CHAPTER XXXII
THE ONE HE LOVED AND THE ONE WHO LOVED HIM
On the evening of the previous day Lady Landale and her Aunt hadarrived at Pulwick. The drive had been a dismal one to poor MissO'Donoghue. Neither her angry expostulations, nor her tenderremonstrances, nor her attempts at consolation could succeed indrawing a connected sentence from Molly, who, with a fever spot of redupon each cheek only roused herself from the depth of thought in whichshe seemed plunged to urge the coachman to greater speed. MissO'Donoghue tried the whole gamut of her art in vain, and was obligedat last to desist from sheer weariness and in much anxiety.
Madeleine and Sophia were seated by the fireside in the library whenthe unexpected travellers came in upon them. Sophia, in the blackestof black weeds, started guiltily up from the volume of "The Corsair,"in which she had been plunged, while Madeleine, without manifestingany surprise, rose placidly, laid aside her needlework--a coarseflannel frock, evidently destined for charity--and bestowed upon hersister and aunt an affectionate though unexpansive embrace.
She had grown somewhat thinner and more thoughtful-looking since Mollyand she had last met, on that fatal 15th of March, but otherwise wasunchanged in her serene beauty. Molly clutched her wrist with aburning hand, and, paying not the slightest attention to the othertwo, nor condescending to any preamble, began at once, in hurriedwords to explain her mission.
"He has asked for you, Madeleine," she cried, her eyes flaming withunnatural brilliance as they sought her sister's mild gaze. "He hasasked for you, I will take you back with me, to-morrow, not later thanto-morrow. Don't you understand?" shaking her impatiently as she heldher, "he is in prison, condemned to death, he has asked for you, hewants to see you. On Saturday--on Saturday----" Something clicked inher throat, and she raised her hand to it with an uneasy gesture, onethat those who surrounded her had grown curiously familiar with oflate.
Madeleine drew away from her at this address, the whole fair calm ofher countenance troubled like a placid pool by the casting of a stone.Clasping her hands and looking down: "I saw that the unfortunate manwas condemned," she said. "I have prayed for him daily, I trust herepents. I am truly sorry for him. From my heart I forgive him thedeception he practised upon me. But----" a slight shudder shook her,"I could not see him again--surely you could not wish it of me."
She spoke with such extreme gentleness that for a minute the womanbefore her, in the seething turmoil of her soul, failed to grasp themeaning of her words.
"You could not go!" she repeated in a bewildered way, "I could notwish it of you--!" then with a sort of shriek which drew Tanty andMiss Sophia hurriedly towards her, "Don't you understand--onSaturday--if it all fails, they will hang him?"
"A-ah!" exclaimed Madeleine with a movement as if to ward off thesound--the cry, the gesture expressive, not of grief, but of shrinkingrepugnance. But after a second, controlling herself:
"And what should that be now, sister, to you or to me?" she saidhaughtily.
Lady Landale clapped her hands together.
"And this is the woman he loves!" she cried with a shrill laugh. Andshe staggered, and sank back upon a chair in an attitude of utterprostration.
"Molly, Molly," exclaimed her sister reprovingly, while she glanced inmuch distress at Miss O'Donoghue, "you are not yourself; you do notknow what you are saying."
"Remember," interposed Sophia in tragic tones, "that you are speakingof the murderer of my beloved brother." Then she dissolved in tears,and was obliged to hide her countenance in the folds of a vastpocket-handkerchief.
"Killing vermin is not murder!" cried Molly fiercely, awakening fromher torpor.
Miss O'Donoghue, who in the most unwonted silence had been watchingthe scene with her shrewd eyes, here seized the horrified Sophia bythe elbow and trundled her, with a great deal of energy anddetermination, to the door.
