The Light of Scarthey: A Romance
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CHAPTER XXXIV
THE GIBBET ON THE SANDS
Woman! take up thy life once more Where thou hast left it; Nothing is changed for thee, thou art the same, Thou who didst think that all things Would be wholly changed for thee.
_Luteplayer's Song._
Pulwick again. The whirlwind of disaster that upon that fatalfifteenth of March had burst upon the house of Landale has passed andswept away. But it has left deep trace of its passage.
The restless head, the busy hand, the scheming brain of Rupert Landalelie now mouldering under the sod of the little churchyard where firstthey started the mischief that was to have such far reaching effects.Low, too, lies the proud head of the mistress of Pulwick, so stricken,indeed, so fever-tortured, that those who love her best scarce darehope more for her than rest at last under the same earth that pressesthus lightly above her enemy's eternal sleep.
There is a great stillness in the house. People go to and fro withmuffled steps, the master with bent white head; Miss O'Donoghue,indefatigable sick nurse; Madeleine, who may not venture as far as thethreshold of her sister's room, and awaits in prayer and tears thehour of that final bereavement which will free her to take wingtowards the cloister for which her soul longs; Sophia, crushed finallyby the sorrows she has played at all her days. Seemingly there ispeace once more upon them all, but it is the peace of exhaustionrather than that of repose. And yet--could they but know it, as thesands run down in the hour-glass of time there are golden grainsgathering still to drop into the lives of each.
But meanwhile none may read the future, and Molly fights for her lifein the darkened room, the gloom of which, to the souls of the dwellersat Pulwick, seems to spread even to the sunny skies without.
* * * * *
When Lady Landale was brought back to her home from Lancaster, it washeld by every one who saw her that Death had laid his cold finger onher forehead, and that her surrender to his call could only be amatter of hours.
The physician in attendance could point out no reasonable ground forhope. Such a case had never come within his experience or knowledge,and he was with difficulty induced to believe that it was not theresult of actual violence.
"In every particular," said he, "the patient's symptoms are those ofcoma resulting from prolonged strangulation or asphyxia. Thesespectacles are very dangerous to highly sensitive organisations. LadyLandale no doubt felt for the miserable wretch in the benevolence ofher heart. Imagination aiding her, she realised suddenly the horror ofhis death throes, and this vivid realisation was followed by theactual simulacrum of the torture. We have seen hysterical subjectssimulate in the same manner diverse diseases of which they themselvesare organically free, such as epilepsy, or the like. But LadyLandale's condition is otherwise serious. She is alive; more I cannotsay."
According to his lights, he had bled the patient, as he would havebled, by rote, to recall to life one actually cut down from the beam.But, although the young blood did flow, bearing testimony to the factthat the heart still beat in that deathlike frame, the vitality leftseemed so faint as to defy the power of human ministration.
The flame of life barely flickered; but the powers of youth were ofgreater strength in the unconscious body than could have beensuspected, and gradually, almost imperceptibly, they assertedthemselves.
With the return of animation, however, came a new danger: fever,burning, devastating, more terrible even than the almost mortalsyncope; that fever of the brain which wastes like the rack, beforewhich science stands helpless, and the watcher sinks into despair athis impotence to screen a beloved sufferer from the horrible,ever-recurring phantoms of delirium.
Had not Sir Adrian intuitively known well-nigh every act of the dramawhich had already been so fatal to his house, Molly's frenziedutterances would have told him all. Every secret incident of thatstorm of passion which had desolated her life was laid bare to hissorrowing heart:--her aspirations for an ideal, centred suddenly uponone man; her love rapture cruelly baulked at every step; the consumingof that love fire, resisting all frustration of hope, all efforts ofconscience, of honour; how her whole being became merged into that ofthe man she loved and whom she had ruined, her life in his life, hervery breath in his breath. And then the lamentable, inevitable end:the fearful confrontation with his death. Again and again, in neverceasing repetition, was that fair, most dear body, that harrowed soul,dragged step by step through every iota of the past torture, always tofall at last into the same stillness of exhaustion--appalling image offinal death that wrung Adrian with untold agonies of despair.
For many days this condition of things lasted unaltered. In thephysician's own words it was impossible that life could much longerresist such fierce onslaughts. But one evening a change came over thespirit of the sufferer's vision.
