_AN UNEXPECTED DISCLOSURE._
“Art thou Sir John Redfyrne?” enquired a man, who by his dress appeared
to be a parochial or parish priest, as that worthy knight left
Rougemont.
“I am, what dost thou seek of me? I have little to do with cattle of
thy breed.”
“An aged woman,” replied the priest, not noticing the taunt, “is dying
in a suburb of the city, and cannot pass in peace till she hath seen
thee.”
“What does it matter to me whether the old crone dies in peace or not?”
“Verily thou art a hard-hearted man, but wilt thou look upon this
signet?--she had confidence in its power to bring thee to her bed-side.”
It was only his own crest upon a sapphire that he gazed upon, yet his
heart gave a leap, and in spite of his self-command his blood flushed
up, his face was crimson, and he evidently had to strive hard for
mastery over himself.
“Sir priest,” he said, “I am not well, and am subject to spasms of the
heart, which will account for my seeming discomposure; lead me to her,
I recognise the token.”
The priest led on, and Sir John followed. Traversing Fore Street they
approached the West Gate, which opened upon the bridge over the Exe.
But here the priest turned to the left down a steep descent, into the
purlieus of St. Mary of the Steppes.[40]
The district was crowded then, as now, by the habitations of the lower
classes, and was probably even more unsavoury than it is at present,
for there was no drainage save that effected by the showers, which
flushed the gutters.
Such a shower had even now fallen when the priest entered a court
between ricketty houses, once of some pretensions, but now tottering in
ruin; it was crowded with squalid children, stopping up the gutters as
they carried down the filth and refuse, and sailing little boats, or
making mud pies.
Amidst rags and wretchedness, the worthy guide led on; he was amidst
his own flock; they were not a decent set, but they all respected him,
and perhaps without his protection, the gay gentleman would not have
gone on his way so unmolested.
“Where art thou taking me to? I knew not such dens existed,” said the
knight.
“There are many worse; known perhaps only to the physician and the
priest, now that ye have suppressed the sisterhoods; least of all to
the constables, who dare not come hither save in troops; here the
plague lies hidden in the winter, to burst out again each summer; here
want, crime, disease, and vice fester together; here the fruit for the
gallows is nourished; these be the orchards of the Father of Evil,
where he grows of his own will many such apples as tempted Eve.”
“And is _she_ here?” He did not mean Eve.
“Even so.”
“What brought her so low? she has long hidden from me.”
“A guilty secret, perchance.”
Sir John asked no more, and they entered the gateway of a house at the
end of the court, which had once been a fair dwelling, but now the door
hung by one hinge, and the windows were battered out. They entered the
hall; tattered hangings drooped in fragments from the walls, beetles
and spiders had their home amidst the rotten wainscotting, woodlice
swarmed in the bannisters of the ancient staircase, the balustrade was
partly broken away, the stairs were rotten.
“And is _she_ here?” said Sir John again.
“Even so,” was the reply; “tread carefully, the staircase will bear
thee in places only.”
The ceiling, which had been moulded in patterns, had fallen away, and
hideous joists and beams were disclosed as they ascended.
Then they heard a faint moan of pain, and a voice said, “Dying, dying,
left all alone to die; Mother of Mercy, aid a sinful child of Eve.”
“Peace, daughter, I bring him thou seekest.”
The being whom he called “daughter” was an aged crone who had seen some
seventy summers, and was now fast dying of decay; pains in all her
joints, weakness in all her senses, toothless, wrinkled, blear-eyed,
yet with the remains of a beauty long past, in the high outlines of her
features.
Sir John gazed upon her.
“Art thou Madge of Luckland?” he said.
“Thou knowest me by the signet; it has more power to convince thee than
this face; go, good Father Christopher, go,” she said to the priest,
“and when I have said that which must be said to this good knight, ha!
ha! I will finish my shrift to thee.”
“Shall I bid any of the neighbours come to thee when he is gone?”
“He will summon them; I would not be long alone in this haunted house;
there be ghosts I tell thee; there be awful figures with faces that
wither the eyeballs and blanch the hair, which troop about these halls
of the forgotten dead; but it is daylight now, and I fear them not.”
“Madge,” said the priest, “thou wilt soon be as one of those ghosts
thyself: thy poor tabernacle of clay is falling fast into ruins like a
child’s house of cards, which a touch overturns; soon they will carry
thee to the charnel house, and direly will thy poor soul burn in its
purgatory, or haunt, if permitted, these scenes of forgotten crime,
unless thou dost repent and make atonement.”
“Father, I _will_; am I not on the point of doing so? go, leave me with
this good knight: why, he was once my foster son.”
“And has he left thee to _want_, like this? My son, God deal with
thee as thou dost deal justly by her; she has little time yet wherein
thou mayst make amends for the past to one, who, if she speaks truth,
suckled thee at her breast.”
The priest departed, and Sir John sank into a crazy chair by the couch
of the old woman.
