I had turned aside, with the words stopped on my very lips, to listen. So had Aunt Milly, looking aghast, and with every tinge of colour blanched from her face. Miss Mortimer did not observe me; but she noticed her sister, and stared at her with actually a little pause and smile of malice, to direct everybody’s attention to her startled face, before she spoke.
“I can’t speak even my own language now,” was all Miss Mortimer said; and all the time looked at Aunt Milly with that derisive look, as if to show that whoever was agitated by this reference it was not herself. I was so wicked as to think she meant to turn over the scandal, if any should rise, upon her sister; and it made my blood boil; but, to be sure, I was quite in error there.
“Oh, I am sure after to-night—!” cried Miss Kate; “Indeed, my dear Miss Mortimer, I must congratulate you. I hope it is the beginning of a new life. If you would but take a little interest in the parish, with your improved health, I am sure it would do so much good; and if you should happen to meet that unfortunate young man, and would be induced to explain the truth to him a little in his own language——”
Here Miss Mortimer gave an extraordinary kind of gasp, without, however, uttering any sound. Nobody observed it but me, as my eyes were fixed on her. Then she spoke as if she could not help herself, drawing back into the shadow.
“He speaks English!” she said, with an extraordinary tone of being compelled to say something—as if some influence within her had constrained the words from her unwilling tongue.
“But, ah, it is the servant I speak of,” cried Miss Kate; “one soul is just as precious as another; it is he, poor unfortunate man! If you should meet him in any of your drives,—he is very stout, and has a large beard, and is so completely the foreigner that you can’t mistake him,—if you would only stop the carriage and say a word in season.”
There was another wonderful contraction of all the muscles of Miss Mortimer’s face, and this time a kind of hysterical sound came with it.
“If I meet him,” she said, slowly, “I’ll give him a word in season—don’t be afraid,” and she laughed.
It made me shiver and tremble all over. I was thankful that Ellis came that moment with tea, and I could get up and go into another corner of the room to recover myself. I don’t know how Aunt Milly bore it. She had not a particle of colour in her face the whole evening after. But Miss Mortimer went upstairs steadily when all the guests were gone. I do not know what befell when she got into her own room. I do not think they had much rest there that night. If she had fallen down in a fit, or expired at the head of the table that evening, it would not have surprised me. She had lived through it; but I am sure neither she nor her poor faithful maid closed their eyes that night.
Chapter XI.
THE day after that, was the day we had fixed to go back to Chester. Miss Mortimer did not come downstairs; but Carson came to me with a little packet while I was helping Lizzie to pack up baby’s things. The poor woman looked ill and strange herself. She had a scared terrified expression, as if she were afraid of everybody, and looked so worn-out and exhausted that I could scarcely help telling her, for pity’s sake, to go and get some sleep.
“My missis sends her love,” said Carson, “and she’s very sorry she can’t come downstairs to see you, ma’am, nor the Captain, but hopes it won’t be long till you’re here again; and sends you this, and her love.”
“Is Miss Mortimer ill?” said I.
Carson hesitated before she answered.
“It’s on her nerves,” she said, at last, faltering; “it’s—I mean, to be sure, she’s a little overtired because of overdoing of herself last night. It was out of compliment to the Captain, ma’am, and you. My missis has a great spirit; but it’s the body as is weak.”
“Yes,” said I, unable to restrain the impulse; “but, oh, don’t you think she has just too great a spirit? What if it kills her one of these days?”
The woman flashed up for a moment into an attempt of resentment and dignity, but, partly from her weakness and watching and want of sleep, broke down immediately, and shed a few tears in her apron. The poor creature’s heart was moved. “If it kills her she’ll die; but she’ll never give in,” sobbed Carson; and then, recovering herself all at once—“it’s on the nerves, that’s what it is,” said the faithful servant, and hurried away.
It was some time before I cared to open Miss Mortimer’s packet. It contained two rings, one of them a slight turquoise thing, which was for me, and the other a fine diamond, which was to be given to my husband. “Tell him it’s a family jewel,” said a little accompanying note. I put it down on Harry’s dressing-table, where he would find it when he came in. I would not put such a present on his finger; besides, it was best he should have it direct from herself—she had always received him as the representative of the Mortimers, and not me.
And then Aunt Milly came upstairs to kiss and cry over us. I was very sad myself, as was natural. There was nothing now between me and Harry’s going, but a few weeks—rather a few days. I should look straight into the face of that dreadful approaching moment when we turned our backs on the Park.
I could not cry as Aunt Milly did. I felt to myself as if I had been trifling all this time, taken up with other people’s affairs, and making friends with strangers, while every hour was bringing us closer to that day. Dear Aunt Milly held me fast in her arms, and whispered everything in the world she could think of to console me: that I had baby; that I should have letters regularly; that the war would not last long; that I must trust God, and pray. Ah, as if I did not know all that! if I had not known it and gone over it all in my own mind a thousand times, there might have been some comfort in what she said.
“And look here,” said Aunt Milly, thrusting a purse into my pocket—not into my hand, to give me a chance of putting it back again—“he is our representative, dear. He is not to go a step till he has everything—everything you can so much as think upon to make him comfortable. Now, Milly, don’t say a word. I’ll think you don’t love me if you say a word. Will it be any comfort to you, or me, to think here’s some paltry money left, and Harry gone to fight for us all without something that would make him comfortable? You’d work your fingers off to get it for him, and you have no excuse for denying me. Don’t say anything to Harry, child. Men don’t understand these things. It’s between you and me; and, please God, we’ll tell him all our schemes when we get him back safe, the dear fellow. But, dear, what is that on the table? Sarah’s diamond! that one she has always had such a fancy for. Has she sent it to you?”
“To Harry,” said I.
“To Harry! Dear, dear, what creatures we are!” cried Aunt Milly, much agitated, and bursting in tears again. “Poor Sarah! she’s not so hard-hearted as you and me were thinking, Milly. Oh, God help her; if He would only bring her to deal true and fair, and have out this trouble in the face of day, there might be some comfort yet for her in this very life!”
I made no answer. I did not love Miss Mortimer, as I suppose, in some sort of way, her sister did; and, besides, my thoughts were all turned in another direction again. I had ceased to see the Park and its troubles so acutely as I had done for some days past. My mind was returned to my own private burden. I had little to say to anybody after that. I turned away even from Aunt Milly, with a dreadful feeling that I was not to see her again till Harry was gone. For I knew in my heart, though they never said anything to me, that this was how it was to be.
I had not the heart to talk even to Harry, as we drove slowly back to Chester—slowly, as I fancied. We went in the carriage all the way. We had no railway or tunnel to go through this time. Nothing to help me to a moment’s delusion of plunging away to the end of the world, or into the bowels of the earth, it did not matter which, all together. That was impossible. Miss Mortimer’s carriage put nothing in my mind but the inevitable parting, and all that was to happen to me after Harry was gone.
When we got to our Chester lodgings, Domenico was there, as usual, full of the noisiest, kindest bustle, to help in getting everything in, as if he had belonged to us, instead of belonging to a stranger, who, most likely, had little reason to bear the heirs of the Mortimers any good will. Mr. Luigi was standing at the window all the time, looking at the carriage, the horses, the servants; thinking, perhaps, they might all have been his under different circumstances. How can I tell what he was thinking? I am sure at that moment, though I observed him at the window, I took no pains to imagine what his thoughts were, and did not care. I did not care for anything just then.