There had been a somewhat longer interval between the paroxysms; SirAdrian seated as usual by the bed, waiting now with a sinking heartfor the wonted return of the frenzy, clamouring in his soul to heavenfor pity on one whom seemingly no human aid could succour, dared yetdraw no shadow of hope from the more prolonged stillness of thepatient. Presently indeed, she grew restless, tossed her arms,muttered with parched lips. Then she suddenly sat up and listened asif to some deeply annoying and disquieting sound, fell back againunder his gentle hands, rolling her little black head wearily fromside to side, only however to start again, and again listen. Thus itwent on for a while until the haunted, weary eyes grew suddenlydistraught with terror and loathing. Straining them into space as ifseeking something she ought to see but could not, she began to speakin a quick yet distinct whisper:
"How it creaks, creaks--creaks! Will no one stop that creaking! Whatis it that creaks so? Will no one stop that creaking!" And again sheplaced her cheek on the pillow, covering her ear with her little,wasted hand, and for a while remained motionless, moaning like achild. But it was only to spring up again, this time with a cry whichbrought the physician from the adjacent sleeping room in alarm to herbedside.
"Ah, God," she shrieked, her eyes distended and staring as if into thefar distance through walls and outlying darkness. "I see it! They havedone it, they have done it! It is hanging on the sands--how it creaksand sways in the wind! It will creak for ever, for ever.... Now itspins round, it looks this way--the black face! It looks at _me_!" Shegave another piercing cry, then her frame grew rigid. With mouth openand fixed eyeballs she seemed lost in the frightful fascination of theimage before her brain.
As, distracted by the sight of her torments, Adrian hung over her,racking his mind in the endeavour to soothe her, her words struck achill into his very soul. He cast a terrified glance at the doctor whowas ominously feeling her pulse.
"There is a change," he faltered.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
"I have told you before," he retorted irritably, "that you shouldattach no more importance to the substance of these deliriouswanderings than you would to the ravings of madness. It is the fact ofthe delirium itself which must alarm us. She is less and less able tobear it."
The patient moaned and shuddered, resisting the gentle force thatwould have pressed her down on her pillow.
"Oh the creaking, the creaking! Will no one stop that creaking! Must Ihear it go on creak, creak, creak for ever, and see it sway andsway.... Will no one ever stop it!"
Sir Adrian took a sudden resolution. "I will," he said, low and clearinto her ear. She sank down on the instant and looked at him, backfrom her far distance, almost as if she understood him and the pitifulcry for the help he would have given his heart's blood to procure forher, was silent for the moment upon her lips.
"I will prepare an opiate," said the physician in a whisper.
"And I," said Sir Adrian to him, with a strange expression upon hispale face, "am going to stop that creaking."
The man of medicine gazed after him with a look of intenseastonishment which rapidly changed to one of professional interest.
"It is eviden
t that I shall soon have another mentally derangedpatient to see to," he remarked to himself as he rose to seek thedrugs he meant to administer.
Downstairs, Sir Adrian immediately called for Rene, and being informedthat he had left for the island early in the afternoon and hadannounced his return before night, cast a cloak over his shoulders andhurried forth in the hope of meeting him upon his homeward way. Hispulses were beating well-nigh as wildly as those of the fever strickenwoman upstairs in the house. He dared not pause to reflect on hispurpose, or seek to disentangle the confusion of his thoughts, forfear of being confronted with the hopelessness of their folly. But theexquisite serenity of the night sky, where swam the moon, "a silversplendour;" the freshness of the sweeping breeze that dashed, keenfrom the east, over the sea against his face; all the gloriousdistance, the unconsciousness and detachment of nature from the fumeand misery of life, brought him unwittingly to a calmer mood.
He had reached the extreme confine of the pine wood, when, across thesands that stretched unbroken to the lips of the sea, a figureadvanced towards him.
"Renny!" called Sir Adrian.
"Your honour!" cried the man, breaking into a run to meet him. O God!how ghostly white looked the master's face in the moon-flood!
"My Lady----?"
"Not worse; yet not better--and that means worse now. But there is achange. Renny," sinking his voice and clasping the man's sturdy armwith clammy hand, "is it true they have placed him on the sandsto-day?"
The man stared.
