Kitabı oku: «Foxglove Manor, Volume III (of III)», sayfa 6

CHAPTER XXXVII. THE DEATH-BED

Haldane, like Baptisto, was clad funereally. A long black travelling cloak was wrapped around him, and a Spanish sombrero, also black, was drawn over his forehead. He was ghastly pale. He stood with knitted brows, gazing quietly at the clergyman.

Santley tried to speak, but could not. Again his left hand clutched his heart, and he seemed about to fall. Then he heard, as if in a dream – for the voice seemed far away – these words:

“I see, reverend sir, that Baptisto has told you everything. Yes, it is quite true, and yet so sudden, that even I can scarce realize my loss.”

“It is incredible,” cried Santley.. “Only a few hours since, I know, she was alive and well; and now – ”

“And now,” returned Haldane, in the same cold, clear voice, “the end has come. It is strange that you, with your religious views, should be so surprised at what is sadly common. We mortals, are like men travelling in ships upon a great sea; we eat, drink, and are merry – too often forgetting that there is only a mere plank between us and the grave.”

Santley listened in wonder, less at the words than at the calmness, the perfect self-control, with which they were uttered. He had always thought Haldane hard and callous, but now he seemed to him a very monster of cold-bloodedness.

“I cannot believe it,” he cried; “and you – you seem so calm. Surely, if she were dead, indeed – ”

“What would you have me do?” interrupted Haldane. “Weep, wring my hands? Will wailing and gnashing of teeth buy back the lost? If it would do so, reverend sir, then I might rave and tear my hair? But no; philosophy has taught me to contemplate the inevitable with resignation.”

“But she was so young! So – so beautiful!”

“Alas! the young too often die first, and the prettiest flowers are the first to fade away. She was always delicate, and latterly, I fear, the spirit was too strong for the frail body. It is comfort to reflect, now all is done, that she had at least the consolations of your holy faith. Death comes to all. Life is but the business of a day. One dies at dawn, another not till afternoon; another creeps wearily on till evening, when the stars of the eternity twinkle down upon his sad grey hairs. She died in her prime, and was at least spared the sorrows and infirmities that attend the lingering decay of nature. So peace be with her!”

“It is too horrible!” cried Santley. “If this is true, life is a hideous nightmare – a waking curse. She was too young, too good, to die!”

“It is strange,” returned Haldane thoughtfully, “that you, with your beautiful faith in immortality, should fear death so much. I have often noticed this inconsistency in men of your religion. Strong as is your belief in another life – a life, moreover, of eternal delight and happiness – you cling with curious tenacity to this life, which, at the same time, you admit to be miserable. We men of science, on the other hand, who believe death to be the final dissolution of the creature into his component element, can contemplate the change with equanimity.”

Santley looked at him in positive horror. Cold as ice, the man discussed his loss as if it were a mere matter for intellectual argument, a question in which he felt merely the interest of a dispassionate spectator of human affairs. And this, with the very shadow of death upon him; with his wife lying dead in the house, struck down, as it were, by the very thunderbolt of God. So far, then, he, Santley, was justified. He had not wronged the man, when he thought him a creature devoid of common tenderness and feeling, warmed out of his humanity by his frightful creed of negation. Such a being was beyond the pale of Christian brotherhood. He had done right; he had not sinned, when he had sought to lead Mrs. Haldane from the martyrdom of an evil wedlock, to the shining heights of a happier and more spiritual life.

“How did she die? It must have been very sudden. Tell me, for pity’s sake!”

“Calm yourself, reverend sir. Ah! you must have a tender disposition to feel another’s loss so much. You could not feel it more deeply, if you had lost a person very dear to you – a wife of your own bosom, so to speak.”

“I – I esteemed the lady,” stammered the clergyman, shrinking before the others cold, scrutinizing gaze. “She was so good, so noble!”

“Ah! was she not? But you asked me how she died? I think it was some obscure affection of the heart. She was always so emotional, so impulsive; and latterly, I fear, she was under great excitement. You will be grieved to hear she passed away in bitter mental pain.”

Santley started. Haldane continued, in the same cold voice, always keeping his eyes fixed steadily on those of the clergyman.

“There was something on her mind – some load, some trouble, some cruel self-reproach. I gathered from her fragmentary words that she was unhappy, that she sought my forgiveness for some fault of which she considered herself guilty. Whatever that fault was, it preyed upon her life, and hastened her end.”

“Why did not you send for me? It is horrible to think she died without the last offices of religion. I would have comforted her, prayed with her; I – ”

He paused in confusion, shrinking before the other’s steady gaze.

