“SHE was like a wild bird beating its wings against its prison bars,”
said Amy, continuing her narrative a few days before they started for
England. “The excitement and pleasure of seeing me had acted magically
on her, so much so that I found it difficult to realize the truth of
Isola’s description of her before my coming. In a day or two, however,
the excitement subsided, and I became seriously alarmed. She seemed
possessed by a spirit of unrest, and I began to fear for her reason. No
sleep at night, no rest for one five minutes in the day. She fulfilled
all her religious duties faithfully (they were not heavy ones, and the
Abbess was indulgent) but every spare moment she spent with me was
passed in one ceaseless moan. ‘I must see him; there will be no peace
for me till I have looked at the dear face again. Help me, my child,
help me!’ I knew not what to do for the best. I felt it would be
useless to consult the Abbess, or even the Convent Confessor, on the
matter, as their experience in the world’s ways was even less than
mine, and they looked upon everything in the light of their religion.
Besides, I knew there was no possibility of their allowing my mother
outside the walls, even in charge of a sister, for their rules on this
point were strict. What could be done? I felt, too, that you ought to
be written to by some one, but by whom? Mercy to Mrs. Warden, whom I
was convinced was ignorant of my mother’s existence, withheld my hand,
and whom could I trust in such a matter, or to whom, indeed, could I
expose my father’s guilt? I felt confident in my own mind that you
would naturally guess whither I had gone, and would possibly frame some
excuse for me to Mrs. Warden and others. But, O, my father, I have no
words to express the agony, the absolute torture of mind I suffered at
the thought of your unworthiness, of your cruelty to one whom I
believed to be so noble and good as my mother.
“The difficulties, too, of my position were very great. The Abbess was
kindness itself to me, and bade me stay with my mother as long as I
pleased, but she was constantly asking me questions as to my family and
connections, and I, not knowing how much of my mother’s story had been
confided to her, was fearful of betraying my mother every hour of the
day. Latterly, however, all these anxieties gave way to one more
terrible than all. Little as I knew of such cases, I felt sure that my
mother was in a state bordering on madness, and every day that passed
increased her danger. Isola, who came daily to see us, had but one
thought in her mind, how to save my mother, and was for ever suggesting
to me some wild plan, which I felt to be either wrong or impracticable.
At one time she would propose I should receive a letter, informing me
of your death; at another she suggested I should frame some story that
would prove you to be utterly base, and unworthy of any woman’s love.
But that I could not do, for deep down in my heart there was a feeling
I could not explain, nor put into words, but which made me angry or
indignant whenever Isola began to anathematize you.
“At length, one evening after I had gone to my own room, utterly worn
out with my mother’s excitement and misery, a sudden thought came into
my head. ‘Why not gratify her, why not enable her to see the man she so
blindly worships?’ Then it flashed across my mind how easily the thing
could be done! I had but to assume my mother’s nun’s dress and hood,
and no ordinary observer could have told it was not my mother herself.
She in my dress would easily be permitted to pass the portress’s lodge,
and once outside the convent walls Isola would be at hand with further
disguises, if necessary, and means of facilitating the journey to
England.
“I felt, as you may imagine, I was incurring heavy responsibility in
acting thus. But what was to be done? I had no one to advise me. I knew
that you ought to be communicated with, and it was simply an
impossibility for me to leave my mother in the state she was in. Once I
had hinted at the advisability of my going back to consult with you as
to what ought to be done, but she became perfectly frantic at the bare
thought of such a thing, and throwing herself at my feet, had implored
me ‘not to quench the last ray of light in her life.’
“Isola entered heart and soul into my plan. ‘I will go with her,’
she exclaimed. ‘She is too much of a child to be trusted by herself in
the world. Where she wanders thither will I go, where she dies there
will I die, and there will I be buried.’ I gladly consented to this, as
Isola had already once made the journey to England, and would know all
the details of the route. My mother, too, was so bright and quick, and
her remembrance of the English you taught her so perfect, that I had
scarcely any fear of difficulties arising on the road. My one and only
anxiety was how would she conduct herself in her interview with you.
