by Ellen Wood
“He is sentenced to it.”
“Did he kill Hallijohn?”
“Yes. Who has been talking to him upon the subject?” Mr. Carlyle continued to Madame Vine, with marked displeasure in his tone.
“Wilson mentioned it, sir,” was the low answer.
“Oh, papa! What will he do? Will Jesus forgive him?”
“We must hope it.”
“Do you hope it, papa?”
“Yes. I wish that all the world may be forgiven, William, whatever may have been their sins. My child, how restless you seem!”
“I can’t keep in one place; the bed gets wrong. Pull me up on the pillow, will you Madame Vine?”
Mr. Carlyle gently lifted the boy himself.
“Madame Vine is an untiring nurse to you, William,” he observed, gratefully casting a glance toward her in the distance, where she had retreated, and was shaded by the window curtain.
William made no reply; he seemed to be trying to recall something. “I forget! I forget!”
“Forget what?” asked Mr. Carlyle.
“It was something I wanted to ask you, or to tell you. Isn’t Lucy come home?”
“I suppose not.”
“Papa, I want Joyce.”
“I will send her home to you. I am going for your mamma after dinner.”
“For mamma? — oh, I remember now. Papa, how shall I know mamma in Heaven? Not this mamma.”
Mr. Carlyle did not immediately reply. The question may have puzzled him. William continued hastily; possibly mistaking the motive of the silence.
“She will be in Heaven, you know.”
“Yes, yes, child,” speaking hurriedly.
“Madame Vine knows she will. She saw her abroad; and mamma told her that — what was it, madame?”
Madame Vine grew sick with alarm. Mr. Carlyle turned his eyes upon her scarlet face — as much as he could get to see of it. She would have escaped from the room if she could.
“Mamma was more sorry than she could bear,” went on William, finding he was not helped. “She wanted you, papa, and she wanted us, and her heart broke, and she died.”
A flush rose to Mr. Carlyle’s brow. He turned inquiringly to Madame Vine.
“Oh, I beg your pardon, sir,” she murmured, with desperate energy. “I ought not to have spoken; I ought not to have interfered in your family affairs. I spoke only as I thought it must be, sir. The boy seemed troubled about his mother.”
Mr. Carlyle was at sea. “Did you meet his mother abroad? I scarcely understand.”
She lifted her hand and covered her glowing face. “No, sir.” Surely the recording angel blotted out the words! If ever a prayer for forgiveness went up from an aching heart, it must have gone up then, for the equivocation over her child’s death-bed!
Mr. Carlyle went toward her. “Do you perceive the change in his countenance?” he whispered.
“Yes, sir. He has looked like this since a strange fit of trembling that came on in the afternoon. Wilson thought he might be taken for death. I fear that some four and twenty hours will end it.”
Mr. Carlyle rested his elbow on the window frame, and his hand upon his brow, his drooping eyelids falling over his eyes. “It is hard to lose him.”
“Oh, sir, he will be better off!” she wailed, choking down the sobs and the emotion that arose threateningly. “We can bear death; it is not the worst parting that the earth knows. He will be quit of this cruel world, sheltered in Heaven. I wish we were all there!”
A servant came to say that Mr. Carlyle’s dinner was served, and he proceeded to it with what appetite he had. When he returned to the sick room the daylight had faded, and a solitary candle was placed where its rays could not fall upon the child’s face. Mr. Carlyle took the light in his hand to scan that face again. He was lying sideways on the pillow, his hollow breath echoing through the room. The light caused him to open his eyes.
“Don’t, papa, please. I like it dark.”
“Only for a moment, my precious boy.” And not for more than a moment did Mr. Carlyle hold it. The blue, pinched, ghastly look was there yet. Death was certainly coming on quick.
At that moment Lucy and Archibald came in, on their return from their visit to Miss Carlyle. The dying boy looked up eagerly.
“Good-bye, Lucy,” he said, putting out his cold, damp hand.
“I am not going out,” replied Lucy. “We have but just come home.”
“Good-bye, Lucy,” repeated he.
She laid hold of the little hand then, leaned over, and kissed him. “Good-bye, William; but indeed I am not going out anywhere.”