"Get out of this, you foolish creature," she said in a stern whisper,"and don't attempt to show your nose here again till I give it leaveto walk in!" Then returning to the sisters, and looking from Molly'shaggard, distracted face to Madeleine's pale one: "If you take myadvice, my dear," she said, a little drily, to the latter, "you willnot make so many bones about going to see that poor lad in the prison,and you'll stop wrangling with your sister, for she is just not ableto bear it. We shall start to-morrow, Molly," turning to Lady Landale,and speaking in the tone of one addressing a sick child, "andMadeleine will be quite ready as early as you wish."
"My dear aunt," said Madeleine, growing white to the lips, "I am verysorry if Molly is ill, but you are quite mistaken if you think I canyield to her wishes in this matter. I could not go; I could not; it isimpossible!"
"Hear her," cried the other, starting from her seat. "Oh, what are youmade of? Is it water that runs in your veins? you that he loves"--hervoice broke into a wail--"you who ought to be so proud to know heloves you even though your heart be broken! You refuse to go to him,refuse his last request!... Come to the light," she went on, seizingthe girl's wrists again; "let me look at you. Bah! you never lovedhim. You don't even understand what it is to love.... But what couldone expect from you, who abandoned him in the moment of danger. Youare afraid; afraid of the painful scene, the discomfort, the sight ofthe prison, of his beautiful face worn and changed--afraid of thediscredit. Oh! I know you, I know you. But mind you, Madeleine deSavenaye, he wishes to see you, and I swore you would go to him, andyou shall go, if I have to drag you with these hands of mine."
Her grip was so fierce, her eyes so savage, the words so strange, thatMadeleine screamed faintly, "She is mad!" and was amazed that MissO'Donoghue did not rush to the rescue!
But Miss O'Donoghue, peering at her from the depths of her arm-chair,merely said snappishly: "Ah, child, can't you say you will go, andhave done! Oughtn't you to be ashamed to be so hard-hearted?" andmopped her perspiring and agitated countenance with her kerchief. Thenupon the girl's bewildered mind dawned a glimmer of the truth; and,blushing to the roots of her hair, she looked at her sister with agrowing horror.
"Oh, Molly, Molly!" she said again, with a sort of groan.
"Will you go?" cried Molly from between her set teeth.
Again the girl shuddered.
"Less than ever--now," she murmured. And as Molly threw her from her,almost with violence, she covered her face with her hands and fell,weeping bitter tears, upon the couch behind her.
Lady Landale, with great steps, stormed up and down the room, her eyesfixed on space, her lips moving; now and again a word escaped herthen, sometimes hurled at her sister, sometimes only in desperatecommuning with herself.
"Base, cowardly, mean! Oh, my God, cruel--cruel! To go back withouther."
After a little, with a sudden change of mood, she halted and stood awhile, as if in deep reflection, holding her hand to her head, thencrossing the room hurriedly, she knelt down, and flung her arms roundthe weeping figure.
"_Ma petite Madeleine_," she said in a voice of the most piteouspleading, "thou and I, we were always good friends; thou canst nothave the heart to be so cruel to me now. See, my darling, he must die,they say--oh, Madeleine, Madeleine! And he asked for you. The onething, he told Rene, the only thing we could do for him on earth wasto let him see you once more. My little sister, you cannot refuse: heloves you. What has he done to offend you? Your pride cannot forgivehim for being what he is, I suppose; yet such as he is you should beproud of him. He is too noble, too straightforward to haveintentionally deceived you. If he did wrong, it was for love of you.Madeleine, Madeleine!"
Her tones trailed away into a moan.
Miss O'Donoghue sobbed loudly from her corner. Madeleine, who hadlooked at her sister at first with repulsion, seemed moved; sheplaced her hands upon her shoulders, and gazed sadly into the flushedface.
"My poor Molly," she said hesitatingly, "this is dreadful! But Itoo--I too was led into deceit, into folly." She blushed painfully. "Iwould not blame you; it was not your fault that you were carried awayin his ship. You went only for my sake
: I cannot forget that. Yet thathe should have this unhappy power over you too, you with your goodhusband, you a married woman, oh, my poor sister, it is terrible! Heis a wicked man; I pray that he may yet repent."