Would she act quietly and with discretion, or would she cause some open
scandal and disgrace to you and to your family? I did my best to
prevent this by exacting from her a solemn promise that she would
not go down to Harleyford, but remain in London at the hotel where
Isola stayed, write to you from there, and there wait your reply. My
heart misgave me when she made me this promise. Yet, I thought to
myself, after all it doesn’t much matter what she says or does in
England. The truth will have to be made known to the world, and the
rightful wife acknowledged. ‘Ah! it was a weary, bitter time,’” and
here Amy broke down utterly. “My brain aches now when I think of it,
and a pain comes into my heart which, I think, will be there till my
dying day.”
“Poor child!” said Mr. Warden, tenderly smoothing the masses of dark
hair which clustered upon Amy’s white forehead, as she laid her head
wearily on his shoulder. “My poor little girl, you have been too much
tried. You were too young to bear so heavy a load of responsibility and
sorrow. For an old worn-out heart like mine a little suffering, more or
less, cannot make much difference, but for you, in your bright, fresh
girlhood, it was hard indeed to bear up against such a complication of
mistakes and wrong-doing.”
“Yes,” said Amy, wearily, going on with her story, “it was very hard
and very miserable, and after my mother had started, I nearly broke
down altogether.
“Our plan succeeded beyond our hopes even. In the evening twilight, in
the dress in which I left my home, my mother passed out of the Convent
gates, with Isola, on the pretext of visiting some old friends on the
other side of Le Puy. You, my father, had you seen her then, might have
mistaken her for your own daughter, so complete was the resemblance in
face, form, and figure. Perhaps she looked a little paler, a little
thinner, and a few years older (certainly not more) than I did six
months ago, but it would have needed younger and keener eyes than those
of the old nuns to have discovered this. And I, in my mother’s dress
and hood, had not the slightest fear of detection. I had become so
accustomed to the daily routine of the convent, that I knew to the
least iota every one of my mother’s religious duties. Latterly, too,
she had been so weak and ill she had been allowed to remain very much
in her own room. I had acquired, or rather reacquired, the singing
intonation peculiar to the Cevenol peasant, and knowing our voices were
so nearly one pitch and tone, had no fear of discovery on this point. I
drew the hood a little more closely over my face; I was perhaps a
little less sociable and friendly with the sisters, and thus for three
days I escaped detection.
“But on the fourth day I knew that Pére Ambroise, the Confessor, was
expected, and I determined that with him I would attempt no further
concealment. He was a personal friend of my mother’s; it was he who
induced her to enter the Convent of St. Geneviève, and it was his wise
counsels, I don’t doubt, which had restrained and quieted her impetuous
temper, as long as it was possible to do so. Such a dear old man, papa,
he ought to be made a bishop at the very least, instead of ending his
days here as Curé and Confessor to twenty or thirty little nuns. I
contrived to meet him as he entered the convent garden, and while
walking with him towards the house, told him, in as few words as
possible, the story of my mother’s escape, and my reason for planning
it. At first he was very angry, although not so much as might have been
expected, considering the heavy sin he believed to have been committed.
“‘_La petite Sœur_ (that was the name my mother was known by on account
of her comparative youth) ought to have consulted me,’ he said, ‘I have
taught her for many years, and she might have relied on my counsels.’
“‘Would you have let her go had she done so?’ I asked.
“‘Without doubt, no,’ he exclaimed, earnestly.
“‘Was there any other way of saving her life or reason?’ I asked again—
“‘My daughter,’ he replied, very gently, ‘you are very young, but I
pray that long ere you have reached my age, you will have learned that
there are some things to be thought of before life or reason, and that
a man or woman must be at times prepared to sacrifice both rather than
honour, faith, or the service of God.’
“I felt so ashamed that he should have to speak to me in this way, that
I knew not what to say. I felt how wrongly I had acted from first to
last. But what was I to do? I was altogether bewildered, and began to
wish I had consulted the good Father before. However, it was too late
now. I could only repeat I was very sorry to have grieved and offended
him, but perhaps if he knew the whole of my story he would not judge me
so harshly.