“There was no time,” answered Haldane; “and besides, to be honest, I did not care to have a clergyman.”

“It was not an outrage!” cried Santley. “It was blasphemous!”

“Pardon me. I don’t believe in confession, even at the extreme moment and I thought that, if she had anything to reveal, it had better be told to the person most interested, namely, her husband.”

“Anything to reveal!” exclaimed

Santley, shuddering. “What do you mean?”

“What I say. I am aware you are not a Roman Catholic, but I am afraid your sentiments lean dangerously to the offices of that pertinacious priesthood. You would doubtless have asked her to pour her secret into your ears, with a view to absolution. I preferred to keep her dying message sacred to myself. If she had erred and was penitent, as I suppose, no priest, Catholic or Protestant, lay or clerical, could absolve her?”

Utterly bewildered and aghast, the unfortunate clergyman listened on. Surely hell had opened, and the thick sulphurous fumes were rising up to cover and darken the wholesome earth. That cold, grim figure, talking so calmly and watching him so keenly; that other dark figure of the Spaniard, still crouching near them in the doorway; surely, too, these were not men, but devils, sent to torture him and drive him mad. He looked around him. The snow-clad wood stretched on every side, save where the white lawns opened, marked with damp black spots of thaw, and stretching up to the doors of the gloomy mansion; but overhead the dark heavens had opened for a moment, and one sickly beam, falling aslant from the vaporous sky, was gleaming on the mansion’s roof. Unconsciously he fixed his eyes on that spot of brightness, in wonder and in terror, for he was thinking of the piteous sight within the house.

Dull as his faculties seemed, paralyzed by the extraordinary shock he had received, he had not failed to understand Haldane’s statement that his wife had suffered mental agony, and had made, or tried to make, some kind of confession.. After a long pause, still fixing his eyes on the sunbeam upon the roof, he murmured, almost vacantly —

“I am not quite myself, and do not seem to comprehend. Did you say that Mrs. Haldane asked for a clergyman before she died?”

“Certainly. She asked – for you!” Had his eyes not been turned away, he would have been startled by the expression on Haldanes face – so full of cold satisfaction and contempt.

“For me?” he murmured; “for me?”

“Yes. You had great influence over her – a singular influence. Perhaps, having been her spiritual adviser and knowing her thoughts so intimately, you could help me to discover the cause of the sorrow, the self-reproach, of which I have spoken.”

“I – I do not understand. She always seemed so bright, so happy.”

“She had no cause for secret grief? None, you think?”

“None.”

Unconsciously, as he spoke, he turned and met the gaze of his cross-questioner. He flushed nervously, and turned his eyes away. Did Haldane suspect the secret of his love? Had Ellen, before she died, spoken anything to incriminate him? Surely not; else his reception would have been different. Yet in her husband’s manner and look, despite his frigid politeness, there seemed a strange suspicion. The cold, cruel eyes never ceased to scrutinize him; they seemed to read his very soul.

“I see, reverend sir, that you cannot realize what has taken place.”

“I cannot realize it!”

“You will at least believe the evidence of your own eyes. Step with me to the house, and look upon her!”

As he spoke, Haldane moved towards the house. After a moment’s hesitation, Santley followed. Yes, he would look upon her for the last time; he would kneel and pray beside her. As he walked, he staggered like a drunken man.

They passed from the dismal shadow of the trees, crossed the snowy lawn, and ascended the steps leading to the house door. How dark and funereal looked the old mansion as they entered! All was silent; not a soul stirred; their footsteps sounded hollow on the paven floor of the open hall.

Haldane led the way into the drawingroom. The blinds were drawn, there was no fire, and the chamber seemed like a tomb.

“Wait here one moment,” said Haldane; and he retired, closing the door.

Santley sat and waited. His very life seemed ebbing away within him, but the low, deep thud of his overburdened heart kept time like a clock, and his ears were full of a sound like low thunder. His lips were dry as dust, and he moistened them vainly with his trembling tongue. Even then, as he sat shivering, he heard again from the distance the faint chime of the desolate chapel bell.

Toll! toll! toll! toll!

The door opened.

Haldane, bareheaded, appeared on the threshold.

“Come this way,” he said in a whisper.

Santley rose and tremulously followed. Through the dark lobbies, up the broad staircase, he went in terror, till Haldane paused at the closed door of the room on the first story, and, placing his finger solemnly on his lips, turned a key and entered.

Santley followed, and found himself at last in the chamber of death.

