Kitabı oku: «The House of the White Shadows», sayfa 28

Once again he filled a glass with wine, and raised it to his mouth, but as the liquor touched his lips, he shuddered, and holding the glass upright in his hand, he turned it slowly over and poured it on the ground; then, with much gentleness, he replaced the glass upon the table.

"What has become of the woman you speak of as Pauline?" he asked. His very voice was changed. It was such as would proceed from one who had been prostrated by long and almost mortal sickness.

"I do not know," replied Vanbrugh. "I have neither seen nor heard from her since the day before she left her daughter."

"Say that I was disposed," said the Advocate, speaking very slowly, and pausing occasionally, as though he was apprehensive that he would lose control of speech, "to purchase your silence, do you think I should be safe in the event of her appearing on the scene? Would not her despair urge her to seek revenge upon the man who betrayed and deserted her, and who set her daughter's murderer free?"

"It might be so-but at all events she would be ignorant of your knowledge of Gautran's guilt. This danger at least would be averted. The secret is ours at present, and ours only."

"True. You believe that I knew Gautran to be guilty when I defended him?"

"I am forced to believe it. Explain, otherwise, why you permitted him to visit you secretly in the dead of night, and why you filled his pockets with gold."

"It cannot be explained. Yet what motive could I have had in setting him free?"

"It is not for me to say. What I know, I know. I pretend to nothing further."

"Do you suppose I care for money?" As the Advocate asked the question, he opened a drawer in the escritoire, and produced a roll of notes. "Take them; they are yours. But I do not purchase your silence with them. I give the money to you as a gift."

"And I thank you for it. But I must have more."

"Wait-wait. This story of yours has yet to be concluded."

"Is it my fancy," said Vanbrugh, "or is it a real sound I hear? The ringing of a bell-and now, a beating at the gates without, and a man's voice calling loudly?"

Without hesitation, the Advocate went from his study into the grounds. The fury of the storm made it difficult for him to keep his feet, but he succeeded in reaching the gate and opening it. A hand grasped his, and a man clung to him for support. The Advocate could not see the face of his visitor, nor, although he heard a voice speaking to him, did the words of the answer fall upon his ears. Staggering blindly through the grounds, they arrived at the door of the villa, and stumbled into the passage. There, by the aid of the rose lamp which hung in the hall, he distinguished the features of his visitor. It was Father Capel.

"Have you come to see me?" asked the Advocate, "or are you seeking shelter from the storm?"

"I have come to see you," replied Father Capel. "I hardly hoped to find you up, but perceived lights in your study windows, and they gave me confidence to make the attempt to speak with you. I have been beating at the gates for fully half an hour."

He spoke in his usual gentle tones, and gazed at the Advocate's white face with a look of kindly and pitying penetration.

"You are wet to the skin," said the Advocate. "I must find a change of clothing for you."

"No, my son," said the priest; "I need none. It is not the storm without I dread-it is the storm within." As though desirous this remark should sink into the Advocate's heart, he paused a few moments before he spoke again. "I fear this storm of Nature will do much harm. Trees are being uprooted and buildings thrown down. There is danger of a flood which may devastate the village, and bring misery to the poor. But there is a gracious God above us" – he looked up reverently-"and if a man's conscience is clear, all is well."

"There is a significance in the words you utter," said the Advocate, conducting the priest to his study, "which impresses me. Your mission is an important one."

"Most important; it concerns the soul, not the body."

"A friend of mine," said the Advocate, pointing to Vanbrugh, who was standing when they entered, "who has visited me to-night for the first time for many years, on a mission as grave as yours. It was he who heard your voice at the gates."

Father Capel inclined his head to Vanbrugh, who returned the courtesy.

"I wish to confer with you privately," said the priest. "It will be best that we should be alone."

"Nay," said the Advocate, "you may speak freely in his presence. I have but one secret from him and all men. I beg you to proceed."

CHAPTER III
PAULINE

"I have no choice but to obey you," said Father Capel, "for time presses, and a life is hanging in the balance. I should have been here before had it not been that my duty called me most awfully and suddenly to a man who has been smitten to death by the hand of God. The man you defended-Gautran, charged with the murder of an innocent girl-is dead. Of him I may not speak at present. Death-bed confessions are sacred, and apart from that, not even in the presence of your dearest friend can I say one further word concerning the sinner whose soul is now before its Creator. I came to you from a dying woman, who is known by the name of Pauline."