"How did your honour know? Yes--they have done so. It is true: theswine! not more than an hour, in verity. How could it have come sosoon to your honour's ears? This morning, indeed, they came from thetown in a cart, and planted the great gibbet on Scarthey Point, at lowwater. And to-night they brought the body, all bound in irons, andfrom a boat, for it was high tide, they riveted it on the chain. Andit is to remain for ever, your honour--so they say."
"Strange," murmured Sir Adrian to himself, gazing seaward withawestruck eyes. "And did you," he asked, "hear its creaking, Renny, asit swayed in the wind?"
Again Rene cast a quick glance of alarm at his master. The master hada singular manner with him to-night! Then edging closer to him hewhispered in his ear:
"They say it is to hang for ever. There is a warning to those whowould interfere with this justice of theirs. But, your honour, therecame one to the island to-day, I do not know if your honour knows him,the captain's second on that vessel of misfortune. And I believe, yourhonour, the dawn will never see that poor, black body hanging overyonder like a scarecrow, to spoil our view. This man, this bravemariner, Curwen is his name, he is mad furious with us all! He hasjust but come from hearing of his captain's fate, and he is ready tokill us, that we let him be murdered without breaking some heads forhim. Faith, if it could have done any good, it is not I that wouldhave balanced about it! But, as I told him, there was no use runningone's own head into a loop of rope when that would please nobody butMr. the Judge. But he is not to be reasoned with. He is like a wildanimal. When I left him," said Rene, dropping his voice still lower,"he was knocking a coffin together out of the old sea wood onScarthey. He said his captain would rest better in those boards thatwere seasoned with salt water. And when I went away, your honour, andleft him hammering there--faith, I thought that the coffin was like tobe seasoned by another kind of salt water too."
His face twitched and the ready tears sprang to his own eyes which,unashamed, he now wiped with his sleeve after his custom. But SirAdrian's mind was still drifting in distant ghastly companionship.
"How the wind blows!" he said, and shuddered a little. "How the poorbody must sway in the wind, and the chains creak."
"If it can make any difference to the poor captain he will lie inpeace to-night, please God," said Rene.
"Ay," said Sir Adrian, "and you and I, friend, will go too, and helpthis good fellow in his task. I hope, I believe, that I should havedone this thing of my own thought, had I had time to think at all. Butnow, more hangs upon those creaking chains than you can dream of. Thisis a strange world--and it is full of ghosts to-night. But we musthurry, Renny."
* * * * *
Bound even to the tips of her burning little fingers by the spell ofthe opiate, Lady Landale lay in the shadowed room as one dead, yet inher sick brain fearfully awake, keenly alive.
At first it was as if she too was manacled in chains till she couldnot move a muscle, could not breathe or cry because of the ring roundher breast; and she was hanging with the black figure, swaying, whilethe rusty iron links went creak, creak, creak, with every swing to andfro. Then suddenly she seemed to stand, as it were, out of herself andto be seeing with the naked soul alone. And what she saw was the greatstretch of beach and sea, white, white, white, in the moonlight andspreading, it seemed, for leagues and leagues, spreading till all theworld was only beach and sea.
But close to her in the whitest moonlight rose the great gibbet, gauntand black, cutting the pale sky in two and athwart; and hanging fromit was the black figure that swayed and swung. And though the windsmuttered and the waves growled, she could not hear them with the earsof the soul, for that the whole of this great world of sea and sandwas filled with the creaking of the chains.
But now, across the bleak and pallid spaces came three black figures.And, as she looked and watched and they drew nearer, the dreadfulburthen of the gibbet swung round as if to greet them, and she too,felt in her soul that she knew them all three, though not by names, ascreatures of earth know each other, but by the kinship of the soul.This man with hair as white as the white beach, hair that seemed toshine silver as he came; and him yonder who followed him as a dog hismaster; and yonder again the third, in the seaman's dress, with hardface hewn into such rugged lines of grief and fury--she knew them all.And next they reached the gibbet: and one swarmed up the black post,and hammered and filed and prised, and then, oh merciful God! thecreaking stopped at last!
Now she could hear the wash of the waves, the rush of the wholesomewind!
