa, holding a hand of each. They sat
opposite the window, through which appeared the magnificent view
commanded from the front of the house: in the foreground the solemn
trees of Snakes Island, one great branch stretching upward, bare and
moveless, from the side, like an arm raised to heaven in wonder or in
menace towards the house; the lake, in part swept by the icy splendour
of the moon, trembling with a dazzling glimmer, and farther off lost in
blackness; the Fells rising from a base of gloom, into ribs and peaks
white with snow, and looking against the pale sky, thin and transparent
as a haze. Right across to the storied woods of Cloostedd, and the old
domains of the Feltrams, this view extended.
Thus alone, their mufflers still on, their hands clasped in hers, they
breathlessly listened to her strange tale.
Connectedly told it amounted to this: Sir Bale seemed to have been
relieved of some great anxiety about the time when, ten days before, he
had told her to invite her friends to Mardykes Hall. This morning he had
gone out for a walk with Trevor, his under-steward, to talk over some
plans about thinning the woods at this side; and also to discuss
practically a proposal, lately made by a wealthy merchant, to take a
very long lease, on advantageous terms to Sir Bale as he thought, of the
old park and chase of Cloostedd, with the intention of building there,
and making it once more a handsome residence.
In the improved state of his spirits, Sir Bale had taken a shrewd
interest in this negotiation; and was actually persuaded to cross the
lake that morning with his adviser, and to walk over the grounds with
him.
Sir Bale had seemed unusually well, and talked with great animation. He
was more like a young man who had just attained his majority, and for
the first time grasped his estates, than the grim elderly Baronet who
had been moping about Mardykes, and as much afraid as a cat of the
water, for so many years.
As they were returning toward the boat, at the roots of that same
scathed elm whose barkless bough had seemed, in his former visit to this
old wood, to beckon him from a distance, like a skeleton arm, to enter
the forest, he and his companion on a sudden missed an old map of the
grounds which they had been consulting.
"We must have left it in the corner tower of Cloostedd House, which
commands that view of the grounds, you remember; it would not do to lose
it. It is the most accurate thing we have. I'll sit down here and rest a
little till you come back."
The man was absent little more than twenty minutes. When he returned, he
found that Sir Bale had changed his position, and was now walking to and
fro, around and about, in what, at a distance, he fancied was mere
impatience, on the open space a couple of hundred paces nearer to the
turn in the valley towards the boat. It was not impatience. He was
agitated. He looked pale, and he took his companion's arm--a thing he
had never thought of doing before--and said, "Let us away quickly. I've
something to tell at home,--and I forgot it."
Not another word did Sir Bale exchange with his companion. He sat in the
stern of the boat, gloomy as a man about to glide under traitor's-gate.
He entered his house in the same sombre and agitated state. He entered
his library, and sat for a long time as if stunned.
At last he seemed to have made-up his mind to something; and applied
himself quietly and diligently to arranging papers, and docketing some
and burning others. Dinner-time arrived. He sent to tell Lady Mardykes
that he should not join her at dinner, but would see her afterwards.
"It was between eight and nine," she continued, "I forget the exact
time, when he came to the tower drawing-room where I was. I did not hear
his approach. There is a stone stair, with a thick carpet on it. He told
me he wished to speak to me there. It is an out-of-the-way place--a
small old room with very thick walls, and there is a double door, the
inner one of oak--I suppose he wished to guard against being overheard.
"There was a look in his face that frightened me; I saw he had something
dreadful to tell. He looked like a man on whom a lot had fallen to put
some one to death," said Lady Mardykes. "O, my poor Bale! my husband, my
husband! he knew what it would be to me."
Here she broke into the wildest weeping, and it was some time before she
resumed.
"He seemed very kind and very calm," she said at last; "he said but
little; and, I think, these were his words: 'I find, Janet, I have made
a great miscalculation--I thought my hour of danger had passed. We have
been many years together, but a parting must sooner or later be, and my
time has come.'
"I don't know what I said. I would not have so much minded--for I could
not have believed, if I had not seen him--but there was that in his look
and tone which no one could doubt.
"'I shall die before to-morrow morning,' he said. 'You must command
yourself, Janet; it can't be altered now.'
"'O, Bale,' I cried nearly distracted, 'you would not kill yourself!'
"'Kill myself! poor child! no, indeed,' he said; 'it is simply that I
shall die. No violent death--nothing but the common subsidence of
life--I have made up my mind; what happens to everybody can't be so very
bad; and millions of worse men than I die every year. You must not
follow me to my room, darling; I shall see you by and by.'
"His language was collected and even cold; but his face looked as if it
was cut in stone; you never saw, in a dream, a face like it."
Lady Walsingham here said, "I am certain he is ill; he's in a fever. You
must not distract and torture yourself about his predictions. You sent
for Doctor Torvey; what did he say?"
"I could not tell him all."
"O, no; I don't mean that; they'd only say he was mad, and we little
better for minding what he says. But did the Doctor see him? and what
did he say of his health?"
"Yes; he says there is nothing wrong--no fever--nothing whatever. Poor
Bale has been so kind; he saw him to please me," she sobbed again
wildly. "I wrote to implore of him. It was my last hope, strange as it
seems; and O, would to God I could think it! But there is nothing of
that kind. Wait till you have seen him. There is a frightful calmness
about all he says and does; and his directions are all so clear, and his
mind so perfectly collected, it is quite impossible."
And poor Lady Mardykes again burst into a frantic agony of tears.