"Heavens," interrupted Molly, her passion up in arms again, looseningas she spoke her clasp upon her sister, and rising to her feet to lookdown on her with withering scorn, "have I not made myself clear? Areyou deaf, stupid, as well as heartless? It is you--you--_you_ heloves, _you_ he wants. What am I to him?" with a curious sob, half oflaughter, half of anguish. "Your pious fears are quite unfounded asfar as he is concerned--the wicked man, as you call him! Oh, he spurnsmy love with as much horror as even you could wish!"
"Molly!"
"Ay--Molly, and Molly--how shocked you are! Yes, I love him, I don'tcare who hears it. I love him--Adrian knows--he is not as virtuous asyou, evidently, for Adrian pities me. He is doing all he can, thoughthey say it is in vain, to get a reprieve for him--though I _do_ lovehim! While you--you are too good, too immaculate even to soil yourdainty foot upon the floor of his prison, that floor that I could kissbecause his shoe has trod it. But it is impossible! no human beingcould be so hard, least of all you, whom I have seen turn sick at thesight of a dead worm--Madeleine----!"
Crouching down in the former imploring manner, while her breast heavedwith dry tearless sobs: "It cannot hurt you, you who loved him." Andthen with the old pitiful cry, "it is the only thing he wants, and heloves you."
Madeleine disengaged herself from the clinging hands with a gesturealmost of disgust.
"Listen to me," she said, after a pause, "try and compose yourself andunderstand. All this month I have had time to think, to realise, topray. I have seen what the world is worth, that it is full of horror,of sin, of trouble, of dreadful dissensions--that its sorrow faroutweighs its happiness. I _have_ suffered," her pretty lips quiveredan instant, but she hardened herself and went on, "but it is betterso--it was God's will, it was to show me where to find real comfort,the true peace. I have quite made up my mind. I was only waiting tosee you again and tell you--next week I am going back to the conventfor ever. Oh, why did we leave it, Molly, why did we leave it!" Shebroke down, and the tears gushed from her eyes.
Lady Landale had listened in silence.
"Well--is that all?" she said impatiently, when her sister ceasedspeaking, while in the background Tanty groaned out a protest, andbewailed that she was alive to see the day. "What does it matter whatyou do afterwards--you can go to the convent--go where you will then;but what has that to say to your visit to _him_ now?"
"I have done with all human love," said Madeleine solemnly, crossingher hands on her breast, and looking upward with inspired eyes. "I didlove this man once," she answered, hardening herself to speak firmly,though again her lips quivered--"he himself killed that love by hisown doing. I trusted him; he betrayed that trust; he would havebetrayed me, but that I have forgiven, it is past and done with. Butto go and see him now, to stir up in my heart, not the old love, itcould not be, but agitation, sorrow--to disturb this quietness ofsoul, this calm which God has given me at last after so much prayerand struggle--no, no--it would not be right, it cannot be! Moreover,if I would, I could not, indeed I could not. The very thought of itall, the disgrace, that place of sin and shame, of him in chains,condemned--a criminal--a murderer!..."
A nervous shudder shook her from head to foot, she seemed in truth tosicken and grow faint, like one forced to face some hideous nauseatingspectacle. "As for him," she went on in low, feeble tones, "it will bethe best too. God knows I forgive him, that I am sorry for him, that Iregret his terrible fate. But I feel it would be worse for him to seeme--if he must die, it would be wrong to distract him from his lastpreparations. And it would only be a useless pain to him, for I couldnot pretend--he would see that I despise him. I thought I loved anoble gentleman, not one who was even then playing with crime andcheating."
The faint passionless voice had hardly ceased before, with a loud cry,Molly sprang at her sister as if she would have strangled her.
"Oh, unnatural wretch," she exclaimed, "you are not fit to live!"
Tanty rushed forward and dragged the infuriated woman away.
Madeleine rose up stiffly--swayed a moment as she stood--and then fellunconscious to the ground.
* * * * *
Next day in the dawn Lady Landale came into her sister's bedroom. Hercircled eyes, her drawn face bespeaking a sleepless night.