“‘I do not ask for your confidence, my daughter,’ he replied, ‘there
may be things in your family history you would not care to repeat, but
I had a right to expect your mother’s confidence, and now I find it was
but half-given.’
“Then he told me how I had made myself amenable to the laws of the
country in thus assisting in the escape of a nun—
“‘But,’ he added kindly, ‘you, my child are too young to be prosecuted
on such a matter, and Isola too old. She will return and repent, she is
too true a daughter of the Church not to do so, but your mother never
will. The world has had her heart throughout her sojourn here, and the
world will claim its own.’
“Then he told me I was welcome to stay here as long as I pleased, as
guest at the convent, or if I had other friends with whom I would
prefer staying, he would have much pleasure in conducting me to them.
Was he not a splendid man, papa?” added Amy enthusiastically, “he
looked so noble and so good while he was speaking, he made me feel
thoroughly ashamed of my own conduct, and the part I had played
throughout. Of course I told him I would remain gratefully with the
nuns till I heard from my mother or you, and then determining there
should be no further deceit on my part, told him how I expected to hear
through Isola’s nephew, a young woodcutter in the neighbourhood.
“How anxiously I longed and waited for news you may imagine, but a
whole week passed, and still not a word. At length, about ten days
after my mother’s departure, and when I was feeling positively sick
with suspense, and a dread of what was coming, Isola herself, to my
great amazement, appeared at the convent gates. I hastened down to her,
dreading I knew not what.
“‘Where is my mother?’ was my first question—
“‘I left her in London,’ replied Isola, ‘she ordered me to return here
to thee and await her orders, and I have done so. It was hard to part
from her, she looked so young and beautiful, but she told me she would
manage now her own affairs; that she was going down to the little
country village to see him she loved so well, and that thou wouldst
need an escort back to thy own country. I gave her all the money I had,
and my old brown hood and cloak, and here I am, my child, to take care
of thee.’ Then she handed to me a few short hurried lines from my
mother, telling me ‘she was safe and happy, and knew well what she
should do; that it might be some little time before she wrote again,
but when all was happily arranged she would send for me, and I know,’
she concluded, ‘all will be happily arranged. I shall win him back; I
have loved him so well I cannot lose him.’
“My heart sank as I read the note. Something told me the worst was to
come, and as day after day slipped by, and not a line not a message
from either father or mother, my brain began to grow dazed and stupid,
and I think I really lost the power of reasoning. I dared not write to
you; I felt how justly angry you must be with me, whatever your own
fault, for having acted so madly and foolishly. I wandered backwards
and forwards from the convent to Isola’s cottage, from Isola’s cottage
to the convent, hoping for news, praying for news, and feeling the
suspense to be more than I could bear. O, papa, papa!” concluded Amy,
breaking down once more, and giving way to a passion of tears, “if you
had not come when you did, your poor little Amy would have lost her
reason altogether, or else have laid down to die from sheer weariness
and sickness of heart.”
Gently and tenderly Mr. Warden soothed his daughter.
“My poor little girl,” he said, “you have been too much tried for one
so young. This is the last time we will talk over this sad story, but
before we lay it on one side for ever, you must hear one or two things
it is only right you should know. Lord Hardcastle has told you no doubt
most of what occurred during your absence, and all our grief for your
loss, but did he tell you the part he has played throughout; what he
has been to me all through our trials; and how it was he who guided us
here? Tell me that Amy!”
“No,” replied Amy, “he has never mentioned anything of that kind to me.
Indeed he has scarcely spoken to me the last few days, and whenever he
looks at me, his eyes grow so large and cross, that I feel sure he is
thinking in his own mind, ‘what an immense deal of trouble this
self-willed silly girl has given us all! what a pity everyone is not as
sensible and clever as I am!’”