“I am,” said he. “I am going to Heaven. Where’s Archie?”
Mr. Carlyle lifted Archie on to the bed. Lucy looked frightened, Archie surprised.
“Archie, good-bye; good-bye, dear, I am going to Heaven; to that bright, blue sky, you know. I shall see mamma there, and I’ll tell her that you and Lucy are coming soon.”
Lucy, a sensitive child, broke into a loud storm of sobs, enough to disturb the equanimity of any sober sick room. Wilson hastened in at the sound, and Mr. Carlyle sent the two children away, with soothing promises that they should see William in the morning, if he continued well enough.
Down on her knees, her face buried in the counterpane, a corner of it stuffed into her mouth that it might help to stifle her agony, knelt Lady Isabel. The moment’s excitement was well nigh beyond her strength of endurance. Her own child — his child — they alone around its death-bed, and she might not ask or receive a word of comfort, of consolation!
Mr. Carlyle glanced at her as he caught her choking sobs just as he would have glanced at any other attentive governess — feeling her sympathy, doubtless, but nothing more; she was not heart and part with him and his departing boy. Lower and lower bent he over that boy; for his eyes were wet. “Don’t cry, papa,” whispered William, raising his feeble hand caressingly to his father’s cheek, “I am not afraid to go. Jesus is coming for me.”
“Afraid to go! Indeed I hope not, my gentle boy. You are going to God — to happiness. A few years — we know not how few — and we shall all come to you.”
“Yes, you will be sure to come; I know that. I shall tell mamma so. I dare say she is looking out for me now. Perhaps she’s standing on the banks of the river, watching the boats.”
He had evidently got that picture of Martin’s in his mind, “The Plains of Heaven.” Mr. Carlyle turned to the table. He saw some strawberry juice, pressed from the fresh fruit, and moistened with it the boy’s fevered lips.
“Papa, I can’t think how Jesus can be in all the boats! Perhaps they don’t go quite at the same time. He must be, you know, because He comes to fetch us.”
“He will be yours, darling,” was the whispered, fervent answer.
“Oh, yes. He will take me all the way up to God, and say, ‘Here’s a poor little boy come, you must please to forgive him and let him go into Heaven, because I died for him!’ Papa did you know that mamma’s heart broke?”
“William, I think it likely that your poor mamma’s heart did break, ere death came. But let us talk of you, not of her. Are you in pain?”
“I can’t breathe; I can’t swallow. I wish Joyce was here.”
“She will not be long now.”
The boy nestled himself in his father’s arms, and in a few minutes appeared to be asleep. Mr. Carlyle, after a while, gently laid him on his pillow, and watched him, and then turned to depart.
“Oh, papa! Papa!” he cried out, in a tone of painful entreaty, opening wide his yearning eyes, “say good-bye to me!”
Mr. Carlyle’s tears fell upon the little upturned face, as he once more caught it to his breast.
“My darling, your papa will soon be back. He is going to bring mamma to see you.”
“And pretty little baby Anna?”
“And baby Anna, if you would like her to come in. I will not leave my darling boy for long; he need not fear. I shall not leave you again to-night, William, when once
I am back.”
“Then put me down, and go, papa.”
A lingering embrace — a fond, lingering, tearful embrace — Mr. Carlyle holding him to his beating heart, then he laid him comfortably on his pillow, gave him a teaspoonful of strawberry juice, and hastened away.
“Good-bye, papa!” came forth the little feeble cry.
It was not heard. Mr. Carlyle was gone, gone from his living child — forever. Up rose Lady Isabel, and flung her arms aloft in a storm of sobs!
“Oh, William, darling! in this dying moment let me be to you as your mother!”
Again he unclosed his wearied eyelids. It is probable that he only partially understood.
“Papa’s gone for her.”
“Not her! I — I — —” Lady Isabel checked herself, and fell sobbing on the bed. No; not even at the last hour when the world was closing on him, dared she say, I am your mother.
Wilson re-entered. “He looks as if he were dropping off to sleep,” quoth she.
“Yes,” said Lady Isabel. “You need not wait, Wilson. I will ring if he requires anything.”
