As, muttering a savage oath, John Gurdon crept through the yielding
shrubs, Jane Barker softly closed the window, and then glided to the
door.
"Not gone to bed?" exclaimed Mrs Elstree. "Thank Heaven! Rouse Sir
Murray and my husband while I run back."
"Have you called Dr Challen, ma'am?" said Jane, in agitated tones.
"Oh yes: he is in the bedroom," sobbed Mrs Elstree; and she hurried
back.
In a few minutes husband and father were by the bedside, watching with
agitated countenances the struggle going on, for truly it seemed that
the long lethargy into which Lady Gernon had been plunged was to be
terminated by the triumph of the dread shade. As Mrs Elstree had sat
watching her, she had suddenly started up to talk in a wild, incoherent
manner; and as Sir Murray Gernon stood there in his long dressing-gown,
with brow knit, a shade that was not one of sorrow crossed his brow upon
hearing some of his stricken wife's babblings.
"Philip," she said--and as she spoke her voice softened, and there was a
yearning look of gentleness in her countenance--"Philip, the cross:
where is the cross? Have you hid it?--have you taken it away? Pray,
pray restore it! He will be angry. They are favourite old jewels, that
I wear for his sake. You loved me once; for the sake of the old times
give it me back! He will ask for it. Where is the cross? Do you see:
blue sapphires, each like a little forget-me-not peering up at you.
Your flowers--true blue, Philip. But the cross--I must have the cross!"
She was silent for a few minutes, and then, wildly turning to her
husband, she caught his hand in hers.
"Philip," she cried, addressing him, "it is all madness--something of
the past. It was not to be, and we have each our path to follow. I
heard the rumours: trouble--failure--your income swept away--dearest
Ada. But you must not come to want. You will give me back the cross,
though; not the forget-me-nots. Keep them, though they are withered and
dry--withered and dry as our old love--something of the past. Let me
see," she said--and her eyes assumed a troubled, anxious
expression--"you cannot claim me now. I am another's--his wife. How
blue the lake looks! and how plainly it mirrors the mountains! Fair
blue waters--blue--true blue. If I could have died then--died when you
plucked the flowers from my breast--but it was not to be. I have a duty
to fulfil--a burden--a cross"--she said, dreamily--"a cross? Yes--yes--
yes, the cross. You will give it me back, Philip," she whispered, with
a smile; "it lies, you see, where once your forget-me-nots lay. I
cannot wear them now, but the colour is the same--true blue. But you
will find them for me, those bright gems, and all will yet be well."
She raised Sir Murray's hand to her lips, and kissed it reverently, as
she continued:
"Always true and noble, Philip. You will respect my husband for the
sake of the old days. It has been like a cloud always hovering above my
life: that great dread lest you should ever meet in anger. Go now--let
me sleep--I am weak and weary. But remember your promise."
Pride, misery, despair, shame, and grief, seemed to have mingled for him
a cup of bitterness, forcing him to drink it there in the presence of
those who were gathered round the sick woman's couch; and it was with a
step that tottered in spite of all his self-command, that when Lady
Gernon loosed his hand, Sir Murray strode slowly from the room, to seek
the solitude of the library, where, alone through the rest of that
night, he could sit and brood upon his misery. She did not love him--
she had never loved him; and he told himself that he could not stay to
hear her words--to hold her hand, when her last sigh was breathed. Had
not that man risen, as it were, from the dead to blast their wedding,
she would have clung to him with a softened, child-like affection; but
now--"how could he stay when her thoughts all seemed another's?"
The tearful eyes of father and mother met across the bed, as Sir Murray
left the room, and then as the doctor sat silent and averted of gaze by
the bedside, the broken voice of the father rose, as, sinking upon his
knees, he prayed long and earnestly that Heaven of its goodness would
grant the renewal of life to his child, if but for a short time, that
she might prove to her husband that the words he had that night heard
were but the vain babblings of her distempered brain. That she might
live for his, for her child's, for her parents' sake, and during her
life, however short, sweep away the cruel mists of doubt and suspicion
that clung to her hearth.
Fervent and low did that prayer sound in the silence of the
sick-chamber, where all that wealth could spread in profusion was
waiting to minister to the owner's wants. But to those present it
seemed as if the splendour were but a mockery; and the story of Lady
Gernon's life, well known to all, pointed ever to one great void--a void
that no wealth could supply.
