who could help lovingLucy?”
“You never heard the witch’s name?” I gasped.
“Yes—they called her Bridget: they said he would never go near the spotagain for terror of her. Yet he was a brave man!”
“Listen,” said I, taking hold of her arm, the better to arrest her fullattention: “if what I suspect holds true, that man stole Bridget’s onlychild—the very Mary Fitzgerald who was Lucy’s mother; if so, Bridgetcursed him in ignorance of the deeper wrong he had done her. To thishour she yearns after her lost child, and questions the saints whethershe be living or not. The roots of that curse lie deeper than she knows:she unwittingly banned him for a deeper guilt than that of killing a dumbbeast. The sins of the fathers are indeed visited upon the children.”
“But,” said Mistress Clarke, eagerly, “she would never let evil rest onher own grandchild? Surely, sir, if what you say be true, there arehopes for Lucy. Let us go—go at once, and tell this fearful woman allthat you suspect, and beseech her to take off the spell she has put uponher innocent grandchild.”
It seemed to me, indeed, that something like this was the best course wecould pursue. But first it was necessary to ascertain more than whatmere rumour or careless hearsay could tell. My thoughts turned to myuncle—he could advise me wisely—he ought to know all. I resolved to goto him without delay; but I did not choose to tell Mistress Clarke of allthe visionary plans that flitted through my mind. I simply declared myintention of proceeding straight to London on Lucy’s affairs. I bade herbelieve that my interest on the young lady’s behalf was greater thanever, and that my whole time should be given up to her cause. I saw thatMistress Clarke distrusted me, because my mind was too full of thoughtsfor my words to flow freely. She sighed and shook her head, and said,“Well, it is all right!” in such a tone that it was an implied reproach.But I was firm and constant in my heart, and I took confidence from that.
I rode to London. I rode long days drawn out into the lovely summernights: I could not rest. I reached London. I told my uncle all, thoughin the stir of the great city the horror had faded away, and I couldhardly imagine that he would believe the account I gave him of thefearful double of Lucy which I had seen on the lonely moor-side. But myuncle had lived many years, and learnt many things; and, in the deepsecrets of family history that had been confided to him, he had heard ofcases of innocent people bewitched and taken possession of by evilspirits yet more fearful than Lucy’s. For, as he said, to judge from allI told him, that resemblance had no power over her—she was too pure andgood to be tainted by its evil, haunting presence. It had, in allprobability, so my uncle conceived, tried to suggest wicked thoughts andto tempt to wicked actions but she, in her saintly maidenhood, had passedon undefiled by evil thought or deed. It could not touch her soul: buttrue, it set her apart from all sweet love or common human intercourse.My uncle threw himself with an energy more like six-and-twenty than sixtyinto the consideration of the whole case. He undertook the provingLucy’s descent, and volunteered to go and find out Mr. Gisborne, andobtain, firstly, the legal proofs of her descent from the Fitzgeralds ofKildoon, and, secondly, to try and hear all that he could respecting theworking of the curse, and whether any and what means had been taken toexorcise that terrible appearance. For he told me of instances where, byprayers and long fasting, the evil possessor had been driven forth withhowling and many cries from the body which it had come to inhabit; hespoke of those strange New England cases which had happened not so longbefore; of Mr. Defoe, who had written a book, wherein he had named manymodes of subduing apparitions, and sending them back whence they came;and, lastly, he spoke low of dreadful ways of compelling witches to undotheir witchcraft. But I could not endure to hear of those tortures andburnings. I said that Bridget was rather a wild and savage woman than amalignant witch; and, above all, that Lucy was of her kith and kin; andthat, in putting her to the trial, by water or by fire, we should betorturing—it might be to the death—the ancestress of her we sought toredeem.
My uncle thought awhile, and then said, that in this last matter I wasright—at any rate, it should not be tried, with his consent, till allother modes of remedy had failed; and he assented to my proposal that Ishould go myself and see Bridget, and tell her all.