It was one of my bad times. It was one of the hundred partings which I had with Harry before the real parting came. When the things were lifted out of the carriage, I could see them all in my own mind lifted in again, all but Harry’s share of them, and myself sitting blind in that corner with all the world dark before me. Well, well; it is no use reasoning over it, as if that would make things any better. Thousands and thousands were just the same as me; did that make it any better, do you suppose? I thought of the poor woman in the Edinburgh High Street, and her hard damp hand that pressed mine. I was a soldier’s wife like all the rest. I went up into my own room and got Harry’s old sash again, and bound it tight over my heart. It gave me a kind of ease, somehow. And to hear baby shouting at sight of his old toys, and Harry calling for his Milly darling, downstairs! It was an agony of happiness and anguish; it was life.
Chapter XII.
THE very next day Sara Cresswell came to see me. I cannot say that I was very glad, for I grudged everything now that did not belong to the one business which was engrossing us. I had been out that morning with Harry trying to get things that were necessary for him. I don’t mean the common articles of his outfit, for these, now that we had money enough, could be ordered at once without contriving; but the little conveniences that might make him more comfortable. He protested that I would load him with so many contrivances for comfort that comfort would be impossible; and, I daresay I was foolish. But he let me do it without more than just laughing at me. He knew it was a sort of consolation. When Sara came the room was in a litter with all sorts of portable apparatus; things for cooking, and lamps, and portable dressing things, and the wonderful convenient portmanteaus they make now-a-days. I was putting them all together, and comparing, and thinking all how he would do when, instead of home, where everything came naturally, without being asked for, he should have only these skeletons to make himself comfortable with. I had lighted the lamp, and was boiling the little kettle over it, to see how it would do. Ah, if we only had been going all together! If I could have imagined myself there to boil the kettle and have everything warm and nice for him when he came in from the trenches, how pleasant all these contrivances would have been! As it was I had just had his servant up and been showing him the things we had bought; he looking grim and half amused, touching his cap and saying, “Yes, ma’am,” to every word I said, but laughing in his mind at all my womanish nonsense. I could see that perfectly, and I had a good cry after the man was gone; and was just rousing up from that, to boil the little kettle, when Sara Cresswell came in.
In this short week there was a good deal of change upon Sara. Her eyes had a quick kind of fitful light in them gleaming about everywhere, as if she were somehow dissatisfied, either with herself or her own circumstances, and sought a kind of relief in external things. There was a change in her appearance too; her little short curls had either grown too long to cluster about her neck as she had worn them, or she had taken another caprice about this fashion of hers, for they were now all gathered into a net, a thing which changed her appearance, somehow, without one being able to see for the first minute how it was. She flushed up wonderfully when she saw my occupation. She came and kissed me, and sat down by me to watch the lamp. I had to explain to her all about it, how it was arranged, and everything; and after she had sat with me watching till the little kettle boiled, all at once it seemed to flash upon her what dreadful thing was implied to me in that little apparatus, and she suddenly looked up in my face and took hold of my hand, and burst out crying. I gave way just for one moment too, but even her presence and her sympathy kept me from breaking down altogether. But it warmed my heart to Sara to see her crying for my trouble. I took the little teapot out of the place it was fitted into and made some tea, and gave her some without saying anything. We sat by the table where that little lamp was still burning, throwing the steady, cheerful little flame that showed so strange in the daylight, upon us. We drank that tea together without saying anything, till Sara, not being able to contain herself, her heart quite running over with pity for me, took the cup out of my hand and threw her arms round me. “We shall be sisters while he is away!” cried Sara, not knowing what to say to comfort me. I don’t think I said anything; but we were real fast friends from that day.
“But I must have everything cleared away now, before Harry comes in,” said I; “he must not see all this litter we have been making. He thinks me foolish enough already. Go into the other room, Sara dear, and take a book and wait for me. Lizzie is out with baby. I’ll come to you presently.”
“As if I could not help!” cried Sara, dashing the tears away off her cheek. “Why, oh, Milly, why won’t people let us women do what we were born to? This is twenty times pleasanter than going into the other room and taking a book.”
And so, I daresay, it was. When everything was tidy we did go into the other room. Sara sat near the window, where she could see out without being seen herself. I took up some of Harry’s things that I had begun to make before Aunt Milly’s money came. I would have made them every one myself if I could, but that, to be sure, was impossible; and what a comfort it was to think he would have such a good supply of everything; but still it was a pleasure to me to have that work. We sat talking for some time about other things, about the Park, and Aunt Milly, and Miss Mortimer, but without touching upon anything but the surface,—how I liked them, and all that,—till at last Sara gave a little start and exclamation, and put her hands together. It was something she saw in the street. I rose to look over her shoulder what it was.
“There is Mr. Langham and Mr. Luigi,” cried Sara. “What can they be talking about? Are they coming in, I wonder? How earnest they both look! Now they are turning back again. Oh, Milly, tell me, please! what are they talking about?”
“How can I possibly tell you?” said I; but I suppose there was a little faltering and consciousness in my tone.
Sara sat watching for some time longer. “They walk up and down, quite engrossed in their conversation,” said Sara; “when they reach the end of the pavement, they turn back again, up and down, up and down. Now Mr. Langham seems urging something upon him—now he turns away, he clasps his hands together, he appeals to Mr. Langham. What is it? what is it all about? I never can persuade him to tell me. How does he belong to the Park or the Mortimers? Why are they frightened for him? Oh, Milly, you who have just come from them, tell me what it is? I am not asking from vain curiosity—I—I—I have a right——”
Here Sara stopped, overcome with agitation. I was close behind her. I could not help growing agitated too.
“Sara, tell me!” I cried; “we are both motherless creatures, and you have nobody to guide you. Tell me; you call him he, you don’t say his name. What is he to you?”
Sara turned back and leant her head upon me, and fell into a passion of tears again;—different tears—tears for herself, and out of the anguish of her heart. She was doing wrong—she knew she was doing wrong—she had gone on with it wilfully, knowing it was wrong all the time; and now she had gone too far to draw back.
“Oh, Milly, Milly, papa does not know!” she cried, in such a tone of misery. And, indeed, I don’t wonder. How could she look him in the face knowing how fond of her he was?
“But, Sara, this is dreadfully wrong of Mr. Luigi,” cried I; “he ought to know better; he should at least have gone to Mr. Cresswell. It is his fault.”
“Was it your Harry’s fault?” cried Sara, starting up in my face, all flushed and glowing. “Should he have gone directly and told everybody? And you were married, married, Milly!—and ever such a time before it was found out. How can you pretend to be so shocked at me?”
To see her spring up, all blushing and beautiful, and determined as she was—she who had been sobbing on my shoulder a moment before, took me entirely by surprise. I retreated a step before her. I could not tell what answer to make. She was not ashamed, the little darling creature! She was ready to stand up for him against all the world.