It was a large bedchamber, dimly lighted by the faint rays that crept through the blind, and scented, or so it seemed, with some sickly perfume. In one corner stood the white, cold bed, snowy sheeted, snowy curtained; and there, stretched out chill and stark, lay something whiter and colder – the marble bust of what had once been a living creature.

Yes, it was she, beautiful even in death. Her eyes were closed, her hair was smoothed softly over her brows, her face was fixed like marble in ghastly pallor, her waxen hands were folded on the sheet which covered her from feet to chin. She almost seemed to be sleeping, not dead, she was so calm, peaceful, and lovely, in that last repose.

On a small table beside the bed lay her Bible (Santley knew it well; it was a present from himself, with his own name written on the flyleaf), and a waxen taper, unlighted. Lying on the coverlet, close to her fingers, was a wreath of immortelles.

And through the window, which was left open at the top to admit the pure air, came again, wafted by the wind, the low, dreadful tolling of the chapel bell.

Toll! toll!

Haldane stood close by the bedside, not looking at his wife, but always keeping his stern eyes fixed upon the clergyman. Step by step, horrified yet fascinated, Santley crept nearer and nearer to the bed, his eyes dilated, his face even more ghastly than the face on which he gazed. He noticed everything – the marble features, the folded hands, the closed eyes beneath their waxen lids; he felt in his nostrils the sick perfume of death.

Then, overmastered by the piteous sight, he raised his arms wildly in the air, uttered a cry of anguish and despair, and fell, moaning and sobbing, on his knees by the bedside.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. TORTURE AND CONFESSION

For some minutes he remained kneeling, his strong frame shaken by deep sobs, his lips murmuring some incoherent prayer. Then he felt a touch upon the shoulder. He looked up, shuddering. “Come!” said Haldane, looking darkly down upon him.

“No, no!” he cried, in the extremity of his agitation. “Let me stay here! Let me pray by her side a little while!”

“Come away!” answered Haldane, more sternly. “This is no place for you.”

Santley rose trembling to his feet, and gazed again upon the cold sleeping face and form.

“Leave me! leave me!” he exclaimed, turning wildly towards his torturer. “Leave me alone with her!”

The face of the master of the house became terrible in its sternness, as he responded —

“Command yourself, man, and follow me! You forget yourself. This place is sacred.’

“My office is sacred. I desire you to leave me alone with the dead.”

“And I refuse. I do not want your prayers, nor does she need them. Come!”

With a low moan, Santley turned again towards the bed, stretching out his arms; but this time Haldane interposed, with angry determination —

“Are you mad? I command you to come away.”

“O God! God!”

“Do not blaspheme. She who sleeps there is nothing, or should be nothing, to you. Leave the room, or, by Heaven, I shall have to make you!”

Beside himself with excitement, Santley glared at Haldane, and clenched his hands, as if he would have struck him; but, remembering the place in which he stood, and the solemnity of the occasion, he conquered his insane impulse, and tottered to the door. Haldane followed, and as he turned on the threshold, put out his hand and pushed him into the lobby; then followed, and turned the key in the lock.

“Come with me,” he said, in a voice of command.

Santley obeyed, and the two descended the stairs. On the way down they met Baptisto ascending, with whom Haldane whispered hurriedly for a moment. Then they made their way through the dark lobbies, and again entered the gloomy drawing-room. With a groan Santley threw himself on a chair, and hid his face in his hands.

“You are strangely moved,” said Haldane, coldly. “What was my wife to you, that you should exhibit this unseemly grief?”

Santley drew his hands from his face and looked up wildly.

“What was she to me?” he cried. “More than life – the light of all the world. Now that light is gone, and I am desolate.”

“Strange, words,” said Haldane quietly, “to come from so holy a man! You are not in your sane mind.”

“God knows I am not,” returned the clergyman, “and yet… I am sane enough to know what I am saying. Yes, you may stare! I am sick of disguise. I’ll wear the mask no more. I loved your wife.”

Still perfectly retaining his composure, and almost smiling, Haldane said, with a dark sneer —

“Most reverend sir, I knew it.”

“You know it now!”

“Pardon me, I have known it all along.”

“You may have guessed something, but not all. I loved your wife. You were unworthy of her. I sought to win her from you, and I succeeded – yes, for she hated you, and loved me. God was on my side, for you were an unbeliever, a blasphemer. I tried to make her leave the shelter of your roof for mine. She was my first love. I tried, do you hear, day and night, to make her my own – my own in this world, and in the next.” Again that calm reply —

“Most sainted sir, I knew it.”

“And I tell you, I succeeded. She loved me. She would have followed me to the world’s end. This house was hell to her, because you had no religion. Her soul was mine.”