Fervent and low grew that prayer in the silence of that night, till, as
the Rectors lips parted to give utterance to those sublime words of
humility and resignation, "Thy will be done!" a sob choked his
utterance, and, save a low, weary wail from the stricken mother, all was
for a long space still.
The shaded lamp made the hangings of the bed to disport themselves in
strange shadows upon wall and carpet; and at times, when the night
breeze softly swept round the house, it was as though the spirits of air
were waiting in gathering levee to bear away the newly-freed essence to
a happier realm. No word was spoken; only at times the Doctor bent over
the bed to moisten his patient's lips from a glass in his hand. The
pendule ticked softly upon the mantel-piece, every second beaten off
finding its echo in the listeners' hearts, as it seemed to tell of the
rapid flight of time, and the few brief minutes left to the wretched
sufferer upon the bed. Her wanderings had long since ceased, and to
those who watched, it seemed many times over that the last sigh had been
breathed with those softly-muttered words, which made them start as a
cold shudder ran through their frames. But a warning glance from the
doctor, as he still kept on at intervals of every few minutes moistening
her lips, told that there was still life, and they waited on.
More than once Mrs Elstree's head had turned, full of expectancy,
towards the door, for she thought that Sir Murray would return; but he
came not; and at last, feeling it to be an act of duty to send for him,
she turned to speak to Jane, who, it seemed to her, had been but a few
minutes before sobbing silently in a further corner of the room. It
excited no surprise though, then, when she saw that the corner was
vacant, for, dulled by long familiarity with the grief before her, other
matters seemed to make no impression on her mind.
It was the same with the Rector, for as Mrs Elstree rose to leave the
room, he did not remove his gaze from his daughter's face, but still sat
watching silently and sadly for the change.
Mrs Elstree sought Sir Murray in his room; but he was not there, and
then, as, candle in hand--unnecessary then, for a cold, pale light
seemed to creep through the sky light over the grand staircase, to give
to everything a chilly, forlorn, and strange look--she descended the
stairs, she encountered a servant who, with a scared face, told her that
Sir Murray was in the library, and then stood watching her descent.
She reached the library door and knocked, to receive no answer, and her
repeated summonses were without effect, when, with a sigh, she turned to
retrace her steps.
"He will not come," she said. Then, to the maid, who had been watching
her anxiously: "Have you seen Jane?"
"Went out, ma'am, with one of the gardeners, ever so long ago, ma'am."
"Do you know where?"
"No, ma'am. She never said a word to me about it;" and the girl, and
another who had joined her, turned to gaze uneasily at the closed
library door.
Mrs Elstree slowly retraced her steps--slowly, though shivering the
while with anxiety--and returned to the bedroom, to find the scene there
unchanged. But she had hardly retaken her place by the bedside when
there was a rustling at the door, and she turned her head, thinking that
it might be Sir Murray, but, to her surprise, Ada Norton, closely
followed by Jane, entered the room.
Ada spoke no word, but, gliding to the bedside, stood, pale and anxious,
gazing down upon her cousin's shrunken face. Then, stooping softly, she
pressed a long kiss upon her white lips, the doctor making no sign of
rebuke.
"Where is her child?" said Ada then, in an anxious tone, for, as she had
bent down, Lady Gernon's eyes had opened, and her lips had parted in a
faint whisper.
"May it be fetched?" said Mrs Elstree, softly, to the doctor.
"Yes--yes," he whispered, in tones that seemed to imply, "all is over
now."
Jane hurried, sobbing, from the room, for the last moments seemed to
have come. There was something awful in the strange light of
recognition that had come into Lady Gernon's eyes; but when, softly
sleeping, the tiny fragile one was borne in and laid in her arms, its
soft, downy cheek resting upon her breast, the faintest dawning of a
smile played for an instant upon the mother's lip, her eyes gazed
straight upwards for a few moments, and then closed, when, as Dr
Challen swiftly pressed forward, to lean with anxious mien over the
pillow, Mrs Elstree sank fainting into weeping Jane's arms, while, with
a despairing wail, Ada Norton gave utterance to one word, that sounded
more like declaration than eager demand, as it thrilled through the
strained nerves of all present, and that word was: "Dead?"
Book 1, Chapter XIX.