“It was not my good father that loved me, it was only my aunt,” I said, faltering; “and, besides, it was I who should have told her; and as for Harry—Harry——”
“He is no better than Luigi!” cried Sara; “he ought to have gone and told and asked for you. You know he should; and you were married, actually married, and oh, Milly, can you really venture to scold me?”
“If I had nothing else to excuse me I was ashamed, at least,” said I, a little sharply.
“I am not ashamed of Lewis!” cried the little girl, stamping her little foot and clasping her hands together. When her courage deserted her, she came and nestled into my side again, and clasped her arms tight and cried. What was to be done? for whatever I might have done myself, I could not be an accessory to Sara’s secret, to break her kind father’s heart.
“But tell me who he is? What is Mr. Langham speaking to him about?” whispered Sara at last.
“Has he not told you who he is?”
“Only that soon he will be able to come to papa and tell him everything, but that his duty to somebody prevents him speaking now, till he has permission,” said Sara, under her breath. “I am not excusing him,” she went on, lifting up her head. “As you say, it was my part to tell papa; and it was only just the other day that—that—there was anything to tell. We have not been going on making it up for a long time. We have not been keeping it secret for months, like some people.”
“Sara, hush,” said I; “you know quite well your case and mine are not alike; but, at any rate, I am older and wiser now. Must I, or must Harry, go and tell your father?”
Sara looked at me with a degree of affectionate spite and wickedness I never saw equalled. “You would, you treacherous, perfidious creature!” she cried, flinging away from me; “but Mr. Langham wouldn’t!—you need not think it. You will have to go yourself; and papa will think we have had a quarrel, and won’t believe you. Ah, Milly! here they are coming back. Tell me what Mr. Langham was saying to him? Tell me what it all is?”
If I had known ever so well what to tell her, and been as willing as I was able, I would have been prevented by Harry’s coming in. He was looking grave and perplexed. His interview with Luigi had not satisfied him, any more than such a conversation had satisfied anybody else who approached the Italian. Sara stopped short with the most violent blush on her face when she saw him. She withdrew from me, and got into a corner. She went to the window, and pretended to be looking out very earnestly. She answered Harry’s salutation only over my shoulder. The next moment she came whispering to me that it was time for her to go. Evidently, however much she encouraged herself by our example, she could not face Harry. She whispered, “Don’t tell!” and clenched her little fist at me as she went away. Of course I only laughed at her; but it appeared I did not need to tell Harry. He came upstairs, after seeing her out, with a smile on his face.
“Has she been telling you what trouble she has got herself into? Oh, don’t betray her secret,” said Harry. “I have just heard it from the other side. Here are other two fools following our example, Milly. What is to be done for them? It is worse, you know, in their case, as I took pains to show Luigi. Mr. Cresswell is a different person from Aunt Connor; and we two were equal in our poverty. I don’t approve,” said Harry, with a laugh mingling in his gravity, “of such a thing as this.”
“And what did he say?” said I, thinking, no doubt, that my Harry’s wisdom had made the Italian ashamed of himself.
Harry laughed again, but grew rather red. “Word for word what I used to say when I was explaining to myself why I did not go and ask you from your Aunt Connor. I hope they’ll have as good an issue as we have had, Milly, darling,” said Harry, “But here’s some extraordinary mistake again. Either we’re mistaken in our guess, which I can’t think possible, or poor Luigi’s dreadfully mistaken in the laws of England and of civilised life. Perhaps he thinks our being Protestants makes an end of law. I can’t tell what he thinks, nor what to think of the whole concern. He refuses my mediation, Milly; at least he tells me I am wrong.”
“Wrong in what particular?” I asked eagerly.
Harry shook his head. “I can’t tell; but he will not hear of any compensation, or of giving up his pursuit of that poor old lady. When he saw what I meant he grew very hot and angry, and asked if I meant to insult him, but afterwards said to himself, ‘It is in ignorance,’ with a sort of magnanimity which would be simply ridiculous according to my notion of the affair. They’ll have it out their own way, Milly. We can’t interfere, that’s clear; only I wish there was some light thrown upon it,” said Harry, “before I went away, that I might know what your fortune is likely to be. What would you say if this grand Park of yours turned out to be no inheritance for us at all?”
“I should not break my heart; but what could he have to do with the Park?” cried I. “If he were Mr. Mortimer’s son, why should Miss Mortimer be so troubled about it? and how could he, if he is Miss Mortimer’s——”
“Hush, Milly; we don’t know anything about it. Let’s talk of our own concerns,” said Harry, with a sigh. These words plunged me back again into the mood from which Sara had roused me. The other things went like shadows—this was the real life which belonged to us.
Chapter XIII.
I DON’T remember very well after that how these outside affairs went on. I used to see them both, of course. Sara came to me almost every day, and sometimes helped with my work, and sometimes played with baby, and sometimes would read aloud to me when Harry was out. She meant it very well and was very good, and a comfort, as much as that was possible. I remember being glad when she read, and did not talk, for then I was free to my own thoughts. I daresay, thinking it over since, that it must have been the fascination of seeing her constantly, which for that interval took precedence of everything in Luigi’s mind, and kept him inactive; for I heard from Aunt Milly that he had not been to the Park again, nor heard of in any way, so far as she knew. And Miss Mortimer had been ailing too, and had very bad nights, and had been a whole week that she did not come downstairs. I heard all these things at the time without taking any notice of them. Harry, after finding himself so unsuccessful with Luigi, had given it all up; and we were both too much occupied with our own concerns to think of anything else. We did not talk much of what was to happen when he was gone. It had come to be tacitly concluded that I was to go with Aunt Milly; and, I suppose, that thought that crossed Harry’s mind after his conversation with Luigi,—“What if the Park should turn out to be no inheritance of ours after all?”—had passed away again as it came. I can’t say I ever thought of the Park at that time one way or another; and I am sure what Harry was glad for me to have, was not the prospect of a great fortune, but the presence of a dear friend.
One day he rode out to see Aunt Milly, and take leave of her. He saw them both, he told me, but nothing passed that I cared to inquire into. We had a great deal to do, which helped us to pull through these days. It was such a difficulty to get those things which I had collected, packed. Harry’s servant came, and puffed and scratched his head over them, and poor Domenico came up to help; and what with his broad laughs and pantomime, and his determination to get everything in, and his cheerfulness over all his failures, and the ludicrous way in which he and Thomson addressed each other, each in his own language, and abused each other too, even I was obliged to laugh, and the assistants were all kept in good-humour. I felt as if it had been very dark all these days—often raining, always cloudy, the streets muddy and uncomfortable, and the air stifling. I can’t tell whether it was so in reality, but it certainly seemed so to me.
Then the very last day came. Harry was specially busy all that day; there were all the men to look after, and he was acting adjutant. I went out by myself to see whether I could not find anything else he might want. It was very fatiguing walking—I suppose it was a rainy day. When I came in I felt very faint, and sat down in a chair in the hall for an instant to recover myself. I can’t tell how Luigi knew that I was there; but he came out to the door of his room, and stood looking at me for a moment. I got up, being jealous that anybody should see me break down, just then; but he held up his hand as if to beg me to stay.
“May I say how I think of you?” he said. “Just now you are never out of my mind, you and that brave Langham. Patience, patience! such men come back—they come back!”
