A Lady of Quality<br />Being a Most Curious, Hitherto Unknown History, as Related by Mr. Isaac Bicke, Frances Hodgson Burnett [paper ebook reader .txt] 📗

thing He has made, by each who bears His image—ay, and mercy too—but justice always, for justice is mercy’s highest self.”

Who knows the mysteries of the human soul—who knows the workings of the human brain?  The God who is just alone.  In this man’s mind, which was so near a simple beast’s in all its movings, some remote, unborn consciousness was surely reached and vaguely set astir by the clear words thus spoken.

“Clo, Clo!” he cried, “Clo, Clo!” in terror, clutching her the closer, “what dost thou mean?  In all my nine and sixty years—” and rolled his head in agony.

In all his nine and sixty years he had shown justice to no man, mercy to no woman, since he had thought of none but Jeoffry Wildairs; and this truth somehow dimly reached his long-dulled brain and wakened there.

“Down on thy knees, Clo!” he gasped—“down on thy knees!”

It was so horrible, the look struggling in his dying face, that she went down upon her knees that moment, and so knelt, folding his shaking hands within her own against her breast.

“Thou who didst make him as he was born into Thy world,” she said, “deal with that to which Thou didst give life—and death.  Show him in this hour, which Thou mad’st also, that Thou art not Man who would have vengeance, but that justice which is God.”

“Then—then,” he gasped—“then will He damn me!”

“He will weigh thee,” she said; “and that which His own hand created will He separate from that which was thine own wilful wrong—and this, sure, He will teach thee how to expiate.”

“Clo,” he cried again—“thy mother—she was but a girl, and died alone—I did no justice to her!—Daphne!  Daphne!”  And he shook beneath the bed-clothes, shuddering to his feet, his face growing more grey and pinched.

“She loved thee once,” Clorinda said.  “She was a gentle soul, and would not forget.  She will show thee mercy.”

“Birth she went through,” he muttered, “and death—alone.  Birth and death!  Daphne, my girl—”  And his voice trailed off to nothingness, and he lay staring at space, and panting.

The duchess sat by him and held his hand.  She moved not, though at last he seemed to fall asleep.  Two hours later he began to stir.  He turned his head slowly upon his pillows until his gaze rested upon her, as she sat fronting him.  ’Twas as though he had awakened to look at her.

“Clo!” he cried, and though his voice was but a whisper, there was both wonder and wild question in it—“Clo!”

But she moved not, her great eyes meeting his with steady gaze; and even as they so looked at each other his body stretched itself, his lids fell—and he was a dead man.

CHAPTER XXIV—The doves sate upon the window-ledge and lowly cooed and cooed

When they had had ten years of happiness, Anne died.  ’Twas of no violent illness, it seemed but that through these years of joy she had been gradually losing life.  She had grown thinner and whiter, and her soft eyes bigger and more prayerful.  ’Twas in the summer, and they were at Camylott, when one sweet day she came from the flower-garden with her hands full of roses, and sitting down by her sister in her morning-room, swooned away, scattering her blossoms on her lap and at her feet.

When she came back to consciousness she looked up at the duchess with a strange, far look, as if her soul had wandered back from some great distance.

“Let me be borne to bed, sister,” she said.  “I would lie still.  I shall not get up again.”

The look in her face was so unearthly and a thing so full of mystery, that her Grace’s heart stood still, for in some strange way she knew the end had come.

They bore her to her tower and laid her in her bed, when she looked once round the room and then at her sister.

“’Tis a fair, peaceful room,” she said.  “And the prayers I have prayed in it have been answered.  To-day I saw my mother, and she told me so.”

“Anne!  Anne!” cried her Grace, leaning over her and gazing fearfully into her face; for though her words sounded like delirium, her look had no wildness in it.  And yet—“Anne, Anne! you wander, love,” the duchess cried.

Anne smiled a strange, sweet smile.  “Perchance I do,” she said.  “I know not truly, but I am very happy.  She said that all was over, and that I had not done wrong.  She had a fair, young face, with eyes that seemed to have looked always at the stars of heaven.  She said I had done no wrong.”

The duchess’s face laid itself down upon the pillow, a river of clear tears running down her cheeks.

“Wrong!” she said—“you! dear one—woman of Christ’s heart, if ever lived one.  You were so weak and I so strong, and yet as I look back it seems that all of good that made me worthy to be wife and mother I learned from your simplicity.”

Through the tower window and the ivy closing round it, the blueness of the summer sky was heavenly fair; soft, and light white clouds floated across the clearness of its sapphire.  On this Anne’s eyes were fixed with an uplifted tenderness until she broke her silence.

“Soon I shall be away,” she said.  “Soon all will be left behind.  And I would tell you that my prayers were answered—and so, sure, yours will be.”

No man could tell what made the duchess then fall on her knees, but she herself knew.  ’Twas that she saw in the exalted dying face that turned to hers concealing nothing more.

“Anne! Anne!” she cried.  “Sister Anne!  Mother Anne of my children!  You have known—you have known all the years and kept it hid!”

She dropped her queenly head and shielded the whiteness of her face in the coverlid’s folds.

“Ay, sister,” Anne said, coming a little back to earth, “and from the first.  I found a letter near the sun-dial—I guessed—I loved you—and could do naught else but guard you.  Many a day have I watched within the rose-garden—many a day—and night—God pardon me—and night.  When I knew a letter was hid, ’twas my wont to linger near, knowing that my presence would keep others away.  And when you approached—or he—I slipped aside and waited beyond the rose hedge—that if I heard a step, I might make some sound of warning.  Sister, I was your sentinel, and being so, knelt while on my guard, and prayed.”