Wilson though withal not a bad-hearted woman, was not one to remain for pleasure in a sick-room, if told she might leave it. She, Lady Isabel, remained alone. She fell on her knees again, this time in prayer for the departing spirit, on its wing, and that God would mercifully vouchsafe herself a resting-place with it in heaven.
A review of the past then rose up before her, from the time of her first entering that house, the bride of Mr. Carlyle, to her present sojourn in it. The old scenes passed through her mind like the changing picture in a phantasmagoria.
Why should they have come, there and then? She knew not.
William slept on silently; she thought of the past. The dreadful reflection, “If I had not done as I did, how different would it have been now!” had been sounding its knell in her heart so often that she had almost ceased to shudder at it. The very nails of her hands had, before now, entered the palms, with the sharp pain it brought. Stealing over her more especially this night, there, as she knelt, her head lying on the counterpane, came the recollection of that first illness of hers. How she had lain, and, in that unfounded jealousy, imagined Barbara the house’s mistress. She dead! Barbara exalted to her place. Mr. Carlyle’s wife, her child’s stepmother! She recalled the day when, her mind excited by a certain gossip of Wilson’s — it was previously in a state of fever bordering on delirium — she had prayed her husband, in terror and anguish, not to marry Barbara. “How could he marry her?” he had replied, in his soothing pity. “She, Isabel, was his wife. Who was Barbara? Nothing to them?” But it had all come to pass. She had brought it forth. Not Mr. Carlyle; not Barbara; she alone. Oh, the dreadful misery of the retrospect!
Lost in thought, in anguish past and present, in self-condemning repentance, the time passed on. Nearly an hour must have elapsed since Mr. Carlyle’s departure, and William had not disturbed her. But who was this, coming into the room? Joyce.
She hastily rose up, as Joyce, advancing with a quiet step drew aside the clothes to look at William. “Master says he has been wanting me,” she observed. “Why — oh!”
It was a sharp, momentary cry, subdued as soon as uttered. Madame Vine sprang forward to Joyce’s side, looking also. The pale young face lay calm in its utter stillness; the busy little heart had ceased to beat. Jesus Christ had indeed come and taken the fleeting spirit.
Then she lost all self-control. She believed that she had reconciled herself to the child’s death, that she could part with him without too great emotion. But she had not anticipated it would be quite so soon; she had deemed that some hours more would at least be given him, and now the storm overwhelmed her. Crying, sobbing, calling, she flung herself upon him; she clasped him to her; she dashed off her disguising glasses; she laid her face upon his, beseeching him to come back to her, that she might say farewell — to her, his mother; her darling child, her lost William!
Joyce was terrified — terrified for consequences. With her full strength she pulled her from the boy, praying her to consider — to be still. “Do not, do not, for the love of Heaven! My lady! My lady!”
It was the old familiar title that struck upon her fears and induced calmness. She stared at Joyce, and retreated backward, after the manner of one receding from some hideous vision. Then, as recollection came to her, she snatched her glasses up and hurried them on.
“My lady, let me take you into your room. Mr. Carlyle is come; he is just bringing up his wife. Only think if you should give way before him! Pray come away!”
“How did you know me?” she asked in a hollow voice.
“My lady, it was that night when there was an alarm of fire. I went close up to you to take Master Archibald from your arms; and, as sure as I am now standing here, I believe that for the moment my senses left me. I thought I saw a spectre — the spectre of my dead lady. I forgot the present; I forgot that all were standing round me; that you, Madame Vine, were alive before me. Your face was not disguised then; the moonlight shone full upon it, and I knew it, after the first few moments of terror, to be, in dreadful truth, the living one of Lady Isabel. My lady, come away! We shall have Mr. Carlyle here.”
Poor thing! She sank upon her knees, in her humility, her dread. “Oh, Joyce, have pity upon me! don’t betray me! I will leave the house; indeed I will. Don’t betray me while I am in it!”
“My lady, you have nothing to fear from me. I have kept the secret buried within my breast since then. Last April! It has nearly been too much for me. By night and by day I have had no peace, dreading what might come out. Think of the awful confusion, the consequences, should it come to the knowledge of Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle. Indeed, my lady, you never ought to have come.”