A mist came across her vision; faintly she saw the stiffeneddisfigured corpse which yet she felt had once been something she hadloved with passion, laid reverently upon a stretcher, its ironsloosened and cast away, and then covered with a great cloak. Then thesea, the beach, the white moon faded and waved and receded. Molly'ssoul went back to her body again, while blessed tears fell one by onefrom her hot eyes. She breathed; her limbs relaxed; round the tiredbrain came, with a soft hush like that of gentle wings, dark oblivion.
Bending over her, for he was aware that for good or evil the crisiswas at hand, the physician saw moisture bead upon the suddenlysmoothed brow, heard a deep sigh escape the parted lips. And then witha movement like a weary child's she drew her arms close and fellasleep.
* * * * *
Having laid his friend to his secret rest, deep in the rock ofScarthey, where the free waves that his soul had revelled in wouldbeat till the world's end, Sir Adrian returned to Pulwick in the earlymorning, spent with the long and heavy night's toil--for it had taxedthe strength of even three men to hollow out a grave in such a soil.On the threshold he was greeted by the physician.
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messengers ofglad tidings!" From afar, by the man's demeanour, he knew that thetidings were glad. And most blessed they were indeed to his ears, butto them alone not strange. Throughout every detail of his errand hismind had dwelt rather with the living than the dead. What he had done,he had done for her; and now, the task achieved, it seemed but naturalthat the object for which it had been undertaken should have beenachieved likewise.
But, left once more with her, seeing her once more wrapt in placidsleep, whom he had thought he would never behold at rest again save inthe last sleep of all, the revulsion was overpowering. He sat down byher side, and through his tears gazed long at the lovely head, now inits pallor and emaciation so sadly like that of his dead love in thesorrowful days of yo
uth; and he thanked heaven that he was still ofthe earth to shield her with his devotion, to cherish her who was nowso helpless and bereft.
And with such tears and such thoughts came a forgetfulness of thatanguish which in him, as well as in her, had for so long been part ofactual existence.
When Tanty entered on tiptoe some hours later, she saw her niecemotionless upon her pillow, sleeping as easily and reposefully as achild. And close to her head, Sir Adrian, reclining in the arm-chair,asleep likewise. His arm was stretched limply over the bed and, on itssleeve still stained with the red mud of the grave in Scarthey, restedLady Landale's little, thin, ivory-white fingers.
* * * * *
Thus ended Molly's brief but terrible madness.
"Then you have hope, real hope?" asked Sir Adrian, of the physician asthey met again that day in the gallery.
"Every hope," replied the man of science with the proud consciousnessof having, by his wisdom, pulled his patient out of the very jaws ofdeath. "Recovery is now but a question of a time; of a long time, ofcourse, for this crisis has left her weaker than the new-born babe.Repose, complete repose, sleep: that is almost everything. And shewill sleep. Happily, as usual in such cases, Lady Landale seems tohave lost all memory. But I must impress upon you, Sir Adrian, thatthe longer we can keep her in this state, the better. If you havereason to believe that even the sight of _you_ might recalldistressing impressions, you must let me request of you to keep awayfrom the sick room till your wife's strength be sufficiently restoredto be able to face emotions."
This was said with a certain significance which called the colour toSir Adrian's cheek. He acquiesced, however, without hesitation; and,banished from the place where his treasure lay, fell to haunting thepassages for the rest of the day and to waylaying the privilegedattendants with a humble resignation which would have been sorrowfulbut for the savour of his recent relief from anguish.
But the next morning, Lady Landale, though too weak of body to lift afinger, too weak of mind to connect a single coherent phrase,nevertheless took the matter into her own hands, and proved that it isas easy to err upon the side of prudence as upon its reverse.
Miss O'Donoghue, emerging silently from the room after her night'svigil, came upon her nephew at his post, and, struck to her kind heartby his wistful countenance, bade him with many winks and nods enterand have a look at his wife.
"Don't make a sound," she whispered to him, "and then she won't hearyou. But, faith she's sleeping so well, it's my belief if you danced ajig she would not stir a limb. Go in, child, go in. It's beautiful tosee her!"
And Adrian, pressed by his own longing, was unable to resist theoffer. Noiselessly he stepped across the forbidden threshold and stoodfor a long time contemplating the sleeper in the dim light. As he wasabout to creep out at length, she suddenly opened her eyes and fixedthem wonderingly upon him. Fearful of having done the cruel deedagainst which he had been warned, he felt his heart contract and wouldhave rushed away, in an agony of self-accusation, when there occurredwhat seemed to him a miracle.