“Oh, hush, hush, hush!” I cried. I could say nothing more, and pressed past him to go upstairs.
He put his hand on mine when I laid it on the rail of the stairs, detaining me. “We are cousins,” he said, softly; “do not put me away. In my country we say cousin-brother—it does not matter, it is the same. I will be your brother if you will let me. Tell him. I am not to be ashamed of; he knows not; but if she will not do what is right, soon all the world must know. I am your brother, at your disposition. Say it to him. I will not come to say farewell to disturb you—but tell him; he shall trust me, and you may want a brother; we are of one blood.”
“Oh, let me go!” I cried. “I can’t ask you how this is. I can’t thank you, though I am sure it is kindness. I can’t think of anything to-day; let me go.”
Luigi kissed my hand, and let me go. It startled me very much for the moment. I rushed upstairs, feeling as if he had been rude to me;—but indeed he had not been rude to me, nor anything the least like it. But it startled me into realizing all that was going to happen. That I should be alone as to-morrow. I remember running and clutching at the blinds which were down, and drawing them up with great haste, and almost passion. It seemed to me as if that dim light were predicting something; as if the furniture standing about was looking on, and knew what was going to be. Now the time was come; I had gone over it and over it in my fancy; this would be the last of my rehearsals; to-morrow Harry would be away.
And the to-morrow came, as they always do. I did not feel in the least diminished in my strength. I did not feel I had any body at all that morning. I went with him to the railway steadily, you may suppose. I would not lose a moment of the time we were to be together in any folly about myself. I remember him saying something about me going home alone, and all that, as men will do. But I did not lose sight of him till the last moment when the train disappeared into the tunnel; and I can’t tell how long I stood there watching, after it had vanished into that darkness. Now he was gone! Another train came up, and the crowd disturbed me standing there all by myself. I did not feel as if it were true; but I went away all the same. I said to myself, over and over again, “He is gone;” but it did me no good. I went out of the railway not believing in it. Outside there was a cab waiting for me. But Domenico rushed forward to open the door, and somehow they had contrived that Lizzie and baby should be there to take me home. I heard afterwards that Luigi and Domenico were both watching close by all the time, in case I should faint, or something. I suppose they thought I would faint, not knowing any better. Lizzie’s great eyes, panic-struck, gazing in my face, full of tears that she durst not let fall, struck me quite strangely when I got into the cab; and then little Harry stretched out his arms to me—and then——. But even at the worst it was not so dreadful as I thought it would be. I was not sitting blind and desperate, with all the world dark before me. No, no; and God forgive me for thinking I should. Harry was living and well, and gone to do his duty; and this was his boy smiling in my face, and the sun was shining——. And I had to live, and to be patient, and to pray.
When we got home, Aunt Milly’s kind face, anxiously gazing out of the window, was the first thing I saw. She came running downstairs to take me in her arms; she seemed to think it strange I could walk in so steadily, and did not want any support. Sara was upstairs too. I have no doubt it was kind, the kindest thing possible; but I felt dreadfully fatigued, somehow, with that morning’s work. I could have liked to have been by myself a little. I went to my own room to put off my bonnet, and sat down with a kind of pang of comfort. I thought I was glad it was over; and then my eye fell on Harry’s old scarf—and somehow the silence came ringing about my ears with no “Milly, darling!” sounding through it: and I began to see it was true, and he was away.
When Aunt Milly came stealing into the room after me, she dropped down by my side where I was kneeling, and put her kind arms round my waist. “Yes, dear, cry!” said Aunt Milly, “it will do you good!” But I did not cry after that—I was better. I was glad it was over now.
We waited till we had a message by the telegraph to say the ship was just sailing out of the Mersey; for Harry had stopped with me till the very last moment. And then we went away. I remember everything so clearly that happened that day. I remember how the sun kept shining, and how they all looked at me as if I had been ill, and had to be watched and cared for at every step. It was all very new to me. In the hall, as we were going away, Luigi came up to me again. Aunt Milly had made me take her arm; not that I needed it, but she seemed to think I ought to need it. Luigi came and took my hand. “Remember!” he said, “I am your brother, at your disposition, till he comes back.” I don’t think I made him any answer; for the very sight of him made Aunt Milly tremble. He went out after us to put us into the carriage, and somehow managed to do it, though Aunt Milly was afraid of him. He put her in last of all, and kissed her hand. Aunt Milly did not say anything to me for a long time after. She kept gazing out of the carriage windows as long as she could see Luigi; and I have a kind of consciousness that he stood there, with his hat off, as long as we could be seen on the road. For the moment she had returned into her own trouble and forgotten mine. I leaned out of the other window, and felt the wind on my face. Ah, God send the winds were safe upon the sea! He was gone—really gone. I was not even to hear of him for a long time; and when I was to see him, God knew alone. I was swept out of his sight, and he out of mine, as if we did not belong to each other. There was only One now, in heaven or earth, that at the same moment could see him and me. When I thought of that it melted all my heart. Our Father, the only father we two had, saw us both, with no boundaries between us—all that time when I could neither see nor hear of Harry, God was my link to my husband. He knew. We were both in His eye if we were worlds asunder. There, we were near to each other, however else we might be separate. The impression came so strong upon me that for a moment I could not say I was less than glad. No distance in the world, though it put us for a time out of sight of each other, could ever put us out of the sight of God.
Chapter XIV.
NOBODY will be surprised when I say, that, after this, things got into their usual way very soon, and that when the event was over, everything subsided round it, and soon Aunt Milly began to forget that I was the invalid (in spirit) whom she had taken such tender care of, and brought back all her budget of perplexities and troubles to pour them into my ear; and after a day or two’s retirement in my own room, which was an ease to me, I went downstairs and about, and took a share in everything. Miss Mortimer had got better of her illness, if illness it was. She sat within the screen as usual, doing her knitting, and not taking much notice of anybody. I don’t know whether she had really suffered in her health, but it seemed to me that she got thinner, and that sometimes there was a gleam of fiery restrained excitement in her eyes, which were rather cold eyes by nature. We were told that she still had very bad nights; and I am sure, two or three times when I met poor Carson by accident, it took all my self-control to keep me from speaking to her, and begging her to deliver herself, somehow, from this dreadful yoke. I never saw exhaustion and a kind of weak despair so written upon anybody’s face. These bad nights, whatever they might be to the mistress, must have been murderous work to the poor maid.
“My dear,” said Aunt Milly, “I shall never forget that young man’s look as he put me into the carriage, and kissed my hand.” Aunt Milly held out her plump soft hand as she spoke, and looked at it. “They have a habit of doing so, these Italians. But if you will believe me, Milly, it was actually an affectionate look the poor young fellow gave me; and I have never asked you what he meant; he was your brother, he said. My dear, what did he mean? Ah, I remember how disappointed I was to find that he was not your brother, and Richard Mortimer’s son. That would have been such a happy solution of everything! but tell me why he called himself your brother? Was it only sympathy, Milly?”
“He said we were of the same blood; he said we were relations,” said I, with some hesitation.