Madeleine was lying, beautiful and white, like a broken lily, in thedim light of the lamp; Sophia, an unlovely spectacle in curl papers,wizened and red-eyed from her night's watch, looked up warningly fromthe arm-chair beside her. But Molly went unhesitatingly to the window,pulled the curtains, unbarred the shutters, and then walked over tothe bed.
As she approached, Madeleine opened her blue eyes and gazed at herbeseechingly.
"There is yet time," said Molly in a hollow voice. "Get up and comewith me."
The wan face upon the pillow grew whiter still, the old horror grew inthe uplifted eyes, the wan lips murmured, "I cannot."
There was an immense strength of resistance in the girl's veryfeebleness.
Molly turned away abruptly, then back again once more.
"At least you will send him a message?"
Madeleine drew a deep breath, closed her eyes a moment and seemed towhisper a prayer; then aloud she said, while, like a shadow so faintwas it, a flush rose to her cheeks:
"Tell him that I forgive him, that I forgive him freely--that I shallalways pray for him." The flush grew deeper. "Tell him too that Ishall never be any man's bride, now."
She closed her eyes again and the colour slowly ebbed away. Mollystood, her black brows drawn, gazing down upon her in silence.--Didshe love him after all? Who can fathom the mystery of another's heart?
"I will tell him," she answered at last. "Good-bye, Madeleine--I shallnever see you or speak to you again as long as I live."
She left the room with a slow, heavy step.
Madeleine shivered, and with both hands clasped the silver crucifixthat hung around her neck; two great tears escaped from her blacklashes and rolled down her cheeks. Miss Sophia moaned. She, poor soul,had had tragedy enough, at last.
* * * * *
When the jailer brought in the mid-day meal after Adrian's departure,he found the prisoner seated very quietly at his table, his open Biblebefore him, but his eyes fixed dreamily upon the space of dimwhitewashed wall, and his mind evidently far away.
Upon his guardian's entrance he roused himself, however, and beggedhim, when he should return for the dish, to restore neatness to thebed and to assist him in the ordering of his toilet which he wished tobe spick and span.
"For I expect a visitor," said Captain Jack gravely.
When in due course the fellow had carried out these wishes with thesurly good-nature characteristic of him, Jack set himself to wait.
The square of sky through his window grew from dazzling white todeepest blue, the shadows travelled along the blank walls, the streetnoises rose and fell in capricious gusts, the church bells jangled,all the myriad sounds which had come to measure his solitary daystruck their familiar course upon his ear; yet the expected visitordelayed. But the captain, among other things, had learnt to possesshis soul in patience of late; and so, as he slowly paced his cellafter his wont, he betrayed neither irritation nor melancholy. If shedid not come to-day, then it would be to-morrow. He had no doubt ofthis.
The afternoon had waned--golden without, full of grey shadows in theprison room--when light footfalls mingled with the well-known heavytread and jangle of keys, along the echoing passage.
There was the murmur of a woman's voice, a word of gruff reply, andthe next moment a tall form wrapped in a many-folded black cloak andclosely veiled, advanced a few steps into the room, while, as before,the turnkey retired and locked the door behind him.
His heart beating so thickly that for the moment uttera
nce wasimpossible, Captain Jack made one hurried pace forward withoutstretched hands, only to check himself, however, and let them fallby his side. He would meet her calmly, humbly, as he had resolved.
The woman threw back her veil, and it was Molly's dark gaze, Molly'sbrown face, flushed and haggard, yet always beautiful, that looked outof the black frame.
An ashen pallor spread over the prisoner's countenance.
"Madeleine?" he asked in a whisper; then, with a loud ring of sterndemand, "_Madeleine!_"
"I went for her, I went for her myself--I did all I could--she wouldnot come."
_She would not come!_
It is a sort of unwritten law that the supremely afflicted have theright, where possible, to the gratification of the least of theirwishes. That Madeleine could refuse to come to him in his lastextremity, had never once crossed her lover's brain. He stoodbewildered.