A faint smile came upon the pale lips, and narrowed ever so little thelarge sunken eyes. Yes; by all that was beautiful, it was asmile--transient and piteous, but a smile. And for him!
As he bent forward, almost incapable of believing, the lips relaxedagain and the lids drooped, but she shifted her hands upon the bed,uneasily, as if seeking something. He knelt, trembling, by her side,and as with diffident fingers he clasped the wandering hands he feltthem faintly cling to his. And his heart melted all in joy. The man ofscience had reasoned astray; there need be no separation between thehusband who would so dearly console, and the wife who needed help sosorely.
For a long while he remained thus kneeling and holding her hands. Itseemed as though some of the life strength he longed to be able topour from himself to her, actually passed into her frame: as thoughthere were indeed a healing virtue in his all encompassing tenderness;for, after a while, a faint colour came to the sunken cheeks. Andpresently, still holding his hand, she fell once more into thatslumber which was now her healing.
After this it was found that the patient actually became fretful andfevered again when her husband was too long absent from her side; andthus it came to pass that he began to supersede all other watchers inher room. Tanty in highest good humour, declared that her serviceswere no longer necessary, and volunteered to conduct Madeleine to theJersey convent, whither (her decision being irrevocable) it wasgenerally felt that it would be well for the latter to proceed beforeher sister's memory with returning strength should have returnedlikewise.
This memory, without which the being he loved would remain afflictedand incomplete, yet upon the working of which so much that was stilluncertain must hinge--Sir Adrian at once yearned for, and dreaded it.
Many a time as he met the sweet and joyful greeting in those eyeswhere he had grown accustomed to find nought but either mockery ordisdain, did he recall his friend's prophetic words: "Out of my deathwill grow your happiness." Was there happiness indeed yet in store inthe future? Alas, happiness for them dwelt in oblivion; and, some day,"remembrance would wake with all her busy train, and swell at _her_breast," and then----
Meanwhile, however, the present had a sweetness of its own. There wasnow free scope for the passion of devotedness which almost made up thesum of this man's character--a character which, to the Molly ofwayward days, to the hot-pulsed, eager, impatient "Murthering Moll,"had been utterly incomprehensible and uncongenial. And to the Mollycrushed in the direst battle of life, whom one more harshness of fate,even the slightest, would have straightaway hurled back into the gravethat had barely been baulked of its prey, it gave the very food andbreath of her new existence.
Week after week passed in this guise, during which her naturalhealthiness slowly but surely re-established itself; weeks that werehappy to him, in later life, to look back upon, though now full of ananxiousness which waxed stronger as recovery drew nearer.
There was little talking between them, and that kept by him studiouslyon subjects of purely ephemeral, childish interest. Her mind, by thehappy dispensation of nature which facilitates healing by all meanswhen once healing has begun, was blank to any impressions save theluxury of rest, of passive enjoyment, indifferent to ought but thepassing present. She took pleasure in flowers, in the gambols of petanimals, in long listless spells of cloud-gazing when the heavens werebright, in the presence of her husband in whom she only saw a beingwhose eyes were always beautiful with the light of kindness, whosetouch invariably soothed her when fatigue or irritation marred theeven course of her feelings.
She had ever a smile for him, which entered his soul like the radianceof sunshine through a stormy sky.
Thus the days went by. Like a child she ate and slept andchattered--irresponsible chatter that was music to his ear. Shelaughed and teased him too, as a child would; till sad, as it was, hehugged the incomplete happiness to his heart with a dire forebodingthat it might be all he was to know in life.
But one evening, in sudden freak, she bade him open the shutters, pullthe curtains, and raise the window that she might, from her pillow,look forth upon the night, and smell the sweet night air.
She had been unusually well that day, and on her face now filling outonce more into its old soft oval, bloomed again a look of warm lifeand youth. Unsuspecting, unthinking Sir Adrian obeyed. It was a dim,close night, and the blush-roses nodded palely into the room from theouter darkness as he raised the sash. There was no moon, no starsshone in the mist hung sky; there was no light to be seen anywhereexcept one faint glimmer in the distance--the light upon ScartheyIsland.
"Is that a star?" said Molly, after a moment's dreamy silence.