The book she had been reading fell out of Aunt Milly’s hand. “Relations!” she cried, faltering and growing pale; “then, Milly, there can be no doubt at all about it. Milly, I tell you he must be my father’s son; how could you be relations? And indeed, indeed,” cried Aunt Milly, growing more and more agitated, “I can’t bear this any longer. Now you are with me to support me, I must take it into my own hands. I will go and write to him this moment, and ask him down here to clear it all up. Don’t say anything—I must do it; it is impossible to go on living in this way.”
“But Miss Mortimer?” said I.
“Miss Mortimer?” cried Aunt Milly, with a little scream, that was almost hysterical, “what can my sister Sarah have to do with it? It is no harder upon her than it is upon me. If he is my father’s son, how can she be mixed up in it? And how can you and he be relations unless he is my father’s son? Don’t speak to me, Milly. He shall come here and tell it all, and at least we shall know what there is to fear.”
“But if she were too much excited it might make her ill,” said I, dreading that visit, without knowing anything to say against it.
“I can’t help it!” cried Aunt Milly, “I am desperate. Think of living and enjoying what doesn’t belong to you! Oh, Milly, Milly! what do you think I must do? I never was in secrets and mysteries before; it’s dreadful to me; and Sarah would not yield to tell what she’s kept hidden so long, not for her life. We’ll see how she looks to-night. I did not think she looked any worse than usual. I would not hurt her, you may be sure, not for any relief to myself; but we can’t go on with this hanging over us, Milly,” she said, with faltering lips. “I’ll write to-morrow; I certainly will write to-morrow. Relations! My dear, dear child, it will be a dreadful disappointment to you; but that is as good as proof.”
Poor Aunt Milly! she was desperate, as she said; and what good it would do writing, or asking, or even demanding anything, that one of the people who knew it would guard at the cost of her life, and the other would disclose only at his own time, I could not see. Luigi had refused to tell her already; he would not tell Sara Cresswell. He was waiting a permission that never, never in this world would be given. And he, too, must be deluded. What could he think our laws or our principles were if he could have any rights, but those of shame? It was all a mystery; I could see that Aunt Milly’s idea was quite a false one. But I dared not tell her that idea of my own, which, perhaps, for anything I knew, might prove as false as hers.
That morning I went out with Lizzie and my boy. He could walk now along the sunny road holding my finger, and trot after his own little shadow, and try to catch the motes in the sunshine, as I suppose all babies do—but, to be sure, it is just as original and strange in every child that does it, for all that. I was walking by him, very tranquil and even contented in my mind. There had been very quiet weather; and little Harry was so well and so beautiful; and I felt so much more as if I could trust my Harry himself in God’s hands without trembling for him every moment, that my heart opened out a little to the beautiful day. I don’t know that I should have borne to see Domenico, much less to speak to him, but for that——
For there was Domenico, unmistakably, on the edge of the common. He was dressed in a white linen suit, all white, as if he wanted to make his enormous bulk and his black beard as remarkable as possible in this beardless and sober-minded country. It was warm weather now, and I daresay he thought the hot summer was coming as in his own home. Baby, with whom he had always been a favourite, gave a little shout at sight of him, and tottered forward a step or two. Of course Domenico’s hat had been in his hand from the first moment he saw me. He threw it down on the grass now, and seized little Harry, and tossed him up in his arms. I was afraid of this play, but my brave boy was not; he actually boxed at Lizzie with his little fists when I begged Domenico to set him down.
“Pardon,” said Domenico; “I—me—make demand of the signora, pardon—it pleases to the piccolo signorino beebee. I—Domenico—here—this,” said the great fellow, punching his breast, that I might be quite sure of the person he meant, “take joy in heart for see the signora another time.”
“Thank you, Domenico,” said I. “I shall never forget how kind you have been. What is it that brings you here?”
Domenico pointed round to various points of the compass, not seeming sure which to fix upon, and then burst into a great laugh at himself. “It pleases to the signora to pardon,” said Domenico; “when not to have the book not clevare to make the speak. Here is the master of me.”
“Your master, Domenico?—where?” cried I.
Once more Domenico looked round to all the points of the compass. “He here—he here—puff—Ecco!—he move far away—to make the time go. Here my master come to make the visit—the signora not to know the other signora? Yes, yes; in that large big palazzo of not any colour. Behold! The my master there go.”
“Who is he going to see there?” asked I, with some anxiety.
Domenico held up his hand with many elaborate gestures of caution and silence. Then he bent his enormous person forward and stooped to my ear. When he spoke it was in a whisper. “It is need to speak silent—silent! The signora contessa,” said Domenico, with half-important, half-guilty air of one who communicates a secret. I drew back from him in utter bewilderment—what could he mean?
“There is no contessa there, Domenico,” said I, in my ordinary tone; “your master is deceived.”
Domenico held up his hand with an evident entreaty that I would be cautious. Then he looked back upon Lizzie, the only person in sight. “I not fear for the Lizzie,” said Domenico; and then launched forth into a half-whispered description of the contessa, whoever that might be. But I confess that Domenico’s description, being Italian whenever he warmed, and only when he slackened and recollected himself falling into such English as he was capable of, was difficult to make out. I fully entered into Lizzie’s feeling, that it was “awfu’ fickle to ken what he meant when it was a long story.” I remained profoundly bewildered, and unable to make out one word in ten.
As for learning anything about the contessa—poor fellow!—or, rather, it was his master that was to be pitied—evidently here was some new mistake, some additional impediment to the finding out of this mystery. I left Lizzie with little Harry on the common, and went rather sadly home. This little bit of apparent foolishness naturally set me all astray as to the mysterious business which had cost us so much thought. Was it a mistake of Domenico’s perhaps? for Luigi and Miss Mortimer had actually met, and there could be no mistake there.
When I looked back that great white apparition was keeping Lizzie company on the common. They were a strange couple; but I cannot say I had any such doubts or fears concerning Domenico’s attendance, as a proper mistress ought to have had. I flattered myself Lizzie was a great deal too young to take any harm. She stood with her red-brown hair a little blown about her eyes: her clear, sanguine complexion, her angular and still awkward figure, looking up at the man-monster beside her, and holding up her hand to shade her eyes from the sun, which was shining in her face. While Domenico, with all his great proportions expanded by his white dress, impended over her, his smiling mouth opening in the midst of his black beard, an outre extraordinary foreign figure, enough to drive any staid English village out of its propriety. I remember the picture they made as distinctly as possible, with the green common surrounding them, and the gorse bushes all bursting into flower; and my own beautiful baby tottering about the fragrant grass. I was quite secure in Lizzie’s love and Domenico’s kindness. I went away with a smile at the curious group upon that soft English common—both figures alien to the soil—and with a tenderness in my breast to them both. Domenico had made himself well understood in another language, if not in that of ordinary spoken communications. I shall always have a kindness to his whole nation for that good fellow’s sake.
As I paused at the gate of the Park, I saw another figure advancing by an opposite road. I recognised Luigi in a moment. He was coming hurriedly down between the green hedges, no doubt coming to pay that visit of which Domenico had warned me. I rushed in, with all the eagerness of a child, to get my bonnet off and be in the drawing-room before he came.
Chapter XV.