“My sentinel!” Clorinda cried.  “And knowing all, you so guarded me night and day, and prayed God’s pity on my poor madness and girl’s frenzy!”  And she gazed at her in amaze, and with humblest, burning tears.

“For my own poor self as well as for you, sister, did I pray God’s pity as I knelt,” said Anne.  “For long I knew it not—being so ignorant—but alas!  I loved him too!—I loved him too!  I have loved no man other all my days.  He was unworthy any woman’s love—and I was too lowly for him to cast a glance on; but I was a woman, and God made us so.”

Clorinda clutched her pallid hand.

“Dear God,” she cried, “you loved him!”

Anne moved upon her pillow, drawing weakly, slowly near until her white lips were close upon her sister’s ear.

“The night,” she panted—“the night you bore him—in your arms—”

Then did the other woman give a shuddering start and lift her head, staring with a frozen face.

“What! what!” she cried.

“Down the dark stairway,” the panting voice went on, “to the far cellar—I kept watch again.”

“You kept watch—you?” the duchess gasped.

“Upon the stair which led to the servants’ place—that I might stop them if—if aught disturbed them, and they oped their doors—that I might send them back, telling them—it was I.”

Then stooped the duchess nearer to her, her hands clutching the coverlid, her eyes widening.

“Anne, Anne,” she cried, “you knew the awful thing that I would hide!  That too?  You knew that he was there!”

Anne lay upon her pillow, her own eyes gazing out through the ivy-hung window of her tower at the blue sky and the fair, fleecy clouds.  A flock of snow-white doves were flying back and forth across it, and one sate upon the window’s deep ledge and cooed.  All was warm and perfumed with summer’s sweetness.  There seemed naught between her and the uplifting blueness, and naught of the earth was near but the dove’s deep-throated cooing and the laughter of her Grace’s children floating upward from the garden of flowers below.

“I lie upon the brink,” she said—“upon the brink, sister, and methinks my soul is too near to God’s pure justice to fear as human things fear, and judge as earth does.  She said I did no wrong.  Yes, I knew.”

“And knowing,” her sister cried, “you came to me that afternoon!”

“To stand by that which lay hidden, that I might keep the rest away.  Being a poor creature and timorous and weak—”

“Weak! weak!” the duchess cried, amid a greater flood of streaming tears—“ay, I have dared to call you so, who have the heart of a great lioness.  Oh, sweet Anne—weak!”

“’Twas love,” Anne whispered.  “Your love was strong, and so was mine.  That other love was not for me.  I knew that my long woman’s life would pass without it—for woman’s life is long, alas! if love comes not.  But you were love’s self, and I worshipped you and it; and to myself I said—praying forgiveness on my knees—that one woman should know love if I did not.  And being so poor and imperfect a thing, what mattered if I gave my soul for you—and love, which is so great, and rules the world.  Look at the doves, sister, look at them, flying past the heavenly blueness—and she said I did no wrong.”

Her hand was wet with tears fallen upon it, as her duchess sister knelt, and held and kissed it, sobbing.

“You knew, poor love, you knew!” she cried.

“Ay, all of it I knew,” Anne said—“his torture of you and the madness of your horror.  And when he forced himself within the Panelled Parlour that day of fate, I knew he came to strike some deadly blow; and in such anguish I waited in my chamber for the end, that when it came not, I crept down, praying that somehow I might come between—and I went in the room!”

“And there—what saw you?” quoth the duchess, shuddering.  “Somewhat you must have seen, or you could not have known.”

“Ay,” said Anne, “and heard!” and her chest heaved.

“Heard!” cried Clorinda.  “Great God of mercy!”

“The room was empty, and I stood alone.  It was so still I was afraid; it seemed so like the silence of the grave; and then there came a sound—a long and shuddering breath—but one—and then—”

The memory brought itself too keenly back, and she fell a-shivering.

“I heard a slipping sound, and a dead hand fell on the floor-lying outstretched, its palm turned upwards, showing beneath the valance of the couch.”

She threw her frail arms round her sister’s neck, and as Clorinda clasped her own, breathing gaspingly, they swayed together.

“What did you then?” the duchess cried, in a wild whisper.

“I prayed God keep me sane—and knelt—and looked below.  I thrust it back—the dead hand, saying aloud, ‘Swoon you must not, swoon you must not, swoon you shall not—God help!  God help!’—and I saw!—the purple mark—his eyes upturned—his fair curls spread; and I lost strength and fell upon my side, and for a minute lay there—knowing that shudder of breath had been the very last expelling of his being, and his hand had fallen by its own weight.”

“O God!  O God!  O God!” Clorinda cried, and over and over said the word, and over again.

“How was’t—how was’t?” Anne shuddered, clinging to her.  “How was’t ’twas done?  I have so suffered, being weak—I have so prayed!  God will have mercy—but it has done me to death, this knowledge, and before I die, I pray you tell me, that I may speak truly at God’s throne.”

“O God!  O God!  O God!” Clorinda groaned—“O God!” and having cried so, looking up, was blanched as a thing struck with death, her eyes like a great stag’s that stands at bay.

“Stay, stay!” she cried, with a sudden shock of horror, for a new thought had come to her which, strangely, she had not had before.  “You thought I murdered him?”

Convulsive sobs heaved Anne’s poor chest, tears sweeping her hollow cheeks, her thin, soft hands clinging piteously to her sister’s.

“Through all these years I have known nothing,” she wept—“sister, I have known nothing but that I found him hidden there, a dead man, whom you so hated and so feared.”

Her hands resting upon the bed’s edge, Clorinda held her body upright, such passion of wonder, love, and pitying adoring awe in her large eyes as was a thing like to worship.

“You thought I murdered him, and loved me still,” she said.  “You thought I murdered him, and