Sir Adrian started. A vision of all that might hang upon his answerflashed through his brain. With a trembling hand he pulled thecurtain. It was too late.
Molly sat up in bed, with a contracted brow and hands outstretched asone who would seize a tantalising escaping memory.
Adrian sprang to her side but she turned from him, shrank from him,with a look of dread which seared him to the soul.
"Do not come near me, do not touch me," she cried.
And then he left her.
* * * * *
Miss O'Donoghue was gone upon her journey with Madeleine. There wasnone in whom he might confide, with whom seek counsel. But presently,listening outside the door in an agony of suspense, he heard a stormof sobs. In time these gradually subsided; and later he learnt fromMoggie, whom he had hurriedly ordered to her mistress's side, that hiswife was quiet and seemed inclined to rest.
On the next day, she expressed no desire to see him and he dared notgo to her unsought. He gathered a great dewy bunch of roses and hadthem brought to her upon her breakfast tray instead of bringing themhimself as had been his wont.
She had taken the roses, Moggie told him, and laid them to her cheek."The master sent them, said I," continued the sturdy little matron,who was far from possessing the instinctive tact of her spouse; "an'she get agate o'crying quiet like and let the flowers fall out of herhands on the bed--Eh, what ever's coom to her, sin yesterday? Wannutyou go in, sir?"
"Not unless she sends for me," said Sir Adrian hastily. "And remember,Moggie, do not speak my name to her. She must not be worried ordistressed. But if she sends for me, come at once. You will find me inthe library."
And in the library he sat the long, long day, waiting for the summonsthat did not come. She never sent for him.
She had wept a good deal during the day, the faithful reporter toldhim in the evening, but always "quiet like;" had spoken little, andthough of unwonted gentleness of manner had persistently declined tobe carried to the garden as usual, or even to leave her room. Now shehad gone back to bed, and was sleeping peacefully.
An hour later Sir Adrian left his home for Scarthey once again. It isto be doubted whether, through all the vicissitudes of his existencehe ever carried into the sheltering ruins a heart more full of cruelpain.
When Tanty returned to Pulwick from her travels again, it was to findin Miss Landale the only member of the family waiting to greet her.The old lady's displeasure on learning the reason of this defection,was at first too intense to find relief in words. But presently thestrings of her tongue were loosened under the influence of the usualfeminine restorative; and, failing a better listener, she began todilate upon the situation with her wonted garrulity.
"Yes, my good Sophia, I will thank you for another cup of tea. Whatshould we do without tea in this weary world? I declare it's the onlypleasure left to me now--for, of all the ungrateful things in life,working for your posterity is the most ungrateful. Posterity is bornto trample on one.... And now, sit down and tell me exactly howmatters stand. My niece is greatly better, I hear. The doctorconsiders her quite convalescent? At least this is very satisfactory.Very satisfactory indeed! Just now she is resting. Quite so. I shouldnot dream of disturbing her; more especially as the sight of me wouldprobably revive painful memories, and we must not risk her having abad night--of course not. Ah, my dear, memory, like one's teeth, is avery doubtful blessing. Far more trouble than pleasure when you haveit, and yet a dreadful nuisance when you have not--But what's this Ihear about Adrian? Gone back to that detestable island of his again! Ileft him and Molly smiling into each other's eyes, clasping eachother's hands like two turtle-doves. Why, she could not as much asswallow a mouthful of soup, unless he was beside her to feed her--Andnow I am told he has not been near her for four days. What is themeaning of this? Oh, don't talk to me, Sophia! It's more than fleshand blood can bear. Here am I, having been backward and forward overnine hundred miles, looking after you all, at my age, till I don'tknow which it is, Lancashire or Somerset I'm in, or whether I'm on myhead or my heels, though I'm sure I can count every bone of my body bythe aching of them;--and I did think I was coming back to a littlepeace and comfort at length. That island of his, Sophia, will be thedeath of me! I wish it was at the bottom of the sea: that is the onlything that will bring your brother to his senses, I believe. Now hemight as well be in his grave at once, like Rupert, for all the goodhe is; though, for that matter it's more harm than good poor Rupertever did while he was alive----"
"Excuse me, Aunt Rose," here exclaimed Sophia, heroically, hercorkscrew ringlets trembling with agitation, "but I must beg you torefrain from such remarks--I cannot hear my dear brother...."