In accordance with this, I went down once more to the wayside inn nearColdholme. It was late at night when I arrived there; and, while Isupped, I inquired of the landlord more particulars as to Bridget’s ways.Solitary and savage had been her life for many years. Wild and despoticwere her words and manner to those few people who came across her path.The country-folk did her imperious bidding, because they feared todisobey. If they pleased her, they prospered; if, on the contrary, theyneglected or traversed her behests, misfortune, small or great, fell onthem and theirs. It was not detestation so much as an indefinable terrorthat she excited.
In the morning I went to see her. She was standing on the green outsideher cottage, and received me with the sullen grandeur of a thronelessqueen. I read in her face that she recognized me, and that I was notunwelcome; but she stood silent till I had opened my errand.
“I have news of your daughter,” said I, resolved to speak straight to allthat I knew she felt of love, and not to spare her. “She is dead!”
The stern figure scarcely trembled, but her hand sought the support ofthe door-post.
“I knew that she was dead,” said she, deep and low, and then was silentfor an instant. “My tears that should have flowed for her were burnt uplong years ago. Young man, tell me about her.”
“Not yet,” said I, having a strange power given me of confronting one,whom, nevertheless, in my secret soul I dreaded.
“You had once a little dog,” I continued. The words called out in hermore show of emotion than the intelligence of her daughter’s death. Shebroke in upon my speech:—
“I had! It was hers—the last thing I had of hers—and it was shot forwantonness! It died in my arms. The man who killed that dog rues it tothis day. For that dumb beast’s blood, his best-beloved standsaccursed.”
Her eyes distended, as if she were in a trance and saw the working of hercurse. Again I spoke:—
“O, woman!” I said, “that best-beloved, standing accursed before men, isyour dead daughter’s child.”
The life, the energy, the passion, came back to the eyes with which shepierced through me, to see if I spoke truth; then, without anotherquestion or word, she threw herself on the ground with fearful vehemence,and clutched at the innocent daisies with convulsed hands.
“Bone of my bone! flesh of my flesh! have I cursed thee—and art thouaccursed?”
So she moaned, as she lay prostrate in her great agony. I stood aghastat my own work. She did not hear my broken sentences; she asked no more,but the dumb confirmation which my sad looks had given that one fact,that her curse rested on her own daughter’s child. The fear grew on melest she should die in her strife of body and soul; and then might notLucy remain under the spell as long as she lived?
Even at this moment, I saw Lucy coming through the woodland path that ledto Bridget’s cottage; Mistress Clarke was with her: I felt at my heartthat it was she, by the balmy peace which the look of her sent over me,as she slowly advanced, a glad surprise shining out of her soft quieteyes. That was as her gaze met mine. As her looks fell on the womanlying stiff, convulsed on the earth, they became full of tender pity; andshe came forward to try and lift her up. Seating herself on the turf,she took Bridget’s head into her lap; and, with gentle touches, shearranged the dishevelled gray hair streaming thick and wild from beneathher mutch.
“God help her!” murmured Lucy. “How she suffers!”
At her desire we sought for water; but when we returned, Bridget hadrecovered her wandering senses, and was kneeling with clasped handsbefore Lucy, gazing at that sweet sad face as though her troubled naturedrank in health and peace from every moment’s contemplation. A fainttinge on Lucy’s pale cheeks showed me that she was aware of our return;othe
rwise it appeared as if she was conscious of her influence for goodover the passionate and troubled woman kneeling before her, and would notwillingly avert her grave and loving eyes from that wrinkled and careworncountenance.
Suddenly—in the twinkling of an eye—the creature appeared, there, behindLucy; fearfully the same as to outward semblance, but kneeling exactly asBridget knelt, and clasping her hands in jesting mimicry as Bridgetclasped hers in her ecstasy that was deepening into a prayer. MistressClarke cried out—Bridget arose slowly, her gaze fixed on the creaturebeyond: drawing her breath with a hissing sound, never moving herterrible eyes, that were steady as stone, she made a dart at the phantom,and caught, as I had done, a mere handful of empty air. We saw no moreof the creature—it vanished as suddenly as it came, but Bridget lookedslowly on, as if watching some receding form. Lucy sat still, white,trembling, drooping—I think she would have swooned if I had not beenthere to uphold her. While I was attending to her, Bridget passed us,without a word to any one, and, entering her
The Poor Clare Page 9