Then Mr. Warden commenced from the very beginning, and told Amy every
particular, even to the smallest detail, of all that had occurred
during her absence. He spared her nothing. All his own grief and
despair he laid bare before her, the solemn vow, too of Frank Varley
and Lord Hardcastle, and how each had played their part. He recounted
to her all the terrors of that dreadful night when death was in the
house and the baying hound betrayed her mother’s presence. Step by step
he led her on through the sad story of the finding of her mother’s
body, his own broken-hearted sorrow, and Lord Hardcastle’s intense
grief. Amy never lifted her eyes from his face, but drank in his every
word and tone. Like one awaking from a dream, silent and enthralled she
sat and listened. As Mr. Warden repeated to her Lord Hardcastle’s words
in the library at the High Elms, “I want to be able to hold up a
picture of the girl I love so truly, in all her innocence, and beauty,
and purity, and to say to all the world, this is she whom I have loved
in life, whom I love in death, whom I shall love after death, through
eternity!” Amy sprang to her feet with clasped hands, exclaiming—
“Papa, papa, what is this, I do not understand.” At this moment the
door opened and Lord Hardcastle entered the room. Anything more
embarrassing could not be imagined. Carried away by his feelings, Mr.
Warden had spoken loudly, and Amy’s high-pitched voice must have rung
the length of the corridor. For a moment all were silent, and Amy,
confused and nervous, leant over the window-ledge, dropping stones and
dry leaves from the flower-boxes on to the verandah beneath.
Lord Hardcastle was the first to recover himself.
“Mr. Warden,” he said, “I have come in to say good-bye; I shall leave,
I think, before daylight to-morrow, for a little run through Spain. I
am rather interested in Dr. Lytton’s account of the Moorish excavations
going on just now. You are looking so thoroughly well and happy, that I
quite feel my services are no longer needed.”
He spoke carelessly, almost indifferently, but there was a mournful
ring in the last few words which went straight to Amy’s heart.
“He must not go, he shall not leave us in this way,” she exclaimed,
suddenly turning from the window, addressing her father, but stretching
out her hands to Lord Hardcastle. The old bright look had come back to
her eyes, the old imperious tones sounded once more in her voice, “How
can we thank him? What can we do for him who has done so much for us.
Lord Hardcastle,” she continued, turning impetuously towards him, with
flushed face and sparkling eyes, “I was very rude to you a short time
ago, can you forgive me? You were wearing my ruby ring, will you take
it back again, and keep it for ever and ever in remembrance of my
gratitude to you? I have so little to offer,” she added apologetically,
with a little sigh, drawing the ring from her finger and holding it
towards him.
“But I want something more than the ring to keep for ever and ever,”
said Lord Hardcastle, in low earnest tones, for Amy’s voice and manner,
told him that the icy barriers between them were broken down at last.
“Not now, Amy,” he added tenderly, as he felt the little hand he had
contrived to secure, trembling in his own; “not now, for we have
scarcely as yet passed from beneath the cloud of the shadows of death,
but by-and-by, when the dark winter days have come and gone, and the
bright spring sun shines down once more upon us, then I shall hope to
come to you and ask not only for this little hand, but for all you have
to give, even for your own sweet self!”
There was yet one more dark shadow to fall before the travellers
started on their homeward journey. Amy had proposed to her father that
they should pay a farewell visit to the little brown nuns at St.
Geneviève, to thank them for their hospitality to her. Mr. Warden
gladly acceded to her request, and the visit was paid the day before
they started for England. On leaving the convent, they purposed
visiting Isola in her lonely little hut in the valley, intending to
make some permanent provision for her comfort for the rest of her life.
“Poor faithful creature,” said Mr. Warden pityingly, as they descended
by the wild steep footway, “I would gladly ask her to return with us,
were it not for the recollection of falsehood and misery which her face
brings with it.”
Before they reached the hut, however, they were met by Isola’s nephew,
the young woodcutter, of whom mention has already been made. He looked
grave and sad, and lifting his hat respectfully to Mr. Warden, waited
for him to speak.
“How is your aunt this morning, André,” said Amy, “shall we find her
within?”
The young man shook his head.