But Miss O'Donoghue waved the interruption peremptorily away.
"Now it's no use your going on, Sophia. _We_ don't think a man fliesstraight to heaven just because he's dead. And nothing will ever makeme approve of Rupert's conduct in all this dreadful business. Ofcourse one must not speak evil of those who can't defend themselves,but for all that he is dead and buried, Rupert might argue with mefrom now till doomsday, and he never would convince me that it is thepart of a gentleman to act like a Bow Street runner. I _hope_, mydear, he has found more mercy than he gave. I _hope_ so. But only forhim my poor dear grand-niece Molly would never have gone off on thatmad journey, and my poor grand-niece Madeleine would not be buriedalive on that other island at the back of God's speed. Ah, yes, mydear, it has been a very sad time! I declare I felt all the while asif I were conducting a corpse to be buried; and now I feel as if I hadcome back from the dear girl's funeral. We had a dreadful passage, andshe was _so_ sick that I'm afraid even if she wanted to come out ofthat place again she'd never have the courage to face the crossing.She was a wreck--a perfect wreck, when she reached the convent. Many atime I thought she would only land to find herself dead. _I_ wantedher to come to the hotel with me, where I should have popped her intobed with a hot bottle; but nothing would serve her but that she mustgo to the convent at once. 'I shall not be able to rest till I amthere,' she said. 'And it's precious little rest you will get there,'said I, 'if it's rest you want?--What with the hard beds, and all theprayers you have to say, and the popping out of bed, as soon as youare asleep, to sing in the middle of the night, and those blessedlittle bells going every three minutes and a half. There is no rest ina convent, my dear.' But I might as well have talked to the wall.
"When I went to see her the next day, true enough, she declared thatshe was more content already, and that her soul had found what ityearned for--peace. She was quite calm, and sent you all messages tosay how she would pray for you and for the repose of the souls ofthose you loved--Rupert, your rector and all--that they may reacheternal bliss."
"God forbid!" exclaimed the pious Protestant, in horrified tones.
"God forbid?--You're a regular heathen, Sophia. Oh, I know what youmean quite well. But would it not have been better for you to havebeen praying for that poor fellow who never lived to marry you, allthese years, than to have been wasting your time weeping over spiltmilk? Tell me _that_, miss. Please to remember, too, that you couldnot have come to be the heretic you are, if your great grandfather hadnot been the time-server he was. Any how, you need not distressyourself. I don't think Madeleine's prayers will do any one any harm,even Rupert; though, honestly, I don't think they are likely to be ofmuch good in _that_ quarter. However, there, there, we won't discussthe subject any more. Poor darling; so I left her. I declare I neverliked her so much as when I said good-bye, for I felt I'd never seeher again. And the Reverend Mother--oh! she is a very good, holywoman--a Jerningham, and thus, you know, a connection of mine. She wasan heiress but chose the cloister. And I saw the buckles sable on amemorial window in the chapel erected to another sister--also anun--they are a terribly pious family. I knew them at once, for theyare charges I also am entitled to bear, as you know, or, rather, don'tknow, I presume; for you have all the haziest notion of what sort ofblood it is that runs in your veins. Well, as I said, she is a holywoman! She tried to console me in her pious way. Oh, it was verybeautiful, of course:--bride of heaven and the rest
of it. But I hadrather seen her the bride of a nice young man. Many is the time I havewished I had not been so hasty about that poor young Smith. I don'tbelieve he _was_ purely Smith after all. He must have had some goodblood in his veins! Oh, of course, of course, he was dreadfullywicked, I know; but he was a fine fellow, and all these complicationswould have been avoided. But, after all, it was Rupert's fault ifeverything ended in tragedy ... there, there, we won't speak anotherword about your brother; we must leave him to the Lord--and," addedMiss O'Donoghue, piously under her breath, "if it's not the devil, Heis playing with him, it's a poor kind of justice up there!--Alas, mypoor Sophia, such is life. One only sees things in their true lightwhen they're gone into the darkness of the past. And now we must makethe best of the present, which, I regret to find, seems disposed to bepeculiarly uncomfortable. But I have done what I could, and now I oweit myself to wash my hands of you and look after my own soul.--I'lltake no more journeys, at any rate, except to lay my bones atBunratty; if I live to reach it alive."