WHEN I reached the drawing-room, after throwing off my bonnet and arranging my hair in the most breathless haste, terrified to hear the summons at the door before I was downstairs, I was thunderstruck to find Sara Cresswell there. The sight of her made an end of my awkward feeling of shame for my own haste and curiosity. Surely this was nothing less than a crisis that was coming. Sara had just arrived, and was explaining the reasons for her visit in such a very fluent and demonstrative way, that I could see at once they were all made up, and some motive entirely different from those she mentioned had brought her. She was still in her hat and velvet jacket, seated rather on the edge of her chair, talking very volubly, but looking breathless and anxious, while Aunt Milly, who was sitting in her own place, opposite her sister, and near the fireplace, looked at her, perplexed and uncertain, evidently rather suspicious of the many motives which had procured us this visit; which, if Sara had only said nothing about it, would have been received as a delightful surprise, and wanted no accounting for. It was evidently a great relief to Sara when I came in; she came to kiss me, turning her face away from Aunt Milly, and caught hold of me so tight, and gave me such a troubled, emphatic look, that even if I had not heard before, I should have known something was coming. I stood by her breathless for a moment, wondering why the door-bell did not ring,—Luigi had certainly had abundant time to have got to the door,—and then went up to the other end of the room on pretence of finding my work; while Sara, instead of following me, dropped into her chair again, evidently too nervous, too anxious, too eager to see the first of it and lose nothing, to do anything but sit still. We were both traitors and plotters. She had come to watch something that was about to happen, but which the principal person concerned did not know. While I, more cruel still, took my trembling way up to the other end of the apartment, and stationed myself behind Aunt Milly, that I might not lose a look or word from Miss Mortimer. I felt ashamed of myself, but I could not help it. I felt a kind of conviction that this was to be the decisive day.
But still there was no sound at the door; there was time to look round all the peaceable vast room, and be struck by the quietness, the repose of the scene in which some act of this mysterious drama was about to be enacted. It was always very light here, but the bright day and the sunshine out of doors, made it now even lighter than usual, and refused to any of us the slightest shade for our faces, whatever undue expression might come to them. Sara had adopted the only expedient possible, by turning her back upon the light, and had, besides, a little shelter in her hat. But dear Aunt Milly, looking at her favourite with a troubled inquiring expression, and laying down the work she had in hand in order to examine Sara’s countenance the better, was so fully set forth in all her looks, movements, and almost feelings, by that broad clear day-light, that I shrank back from it in spite of myself, fearing that it would betray me too. The only shadow in the room was that afforded by Miss Mortimer’s screen. She sat there just as usual, in her violet-coloured dress, her light muslin embroidered scarf, worn without any lining, now that the weather was warm, and her pretty cap, with ribbons corresponding to her dress; her head moving so slightly that it was difficult to perceive the motion; her pattern-book open on her knee, her head bent over it. At this moment, when the thunders of Providence were just about to break over her, she sat there, with her head over her knitting-book, counting her stitches, and trying a new pattern. When I saw how she was occupied, my own trembling pretence at work fell from my hands. I gazed at her openly with a wonder which was almost awe. My heart cried out against her in her dread composure. The Avenger was coming, and there she sat, all conscious, aware, in every nerve, of her guilt, and yet able to maintain that hideous calm. Yes! it would have been sublime had she been a good woman, threatened by some undeserved doom. I declare it was ghastly, devilish, dreadful to me!
All this time nobody came to the door. I daresay, perhaps, it was not very many minutes after all; but in the excitement and suspense it seemed a very long time to me. And either the house was specially quiet, or there was something in my agitated condition which made me think so. Miss Mortimer never lifted her head; if she had not been so engaged with her pattern, surely she would have noticed the perplexed looks of Aunt Milly, and my excited face. But she did not, she kept working on at her new stitch. We all relapsed into perfect silence; Sara’s voluble excuses for herself died all at once off her lips. Aunt Milly dropped into a strange anxious silence, looking at her. As for myself, I could not have spoken a word whatever had been the consequences. Sara’s nervous motion of her foot on the carpet startled me so much that I had nearly committed myself by some cry of agitation. It was a dread, inexplainable pause, which nobody dared either break or account for. Dead silence and expectation. And Miss Mortimer bending her head over her pattern-book counting the loops for her new stitch.
The bell did not ring. If it had rung it must have startled us all so much as to diminish the sense of what was coming; there was no such premonition;—a little sound of steps and subdued voices in the hall made my heart beat so loud that I felt sure my Aunt Milly must have heard it. Sara looked up at me suddenly when that sound became audible. Her face was perfectly colourless, and her hands firmly clasped together.
“Children, what is it?” said Aunt Milly, with a sharp frightened cry, breaking off suddenly in a troubled manner as the steps drew nearer. Miss Mortimer lifted her head from her book. She looked up, she looked full at me; she smiled. She was listening, but she was not afraid.
When suddenly the door was thrown open; Ellis called out, with his fullest voice: “The Count Sormonata,” and somebody came in. I cannot tell who it was that came in. I heard Sara cry out with a kind of shriek and repeat the name, “The Count Sermoneta!” The work and the book and all the trifling matters about her fell off from Miss Mortimer. She rose up, clenching her hand, ghastly, like a dead woman. She cried out in a voice I shall never forget: “he is dead, dead!” she cried, with the wildest scream and outcry. “I tell you, he is dead, dead! My God, he is dead! Will nobody believe me?” shrieked out the miserable woman. Her sister ran to her, and was thrust away with those terrible clenched hands. But she never turned to look, nor cast aside her screen that hid the new comer from her. She stood still like some frightful statue, rigid, with her wild eyes fixed upon the air before her—heaven knows what she might see there!—listening in some frightful agony to the steps that came slowly up the room. When that scream burst from her the footsteps faltered and stopped. Then Miss Mortimer looked at me, the only creature she saw before her, and laughed a dreadful laugh of madness and misery. “He knows it!” she cried out, triumphantly, “if you did not, he does. He is dead, dead!” and then came to another dreadful pause, leaning her clenched hands upon the table and fixing her wild eyes upon something straight before her. While I followed the mad stare of her eyes with a shudder I could not refrain, another person came with noiseless rapidity into the spot she was gazing on. It was not a spectre—it was simply Luigi, from whose face agitation had banished all the colour, and who stood trembling and speechless, wringing his hands, and gazing at her with an unspeakable appeal and entreaty. She did not say anything more; she stood with her eyes full opened and staring wide, leaning her hands on that table. I believe, if anybody had touched her, she would have fallen. I almost believed, while I looked at her, that she had died standing, and that it was a lifeless form that stood fixed in that horrible erect attitude, fronting us all, fronting a thousand times more than us, all the guilt and sins of her life. I gave a cry myself in the extremity of my terror and trouble. I went to her, I cannot tell how, stumbling over Aunt Milly, who had either fallen or fainted, or I cannot tell what. I went and put my arm round that dreadful ghastly figure. It was not her I was approaching, but it, the terrible mask and image of her. I had not a thought but that she was dead.
When I touched her, she fell, as I had thought she would. But so strong an impression did her dreadful appearance have upon me, that, when her figure sank into the chair and showed some elasticity, instead of going down on the floor, crumbling down, dropping to pieces, as somehow I had expected, I was struck with a horrible fear and surprise. She was not dead. I called out to them all, what were we to do? and she seemed to hear me. I saw, with a terror I cannot explain, her terrible eyes turn from Luigi—they looked at me, at Aunt Milly, they cast a glance over the room. Was it that the spirit was living and the body dead?