"She is not ill?"
"Ill!" Lady Landale's red lips curved in scorn, "No--not ill--but acoward!" She spat the word fiercely as if at the offender's face.
There fell a minute's silence, broken only by a few labouringdeep-drawn breaths from the prisoner's oppressed lungs. Then he stoodas if turned to stone, not a muscle moving, his eyes fixed, his jawset.
Molly trembled before this composure, beneath which she divined asuffering so intense that her own frail barriers of self-restraintwere well-nigh broken down by a torrent of passionate pity.
But she braced herself with the feeling of the moment's urgency. Shehad no time to lose.
"Hear me," she cried in low hurried tones, laying a hand upon hisfolded arm and then drawing it away again as if frightened by therigid tension she felt there. "Waste no more thought on one sounworthy--all is not lost--I bring you hope, life. Oh, for God'ssake, wake up and listen to me--I can save you still. Captain Smith,Jack--_Jack!_"
Her voice rose as high as she dare lift it, but no statue could bemore unhearing.
The woman cast a desperate look around her; hearkened fearfully, allwas silent within the prison; then with tremulous haste she cast offher immense cloak, pulled her bonnet from her head, divested herselfof her long full skirt and stood, a strange vision, lithe,unconscious, unashamed, her slender woman's figure clad in completeman's raiment, with the exception of the coat. Her dark head croppedand curly, her face, with its fever-bloom, rising flower-like abovethe folds of her white shirt.
With anxious haste she compared herself with the prisoner.
"Rene told me well," she said; "with your coat upon me none would tellthe difference in this dark room. I am nearly as tall as you too.Thanks be to God that he made me so. _Jack_," calling in his ear,"don't you see? Don't you understand? It is all quite easy. You haveonly to put on these clothes of mine, this cloak, the bonnet comesquite over the face; stoop a little as you go out and hold thishandkerchief to your face as if in tears. The carriage waits outsideand Rene. The rest is planned. I shall sit on the bed with your coaton. It is a chance--a certainty. When I found Rene had failed, I sworethat I would save you yet. Ever since I came from Pulwick this morninghe and I have worked together upon this last plan. There is not aflaw; it must succeed. Oh, God, he does not hear me! Jack--Jack!"
She shook him with a sort of fury, then, falling at his feet, claspedhis knees.
"For God's sake--for God's sake!"
He sighed, and again came the murmur:
"She would not come----" He lifted his hand to his forehead and lookedround, then down at her, as if from a great height.
She saw that he was aroused at last, sprang to her feet, and pouredout the details of the scheme again.
"I run no risk, you see. They would not dare to punish me, awoman--Lady Landale--even if they could. Be quick, the preciousmoments are going by. I gave the man some gold to leave us as long ashe could, but any moment he may be upon us."
"Poor woman," said Jack, and his voice seemed as far off as his gaze;"see these chains."
She staggered back an instant, but the next, crying:
"The file--the file--that was why Rene gave it to me." She seized theskirt as it lay at her feet, and, striving with agonised endeavours tocontrol the trembling of her hands, drew forth from its pocket a fileand would have taken his wrist. But he held his hands above his head,out of her reach, while a strange smile, almost of triumph, parted hislips.
"The bitterness of death is past," he said.
She tore at him in a frenzy, but, repulsed by his immobility, fellagain broken at his feet.
In a torrent of words she besought him, for Adrian's sake, for thesake of the beautiful world, of his youth, of the sweetness oflife--in her madness, at last, for her own sake! She had ruined him,but she would atone, she would make him happy yet. If he died it wasdeath to her....
When at length her voice sank away from sheer exhaustion, he helpedher to rise, and seated her on the chair; then told her quietly thathe was quite determined.