“She is gone, mademoiselle, she will never return. This morning at
daybreak the angels carried her soul away. Since mademoiselle left us,
she wearied and sickened, she eat nothing, she never slept. There in
the window is her lace cushion with the bobbins untouched, and day and
night she sat and moaned in her wicker chair. Yesterday, when I tried
to make her take some food, she turned her face to the wall, ‘No, no,’
she said, ‘the summer flowers are faded and dead, why should the
withered leaf hang upon the bough?’ She never spoke to me afterwards,
and this morning, when I went to her room to ask how she was, I found
her lying dead and silent on her bed. Will mademoiselle come in and see
her as she lies? She looks beautiful with her wreaths and garlands of
flowers.”
This, however, Mr. Warden would not permit, for he felt his young
daughter had already been tried beyond her strength, and Amy, with the
mists of tears hanging over her eyes, looked her last at the Cevenol
valley, and said a long farewell to the beautiful solitude.
And so the winter snows and clouds came and went, and the spring sun
shone out once more, calling into life and being a thousand sweet
sights and sounds. It lighted up the grey house at Harleyford, and fell
slantwise through the tall elms on to the tender grass beneath. It
shone through the east window of Harleyford Old Church, on to a quiet
wedding party assembled there one bright May morning, and played in
many coloured beams on two monuments standing side by side in the
grassy graveyard.
And far away in the lonely valley of the Cevennes, the same spring
sunshine lighted up a quiet weed-grown resting-place, and fell in
quivering lines and curves upon a simple wooden cross, engraved in rude
peasant’s carving, with these few words—
“ISOLA.”
“_Fidèle jusques à la mort._”
Transcriber’s Note
This transcription is based on scans available through Historical Texts
from a copy held by the British Library:
https://historicaltexts.jisc.ac.uk/bl-002924134
Except where noted, inconsistencies in spelling (for example, “gray”
vs. “grey”) and hyphenation (for example, “grave-yard” vs. “graveyard”)
were not standardized. In addition, no changes were made to variant
spellings such as “delirous”.
The following changes were made to the text:
• Added a table of contents.
• p. 11: aimless, well-nigh broken hearted.—Changed “broken hearted”
to “broken-hearted” for consistency.
• p. 26: Mr Hill glances at them—Added a period after “Mr”.
• p. 29: “How dare yon insult me thus?”—Changed “yon” to “you”.
• p. 51: it would be best to re-commence on the morrow.—Changed
“re-commence” to “recommence” for consistency.
• p. 52: ‘Here,’ he called to the groom, ‘ride alongside of me, and tell
me all that is to be known about the girl Williams and her
flight!’”—Changed this sentence so that it is not a quotation within a
quotation. Deleted the opening single quotation mark before “Here”;
changed the closing single quotation mark after “Here” to a closing
double quotation mark; changed the opening single quotation mark before
“rule” to an opening double quotation mark; and deleted the closing
single quotation mark before the closing double quotation mark at the
end of the sentence.
• pp. 61–62: my dear, young friend, he added (he had known Hardcastle
from his boyhood), and spare them—Added a closing double quotation
after “friend,” and added an opening double quotation mark before “and
spare them”.
• p. 63: a bright young voice pouring forth a flood of question, answer,
and exclammation in a breath—Changed “exclammation” to “exclamation”.
• p. 95: There was no rival beauty in her way now!”—Deleted the
quotation mark at the end of the sentence.
• p. 115: with but one word inscribed, “_Aimée_”—Added a period to
the end of the sentence.
• p. 127: In reply to this, Mrs. Warden wrote a long letter—Changed
“Warden” to “Varley”.
• p. 138: when sorrow seemed a far away thing—Changed “far away” to
“far-away”.
• p. 147: The signature “AIMEE” after “for I have torn your image
out of my heart.” was changed to “AIMÉE”.
• p. 157: shall love after death, through eternity!”—Added a single
closing quotation mark after “eternity!” to close the quotation within
a quotation.
• p. 165: he directed a porter to place their luggage in the booking
office—Added a hyphen between “booking” and “office” for consistency
within the same paragraph.
• p. 225: she turned back into the park-lands—Changed “park-lands” to
“park lands” for consistency.
• p. 262: Was he not a splendid man, papa? added Amy enthusiastically,
he looked so noble—Added a closing double quotation mark after “papa?”
and an opening quotation mark before “he looked”.