I cannot tell what we did for a dreadful interval after that. Carson came into the confused crowd. Luigi disappeared to find a doctor, and we tried to get her lifted and laid upon the sofa. But though she neither moved nor spoke, and scarcely seemed to breathe, she resisted, in some dreadful way, and would not be removed. I shall never forget that dreadful face; when I am ill it comes back to me, a recollection never to be banished;—dead—yet never consenting to die, keeping alive, determined, resolute, unshaken. I can see the discoloured lips begin to move, the words formed on the inarticulate tongue, the eyes lightening out of that fixed stare. Half the house had stolen into the room in this dreadful emergency without anybody observing them. But the dead woman observed them. And I, who was standing nearest, recoiled from her side, and the whole circle round her broke up and fell back in speechless horror, when a sound broke from that dreadful convulsed mouth. Old Carson, trembling but faithful, stood by her mistress. The poor creature said she understood that sound. It was to send everybody away, said the woman, whose limbs would scarcely support her, and whose very teeth chattered. They all went away, terrified but curious; the boldest lingered behind the screen. Nobody remained within sight of those dreadful eyes but Aunt Milly and me. We two stood huddled on each other, not daring to say a word, or even to exchange looks. Carson stood by her mistress’s side. Carson knew all and everything, more than we knew. She held some cordial to the dead lips, she chafed the ghastly hand, she gazed with pitiful eyes and tears and entreaties at the terrible face. This woman was not deserted in her terrible necessity. The voice of that humble love reached somehow to the springs of existence, and she came back slowly, in a solemn, fearful waking, out of death into life. We stood looking on, with an awe and terror impossible to describe. It was a miracle slowly enacting before us. She was dead and was alive again. Ghastly and dreadful, like a woman out of the grave, Miss Mortimer woke up to all her misery again.
Chapter XVI.
THIS extraordinary revival was going on when the doctor rushed in. Carson, who had been the principal person in all this scene, rushed at him and drew him back. She kept her hand on his arm, detained him, ran into voluble but trembling explanations. When he came forward the doctor gazed with a troubled face at the patient. A fainting fit brought on by great agitation; nobody could give any other account of it; he felt her pulse, and prescribed, and lingered, and looked at us all with mingled inquiry and suspicion. What had we been doing to her? Why had she not been removed to bed? A flash came from the awakening eyes. She made a motion of her hand, waving him away, then looked at me, and pointed vaguely but imperatively before her. When I did not obey immediately, she repeated the question, and at last spoke, with great evident pain, impatience, and imperiousness: “Bring him?” were those the words? She was so imperative, so fiercely determined, that I hastened out to call Luigi. I found him at the door watching, very pale, and in profound distress. He came in after me without saying a word; he went up to her without waiting for me, and knelt down at her feet, and took her hands in his own. “Mother! Mother!” cried the young man. If it did not go to her heart, it went to the heart of every other person present; and Aunt Milly, with a great cry of amazement and terror, repeated it after him, “Mother!” But who could think of any discovery then? The doctor stood listening, thunderstruck, behind the screen. I believe Sara Cresswell was in the room. But we who were round about this terrible figure could observe nothing else, except the dread inarticulate waves of passion that kept rising in her dead face. She thrust at her son with a wild motion of her bloodless hands as if to put him away. She questioned him with her eyes in such frantic impatience, because he could not understand her, that the sight was more than I could bear. I fell back from her trembling and like to faint. Then her will got the better of her weakness. She cried out aloud, with a voice that I am sure could have been heard all over the house;—it was not a living voice; it rang out wild, and loud, and hard, in separate words,—“Where is he?—he? dead! let him come. I know he is dead, let him come;—Count!” and here the terrible voice rose and broke in a wild horror of babbling cries. God help us! It was a dreadful scene. Aunt Milly stood supporting herself by a chair, unable to utter a word or even to move. I was afraid to stir, lest I should faint and fall on the floor. Carson only stood close by her mistress, supporting her head and gazing with wistful eyes at Luigi; the young man stumbled up from his knees in an agony of pity and horror. He held up his hands in wild appeal, whether to her, or to us, or only to God, I cannot tell. “It is my father!” he cried. “She thinks it was my father; and I am to blame!” Then he knelt down again humbly at her feet, and held up his clasped hands to her as if he were praying. I think he must have done it with an intention of drawing her attention by any means, and to prove to her that it was the truth he said.
“Mother,” he cried, looking up at those eyes which had returned, and were fixed upon him,—“mother, I am your son! My father is dead and undisturbed in his grave; he has sent me to his wife. It is I, it is no other. He is with the saints, where there are no names. It is I who am Sermoneta; mother! Oh, heaven, does she not hear me? will she not hear me? It was I, only I. It was Luigi, Countess! If I must not bear your name, I must bear my own. I say it was I, not my father, who can neither do evil nor endure it,—me, either Luigi Sermoneta or Lewis Mortimer, as you will,—your son!”
It is impossible to describe the effect this had upon us all. Aunt Milly burst forth into weeping, convulsive, and not to be restrained. Poor Carson’s bosom heaved with silent sobs. Luigi, who had risen up as he said these last words, stood erect in a passionate self-assertion and defence before his miserable mother. Even she changed under this sudden blaze of revelation. She sat up in her chair, and grew more human; her rigid head began to tremble, her dread-eyes to lose their horror. Now it was no longer that mad ghastly stare with which she regarded the young man before her. She looked at him, leaning forward, slowly recovering her powers. Some convulsive gasps or sobs in her throat alone interrupted this pause of terrible silence. She looked at him, from head to foot, with a slow, dismal scrutiny. Only once before in her life had she met him face to face; then she had been strong enough to send him away and disown him. Now, perforce, the mother looked at her son. The young man trembled under that steady gaze; he held out his hands, and cried out “Mother!” as if all the eloquence in the world lay in that word. She continued perusing him all over with that slow examination. Gradually she returned to be herself again. Not changed, not subdued! Out of that death and agony there came forth, not a repentant woman, but Sarah Mortimer, a creature who would not believe in everlasting truth and justice—not though one should rise from the dead.
“If you are Count Sermoneta,” she said, with all her old expression, pausing between the words to get strength, but speaking in her usual voice, “how do you dare come to me and offer what your father refused? Impostor! you shall never, never, never sit in my father’s place! I disown you. I—I have nothing to do with you. What! would you kill me again?”
Here I interposed; I could not help myself. My very soul sickened at her. I came forward, without knowing what I was doing. “Let her alone,” I cried out, “don’t say anything. She has died and come alive again, and is no better. Do you think you can move her? Oh, Aunt Milly, it is your part now. Take him away out of her sight, leave her alone in her wretchedness. Can you bear to see her smiling there?—smiling at us! She is dead, and it is a devil that has come into her frame!”
“Milly, hush, hush, you are mad,” cried Sara Cresswell, behind me; but Aunt Milly did not think I was mad. She came and put her arm into Luigi’s, her tears driven away by horror and indignation. “As sure as God sees us all,” cried Aunt Milly, “I will do you justice. Come away from her, as Milly, says. You make her wickeder and wickeder—Oh, wickeder than she really is! Oh, Sarah,” she cried out, turning suddenly round, “is it true?—is he your son?”