"Go home," said he, "and leave me in peace. I thank you for what youwould have done, thank you for trying to bring Madeleine," he paused amoment. How purely he had loved her--and twice, twice she had failedhim. "Yet, I do not blame her," he went on as if to himself; "I didnot deserve to see her, and it has made all the rest easy. Remember,"again addressing the woman whom hopelessness seemed for a moment tohave benumbed, "that if you would yet do me a kindness, be kind toher. If you would atone--atone to Adrian."
"To Adrian?" echoed Molly, stung to the quick, with a pale smile ofexceeding bitterness. And with a rush of pride, strength returned toher.
"I leave you resolved to die then?" she asked him, fiercely.
"You leave me glad to die," he replied, unhesitatingly.
She spoke no more, but got up to replace her garments. He assisted herin silence, but as his awkward bound hands touched her she shudderedaway from him.
As she gathered the cloak round her shoulders again, there was a noiseof heavy feet at the door.
The jailer thrust in his rusty head and looked furtively from theprisoner to his visitor as they stood silently apart from each other;then, making a sign to some one whose dark figure was shadowed behindhim without, entered with a hesitating sidelong step, and, drawingCaptain Jack on one side, whispered in his ear.
"The blacksmith's yonder. He's come to measure you, captain, for themthere irons you know of--best get the lady quietly away, for he wunnutwait no longer."
The prisoner smiled sternly.
"I am ready," he said, aloud.
"I'll keep him outside a minute or two," added the man, wiping hisbrow, evidently much relieved by his charge's calmness. "I kep' himback as long as I could--but happen it's allus best to hurry theparting after all."
He moved away upon tiptoe, in instinctive tribute to the lady'ssorrow, and drew the door to.
Molly threw back her veil which she had lowered upon his entrance, herface was livid.
"What is it?" she asked, articulating with difficulty.
"Nothing--a fellow to see to my irons."
He moved his hands as he spoke, and she understood him, as he hadhoped, to refer only to his manacles.
She drew a gasping breath. How they watched him! Yet all was not lostafter all.
"I will leave the file," she said, in a quick whisper; "you willreflect; there is yet to-morrow," and rushed to hide it in his bed.But he caught her by the arm, his patience worn out at length.
"Useless," he answered, harshly. "I shall not use it. Moreover, itwould be found, and I am sure it is not your wish to bring unnecessaryhardship upon my last moments. I should lose the only thing that isleft to me, the comfort of being alone. And to-morrow I shall see noone."
The door groaned apart:
"Very sorry, mum," came the husky voice in the opening, "Time's up."
She turned a look of agony upon Captain Jack's determined figure. Wasthis to be the end? Was she to leave him so, without even one kindword?
Alas, poor soul! All her hopes had fallen to this--a parting word.
He was unpitying;
his arms were folded; he made no sign.
She took a step away and swayed; the turnkey came forwardcompassionately to lead her out. But the next instant she wheeledround and stood alone and erect, braced up by the extremity of heranguish.
"I _have_ a message," she cried, as if the words were forced from her."I could not make her come, but I made her send you a message. Shetold me to say that she forgave you, freely; that she would alwayspray for you. She bade me tell you too that she would never be anyman's bride now."
It had been like the rending of body and soul to tell him this. As shesaw the condemned man's face quiver and flush at last out of itsimpassiveness, she thought hell itself could hold no more hideoustorment.
He extended his arms:
"Now welcome death!" he exclaimed.
And she turned and fled down the passage as though driven upon thislast cry.
* * * * *
"E-h, he be a strange one!" said the jailer afterwards to his mate."If ye'd heard that poor lady sob as she went by! I've seen many a onein the same case, but I was sore for her, I was that. And he--ascool--joking with Robert over the hanging irons the next minute. 'Newsort of tailor I've got,' says he. 'Make them smart,' he says, 'sinceI'm to wear them in so exalted a position.' So exalted a position,that's what he says. 'And they've got to last me some long time, youknow,' says he."
"He'll be something worth looking at on Saturday. I could almost wishhe could ha' got off, only that it's a fine sight to see a realgentleman go through it. Ah, it's they desperate villains has theproper pluck!"
The Light of Scarthey: A Romance Page 34