A faded coverlet was upon it, whereon was wrought the history of Cain
and Abel; there were four posts supporting a canopy, but one post
drooped, and the whole threatened to come down together.
“Speak, mother, why hast thou sent for me at last? or why didst thou
not send before?”
“I would not have sent for thee now, but if I did not, a damning crime
would stain thy soul and mine; _mine_, because I alone can reveal to
thee its nature; _thine_, because thy sin led the way to it.”
“_My_ sin, woman! gain is righteousness, loss is sin, I know no other
description for either: I believe not as priestlings prate, nor didst
thou once, although, like other unbelievers, we held our tongue for
fear of Mother Church with her discipline of fire and faggot, for if we
had said that we believed not in hell hereafter, she would have created
one for us here.”
“Enough, hadst thou seen what I have seen, thou wouldst know there is
a God and a terrible one, and that the worst flames Churchmen kindle
here for heretics are no more in comparison with those which await the
unforgiven sinner, than painted flames compare with those which wither
up the unbeliever or witch in Smithfield.”
“I came not here to hear a sermon, Madge; what further crime hast thou
to warn me against? I would not commit _useless_ ones.”
“Dost thou remember when thy brother’s widow bare a poor babe, who
never saw its father’s face?”
“I do, as thou knowest, too well; it was a great disappointment to me.”
“And while the mother slept in insensibility, thou didst bid me
stifle the child, and say it was still-born, because thou wast as thy
brother’s heir in possession of the property?”
“Why repeat this idle tale, it is all over and gone? Art thou alone?
art thou sure there is none here?”
“Sure, yes, quite sure; none at least clothed in flesh and blood like
ourselves, but how many unseen beings hover around us I know not.”
Sir John could not help trembling, there was such a ghastly realism in
her words, and the fast decaying light made him long to leave the place.
“Well, thou didst it for love of thy foster son, and thou hast been
fool enough to confess it to this meddling priest?”
“Not yet, I waited to see thee first, and tell thee what I _really_
did.”
“_Really_ did? didst thou not murder the babe?”
“Nay, I substituted a beggar’s dead brat from a gipsy camp, hard by,
for thy brother’s heir, and showed thee its body, and thou didst
blanch, but yet nerve thy coward soul to say ‘well done;’ meanwhile I
hid the young heir, and when thou wert gone to court I restored the
babe to the mother, bidding her flee the castle with it ere thou didst
return.”
“Can this be true? How wilt thou prove it now?”
“Listen; a month later, when the poor dame was well again, came a
letter to bid us prepare for that return; I did not dare to let thee
find the child alive, and bade the mother flee. It was the third day
after Christmas, the Holy Innocents’ day: to whose intercession she
commended her babe.”
“And she fled?”
“All alone she sought the sanctuary of S. Joseph at Glastonbury; there
she purposed to remain, dreading thy power, until she could appeal to
justice, for all in the castle, like me, were thy minions; she fled: a
wild night of wind and snow followed, and she died on the road.”
“With the child?” said Sir John.
“No, I learned all about _its_ fate. The child was rescued by a yeoman
named Hodge, and nurtured by the good Abbot of Glastonbury, and if the
priest, Christopher, tells me truth, thou art about to compass his
death now. Oh repent, Sir John, repent while there is yet time, for the
sake of thy soul and mine; for I have sinfully concealed this secret,
dreading thy anger, thine, my foster son, and I have hidden it from
thee: yet my hands are pure from blood, although my guilty complicity
exposed the mother to death in the snow, and the babe to the chances of
the night; although I have aided thee to grasp an inheritance which is
not thine, and which is dragging thee and me alike into hell: repent
at once, and my poor soul may depart in peace; _save_ the boy, thy
nephew.”
“Art thou sure none can overhear us? Art thou alone in this house?”
“Alone with the dead.”
“And that thou hast confessed the truth to none?”
“Not as yet.”
“And never shall. Die then the death thou didst spare the brat.”
Hard by stood a ewer filled with water, and over it a towel; he dipped
this towel in the water, and suddenly clapped it upon her mouth, then
he thrust a pillow upon her face, towel and all, and threw himself upon
it, keeping it down until the poor suffering body ceased to throb, when
he removed the pillow, and composed the features as well as he could,
smoothed the coverlet, and left the room.
It was growing dark.
A shudder passed over him all at once, as he descended the stairs.
At the foot of the stairs stood revealed to his sight--or to his
guilty imagination--a misty form surmounted by a face which expressed
such unutterable anguish, that even the iron nerves of the murderer
threatened to give way.
He made a violent effort, composed himself, and rushed _through_ the
apparition; he gained the outer air, and felt a dead faint gain upon
him, he sank upon the step, and knew nought till he was aroused by a
voice.
“How is the old girl upstairs?”
“She passed away in a fit whilst I was with her.”
FOOTNOTES
[40] As I write an ancient map of Exeter is before me confirming this
description.