Miss Mortimer said nothing;—the very colour had returned to her face. Her head trembled excessively, but she had forced some frightful caricature of a smile upon her lip. She held out her hand and pointed at them in a kind of derision. “You were always a fool,” she said at last, with a gasp. Aunt Milly did not wait or hesitate any longer. She was possessed, like me, with a sudden impatience and intolerance of that inhuman hard-heartedness. She went away hastily out of the room, drawing Luigi with her. Miss Mortimer listened to the sound of their steps till it had quite died away. Then she turned round to Carson with some instinctive confession of weakness at last. Their eyes met; but even Carson could no longer receive this dreadful confidence. She stumbled back from her mistress with a cry. “I cannot, I cannot!” cried Carson, “anything but this. I held him in my arms a baby, and I’ll never disown him, if I was to die.” As her mistress turned round upon her, Carson retreated back till she came to the wall, and stood there, fixed and desperate, holding up her hands as if to keep off those pursuing eyes. “Whatever you please!” cried Carson, “but not to disown him as I dressed the first day he was in this world. No! not for no payment nor coaxing! I’ve served you faithful all times and seasons, but I’ll not do no more, not if I was to die!”
Miss Mortimer sat gazing at her rebellious maid. What no other appeal could do this did. She sank into the frail old woman she was, as she gazed at Carson, who had forsaken her. She broke forth into feeble, passionate tears. She could bear to send her son away from her, but she could not bear to lose her faithful companion and attendant of forty years. “Carson!” cried the broken voice, in a tone of absolute despair. Then Miss Mortimer rose up. I ran forward to her in terror, and so did Sara, but she waved us both away, steadied herself, cast a long look upon the woman who stood trembling against the wall, and slowly turned to make her way out of the room. She walked like some one upon whom sudden blindness had fallen, wavering, stopping to steady herself, putting out her hand to pilot the way, groping through the piercing daylight that penetrated every corner of the room. We followed her, trembling and terrified. As she went slowly through the long room, heavy sobs came from her poor breast, sobs of which she was not conscious; her muslin scarf had been torn and crushed in her dreadful faint, if it was a faint, and hung all dishevelled from her shoulders. One hand hung loosely down by her side, the other she groped with as she made her way. Now and then she moaned aloud. Oh, miserable forsaken creature! there had been still one link of life to hold her on to the living world.
We went after her, silent, hushing our very steps lest she should turn upon us, and watching with a perfect awe of wonder how she steered herself through the room; she stumbled on the stair, but still rejected any assistance. All the way up she went forlorn, accepting no support. When we reached her door, I rushed forward not to let her shut me out. “Let me be your maid to-night,” I cried out, laying my hand upon hers. Her hand made me shiver; it was cold, as if it had actually been dead. She pushed me back, not looking at me, and shut the door. What she did, or how she sustained herself in that vacant room, we could see no longer. Sara and I, arrested at the door, turned and looked into each other’s faces. Sara broke out into the passionate tears of excitement and agitation which could be restrained no longer. “She will kill herself!” cried Sara. “Oh, godmamma, let me in, let me in. I will never cross you or trouble you. I will wait upon you night and day, godmamma!” No answer came. We tried to open the door, but she had fastened it. We could do nothing but leave her alone in this dreadful solitude. For a little while a rustling sound of motion was in the room, and still those pathetic, unconscious moans breaking at intervals into the silence. But after a while all became still. She had not fainted or fallen, for we should have heard her. She made no answer to our entreaties—dead silence reigned in the room where that living spirit, with all its dread forces and passions, palpitated within its veil of worn-out flesh. I could imagine her taking possession of that dreadful solitude, losing at a blow far more than reputation or fair-fame, all that made her life tolerable to her, entering upon a new, unthought of, murderous purgatory. We could not make up our minds to leave that closed door. Sara was still crying, and almost hysterical with her long strain of excitement. I made her go into the neighbouring room, where Lizzie was with my boy, while I ran downstairs for Aunt Milly. Oh, what a contrast it was! I snatched little Harry into my arms to kiss him, and went away again, with a pity, I cannot describe, past the door where that dreadful forsaken woman lay alone in the silence. I could not bear it. God alone knew how she had sinned; but to leave her thus deserted in her misery was not in the heart of man.
I ran downstairs very hastily without waiting to think—at the foot of the stairs Carson stood crying. She gasped out an inquiry at me which was not audible at first. “Is she alone? alone? alone? Will nobody stay with her?” cried Carson. “Oh, ma’am, my missis will never let me near her again! I know it’s no use trying; but, for the love of mercy, let somebody get into the room! There’s poisons and all sorts there. God forgive me! couldn’t I have held my tongue?” cried the poor woman, in an agony of terror. I was angry with her in the impatience of my thoughts. I did not consider for how many long years Carson had endured all.
“But why can’t you go up now? try if she will let you in; she is fond of you, Carson,” said I. “Oh, go, go, and try.”
“She’ll never look at me more,” said Carson with mournful certainty; “but I’ll go, I’ll try. If it was at the end of the world, I’d go; but she’ll never see me again.” The poor woman went upstairs saying this over to herself, and dreadful as it was to think so, I was certain she was right.
And I went on to the library where Aunt Milly was. She had forgotten her sister. She was listening, with a glowing face, with tears, and outcries, and lamentations, to the tale Luigi told her. Some papers were lying before them, and a miniature, which caught my eye even at such a moment—a picture of a lovely fair woman, imperious and splendid. I cannot say that it bore any resemblance to the wretched, solitary creature upstairs; but I knew it was Sarah Mortimer,—Sarah Mortimer, unkind, untrue, a woman making no account of love or tenderness; but not the Sarah Mortimer who had delivered herself to the devil, and turned her back upon nature. I pointed at it unconsciously in my excitement. It was easier than naming her name.
“Do you know she is alone upstairs, by herself?” cried I, “perhaps dying, and nobody with her! Aunt Milly, you are her sister. She will neither let us in, nor answer us. You have a right to go to her. There are all kinds of dangerous things in the room—she might die!”
“But Carson—Carson is there,” cried Aunt Milly, grasping my hand, to bring me to myself. “My dear, Carson is a better companion than either you or me.”
“But Carson has gone,” I cried, “Carson will never be with her any more. Hush! was that a sound upstairs? Come, I entreat you! She is all alone, quite alone, not a creature with her. It is heartrending to think what she is doing there—come! come!”
Aunt Milly stood perplexed. She could not comprehend Carson’s absence, and I might have had a long account of the whole matter to go through had not Luigi come to my assistance. He took her hand hurriedly, and pressed it in his own.
“My aunt, I can wait,” said Luigi, “and I will till there is time for me; but my mother, my mother is——”
Aunt Milly started, and understood all in a moment. His mother, the unfortunate wretched woman who had disowned and rejected him—no need for over-much explaining, or setting-forth of all the darker shades of the picture to show her wretchedness. Nature and she had parted company, and there was nothing too dreadful that might not befall her in the fatal silence of that secluded room.