“And now?” said the other coldly. “And now, most holy and reverend sir?”

“And now, though she has passed away in her beauty and her holiness, I love her still. She is dead, and I shall die. In heaven, at least, we shall be together!”

“Are you so sure that she is there?” said Haldane, still very calmly. “Are you so sure that you will follow her? I am not so sure. If there be the heaven you speak of, it was never made for the guilty. The door of your paradise is wide, but it is too narrow, I have heard, for the sinner who dies without repentance.”

“The sinner? Who is the sinner?”

“She who sleeps upstairs?”

“It is a falsehood,” said Santley, rising to his feet. “She was an angel, without a stain, and you – you made her wretched. Yes, wretched! She was too good for you – too holy and spiritual. A saint! a martyr! God will cherish and justify her!”

“Saints have fallen; and she fell.”

“Fell? You dare not accuse her!”

“I do accuse her; I accuse you both!.. Ah! my man of God, there was no need to throw aside the mask at all; I knew the face behind it from the first. She is punished as she deserves. Now it is your turn.”

His manner had changed, from one of cold self-control to one of concentrated passion. With voice raised and hand pointing, he advanced towards the clergyman. They stood close together, face to face.

But Santley fell back, horrified.

“Whatever I am, she was pure – too pure and good for this black world. Speak reverently of her! Although I loved her – and I tell you my love is justified – she was not guilty of any sin. She was only too faithful to her wifely vow – faithful in thought and deed. Again I tell you, speak reverently of her!”

“No hypocrisy can save her now,” said Haldane, sternly. “You have thrown aside the mask, as you say; it is useless to assume it again. I know everything – her guilt, and yours!”

“She was not guilty. You cannot believe it!”

“Why should I doubt it? The thing was a thousand times stronger than your proofs of Holy Writ. Now, if I said to you that she had confessed her guilt, what would you say?”

“I should say that it was not true!”

“Not true!”

“A lie – the wickedest of lies.”

“Then, if she was innocent, your guilt is trebled, and you are her murderer.”

“Her murderer? her murderer?”

“Yes. You have been liberal in confession; I will follow your example. You saw her lying yonder? Calm, cold, and beautiful, was she not? – yes, as a sleeping infant. Shall I tell you how she died? By poison. By the deadliest of all poisons.”

“Poisoned?” cried the clergyman, raising his voice to a scream.

“Precisely. A painless death, though sure and sudden. You see, although I kept within my right, I was merciful. Death was better than disgrace, and so – I killed her!”

Santley clutched at Haldane – then, with a moan, sank swooning upon the floor.

When he recovered, he staggered to his feet, and looked around him. He was still there, in the room, which was now quite dark, but he was alone. He awoke as from death, with the cold sweat upon his forehead, his form shaking like a leaf. What a change the experience of the last hour had made in him! He felt as if he had been mad for years. As the sick horror of his position spread over his bewildered senses, he groaned aloud.

Then remembering where he was, and fearing the surrounding darkness, he groped towards the door.

Suddenly it opened, and Haldane himself, holding a lamp in his hand, appeared upon the threshold. As the light flashed upon the minister’s form, it showed a face horrible in its anguish and despair. With his hair wild and dishevelled, his neckcloth disarranged, his black frock suit disordered, Santley seemed transformed. His beauty was turned into ugliness, his elegance into coarseness; his head, no longer erect and proud, drooped between his shoulders like an old man’s.

“Where are you going?” said Haldane, interposing, and placing down the lamp he carried.

“Up yonder, to see if it is true. It is surely a frightful dream! Let me pass!”

“Stay where you are! Your presence shall not outrage the dead again.”

“She is dead, then?”

“What you have seen, you have seen.”

“And – you – you killed her? Is it true?”

“Perfectly.”

With a wild cry, Santley clutched Haldane; but his hold was so weak, so tremulous, that the other’s strong frame scarcely shook.

“You shall not escape,” cried the minister. “Coward! murderer! I will deliver you up to justice!”

“Pshaw!”

With a powerful movement, Haldane disengaged himself, and his opponent fell back into the room. Santley was not a strong man, and just then he seemed positively helpless; nor would he at any time have been a match for the square-built, broad-shouldered master of Foxglove Manor.

“Hands off, if you please,” said Haldane. “If it comes to a trial of strength, I shall crush your reverend carcase like an egg. Another man, in my position, would have wrung your neck long ago. Do you know why I have been so gentle with you?”

Santley gazed at him vacantly, and did not speak.

“Because I prefer to prolong your agony as long as possible, and to let the world know of what stuff its priests are made.”