“Joyce,” she said, hollowly, lifting her haggard face, “I could not keep away from my unhappy children. Is it no punishment to me, think you, the being here?” she added, vehemently. “To see him — my husband — the husband of another! It is killing me.”
“Oh, my lady, come away! I hear him; I hear him!”
Partly coaxing, partly dragging her, Joyce took her into her own room, and left her there. Mr. Carlyle was at that moment at the door of the sick one. Joyce sprang forward. Her face, in her emotion and fear, was of one livid whiteness, and she shook as William had shaken, poor child, in the afternoon. It was only too apparent in the well-lighted corridor.
“Joyce,” he exclaimed, in amazement, “what ails you?”
“Sir! master!” she panted; “be prepared. Master William — Master William — —”
“Joyce! Not dead!”
“Alas, yes, sir!”
Mr. Carlyle strode into the chamber. But ere he was well across it, he turned back to slip the bolt of the door. On the pillow lay the white, thin face, at rest now.
“My boy! my boy! Oh, my God!” he murmured, in bowed reverence, “mayest Thou have received this child to rest in Jesus, even as, I trust, Thou hadst already received his unhappy mother!”
CHAPTER XLIV.
LORD VANE DATING FORWARD.
To the burial of William Carlyle came Lord Mount Severn and his son. Wilson had been right in her surmises as to the resting-place. The Carlyle vault was opened for him, and an order went forth to the sculptor for an inscription to be added to their marble tablet in the church: “William Vane Carlyle, eldest son of Archibald Carlyle, of East Lynne.” Amongst those who attended the funeral as mourners went one more notable in the eyes of the gazers than the rest — Richard Hare the younger.
Lady Isabel was ill. Ill in mind, and ominously ill in body. She kept her room, and Joyce attended on her. The household set down madame’s illness to the fatigue of having attended upon Master William; it was not thought of seriously by any one, especially as she declined to see a doctor. All her thoughts now were directed to the getting away from East Lynne, for it would never do to remain there to die; and she knew that death was on his way to her, and that no human power or skill — not all the fa
culty combined — could turn him back again. The excessive dread of detection was not upon her as it had been formerly. I mean she did not dread the consequences so much, if detection came. In nearing the grave, all fears and hopes, of whatever nature, relating to this world, lose their force, and fears or hopes regarding the next world take their place. Our petty feelings here are lost in the greater.
In returning to East Lynne, Lady Isabel had entered upon a daring act, and she found, in the working, that neither strength nor spirit was equal to it. Human passions and tempers were brought with us into this world, and they can only quit us when we bid it farewell, to enter upon immortality in the next.
When Lady Isabel was Mr. Carlyle’s wife, she had never wholly loved him. The very utmost homage that esteem, admiration, affection could give was his, but that mysterious passion called by the name of love, and which, as I truly and heartily believe, cannot, in its refined etherealism, be known to many of us, had not been given to him. It was now. From the very night she came back to East Lynne, her love for Mr. Carlyle had burst forth with an intensity never before felt. It had been smoldering almost ever since she quitted him. “Reprehensible!” groans a moralist. Very. Everybody knows that, as Afy would say. But her heart, you see, had not done with human passions, and they work ill, and contrariness, let the word stand, critic, if you please, and precisely everything they should not.
I shall get in for it, I fear, if I attempt to defend her. But it was not exactly the same thing, as though she suffered herself to fall in love with somebody else’s husband. Nobody would defend that. We have not turned Mormons yet, and the world does not walk upon its head. But this was a peculiar case. She, poor thing, almost regarded Mr. Carlyle as her husband. The bent of her thoughts was only too much inclined to this. The evil human heart again. Many and many a time did she wake up from a reverie, and strive to drive this mistaken view of things away from her, taking shame to herself. Ten minutes afterward, she would catch her brain reveling in the same rebellious vision. Mr. Carlyle’s love was not hers now, it was Barbara’s. Mr. Carlyle did not belong to her, he belonged to his wife. It was not only that he was not hers — he was another’s. You may, therefore, if you have the pleasure of being experienced in this sort of thing, guess a little of what her inward life was. Had there been no Barbara in the case, she might have lived and borne it; as it was, it had killed her before her time, that and the remorse together.