“You are a murderer,” gasped Santley again, clutching at him, but with the feeble grasp of a sick child. “You are a murderer, on your own confession. I tell you, I will give you up.”

“Après?” said Haldane, coolly.

“You have destroyed your wife – the purest and best woman God ever made. She was innocent of all wrong. She was an angel married to a devil, that was all.”

“Will you swear to me, before the God you worship, that there was nothing between you?”

“Yes, I will swear it. I loved her, but she was pure. If there was any sin, it was on my shoulders, for I tempted her. Yet you destroyed the innocent, and let the guilty live.”

Overcome by his emotion, Santley sank into a chair, sobbing. Haldane watched him for a short space in silence; then approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder. He tried to shake off the touch, with a shiver of loathing.

“I am glad that you perceive your own guilt; that is something. Under the mask of friendship – worse, under cover of your holy calling, you came to this house. I welcomed you, entertained you. I gave you my hand freely, as man to man; trusted you, even respected you, despite your superstitions. How did you reward this hospitality? By seducing, or seeking to seduce, the wife of the man who welcomed you without suspicion. This was your religion – this was your sense of Christian brotherhood. My man of God was a hypocrite – an adulterer. I tell you, a dog would have more honour, more purity. You made my house a hell. In return, I have put hell into your heart. You hear? Into your heart, if you have a heart, which would seem doubtful. Another would have killed you; I preferred to let you live.”

The clergyman looked up piteously. His force seemed broken, his eyes streamed with tears.

“You should have killed me,” he returned. “I was to blame, not she. You may kill me now. I shall then be at rest with her?”

Haldane s face blackened.

“Do not couple your names together. The guilt of her death is yours, not mine.”

“Mine?”

“Yes. I was only the instrument, you were the cause. The seed of all this sorrow was sown in your black heart. Had you never tempted her, had you never filled her mind with the poison bred in your own, she would be living-now, a happy, honoured wife. You see, my man of God, that you are the murderer; you have killed her, not I.”

“O God! God!” moaned Santley, hiding his face in horror.

“It is too late to call on God. If that is true,” pursued the other, “this; also is true – that you have lost her eternally. Your God is a God of justice. He does not, either in hell or heaven, bring the murderer and his victim together. You murdered her soul first; then, since you made it inevitable, I destroyed its mortal dwelling. Since you believe in hell, surely this is enough to damn you. Say she is innocent. The better for her; the worse for you. She is among the angels your place is elsewhere, eternally; there you may wail and gnash your teeth in vain. You see, reverend sir, I am comforting you with your own beautiful creed. Your faith in it was great; through your faith in it, you are lost for ever.”

With a cry, almost an imprecation, Santley staggered to his feet, unable to listen any longer. Sorrow, shame, terror, horror, contended within him. Already it seemed as if the earth was opened to swallow him, the forked tongues of fire-shooting up to envelop and consume him.

He rushed towards the door. This time the other did not interpose.

“Where are you going, pray?” he demanded quietly.

Santley turned round upon him, livid, glaring like a madman.

“To fetch the police,” he answered.

“I shall denounce you. Whatever becomes of me, you shall die, upon the gallows.”

“Permit me to light you to the door,” answered the philosopher, smiling. “You could not go upon a better errand.. Sound the alarm, fetch the police hither; the sooner the better. When they come, they shall be acquainted with the truth. They shall know, all the world shall know, that I killed my wife; and why? Because a clergyman, a man of God, honoured by many, respected by all, had come to my house like a satyr, and made it a nest of pollution. I shall stand in the dock, and the chief witness, against me will be yourself – the Rev.. Charles Santley, Vicar of Omberley, a living light, a pillar of the Church, self-convicted as hypocrite, liar, adulterer, seducer, satyr – filthy from the soul to the finger-tips. How the sweet maids of your congregation will stare! It will be a cause célébré– a nine-days’ wonder. And on the next Sabbath, perhaps, you will preach the gospel of love and purity, as usual!”

Santley clung to the doorway, limp and crushed, a picture of mingled fury and desolation.

“By the way, I shall call witnesses in my own defence. First, Miss Dove, – you see, I know her – one of the many who have ornamented slippers for the holy man’s feet, and cloths for his altar. She will tell them of meetings by night, of holy trysts, of Eden, and – of the fall. Oh, it will be a famous affair, and greatly to the honour of the Church. But why are you lingering so long? Go at once, reverend sir, and proclaim the murder. You see, I am quite ready.”

He pointed to the hall door. With a wild cry, Santley passed along the lobby, opened the door, and rushed out into the air.