Both Vanbrugh and the Advocate started at the mention of the name.

"Fate is merciful," said the Advocate in a low tone; "its blows are sharp and swift."

"Before I left her I promised to bring you to her tomorrow," continued the priest, "but Providence, which directed me to Gautran in his dying moments, impels me to break that promise. She may die before to-morrow, and she has that to say which vitally concerns you, and which you must hear, if she has strength enough to speak. I ask you to come with me to her without a moment's delay, through this storm, which has been sent as a visitation for human crime."

"I am ready to accompany you," said the Advocate.

"And I," said Vanbrugh.

"No," said the priest, "only he and I. Who you are I do not seek to know, but you cannot accompany us."

"Remain here," said the Advocate to Vanbrugh; "when I return I will hide nothing from you. Now, Father Capel."

It was not possible for them to engage in conversation. The roaring of the wind prevented a word from being heard. For mutual safety they clasped hands and proceeded on their way. They encountered many dangers, but escaped them. Torrents of water poured down from the ranges-great branches snapped from the trees and fell across their path-the valleys were in places knee-deep in water-and occasionally they fancied they heard cries of human distress in the distance. If the priest had not been perfectly familiar with the locality, they would not have arrived at their destination, but he guided his companion through the storm, and they stood at length before the cottage in which Pauline lay.

Father Capel lifted the latch, and pulled the Advocate after him into the room.

There were but two apartments in the cottage. Pauline lay in the room at the back. In a corner of the room in which they found themselves a man lay asleep; his wife was sitting in a chair, watching and waiting. She rose wearily as the priest and the Advocate entered.

"I am glad you have come, father," she said, "she has been very restless, and once she gave a shriek, like a death-shriek, which curdled my blood. She woke and frightened my child."

She pointed to a baby-girl, scarcely eighteen months old, who was lying by her father with her eyes wide open. The child, startled by the entrance of strangers, ran to her mother, who took her on her lap, saying petulantly, "There, there-be quiet. The gentlemen won't hurt you."

"Is Pauline awake now?" asked Father Capel.

The woman went to the inner room and returned. "She is sleeping," she said, "and is very quiet."

Father Capel beckoned to the Advocate, who followed him to the bedside of the dying woman. She lay so still that the priest lowered his head to hers to ascertain whether she was breathing.

"Life appears to be ebbing away," he whispered to the Advocate; "she may die in her sleep."

Quiet as she was, there was no peace in her face; an expression of exquisite suffering rested on it. The sign of suffering, denoting how sorely her heart had been wrung, caused the Advocate's lips to quiver.

"It is I who have brought her to this," he thought. "But for me she would not be lying in a dying state before me."

He was tortured not only by remorse, but by a terror of himself.

Notwithstanding that so many years had passed since he last gazed upon her, she was not so much changed that he did not recognise in her the blooming peasant girl of Zermatt. Since then he had won honour and renown and the admiration and esteem of men; the best that life could offer was his, or had been his until the fatal day upon which he resolved to undertake the defence of Gautran. And now-how stood the account? He was the accomplice of the murderer of his own child-the mother of his child was dying in suffering-his wife was false to him-his one friend had betrayed him. The monument of greatness he had raised had crumbled away, and in a very little while the world would know him for what he was. His bitterest enemy could not have held him in deeper despisal than he held himself.

"You recognise her?" said the priest.

"Yes."

"And her child, Madeline, was yours?"

"I am fain to believe it," said the Advocate; "but the proof is not too clear."

"The proof is there," said the priest, pointing to Pauline; "she has sworn it. Do you think-knowing that death's door is open for her to enter-knowing that her child, the only being she loved on earth, is waiting for her in the eternal land-that she would, by swearing falsely, and with no end in view that could possibly benefit herself, imperil the salvation of her soul? It is opposed to human reason."

"It is. I am forced to believe what I would give my life to know was false."

"Unhappy man! Unhappy man!" said the priest, sinking-on his knees. "I will pray for you, and for the woman whose life you blighted."

The Advocate did not join the priest in prayer. His stern sense of justice restrained him. The punishment he had brought upon himself he would bear as best he might, and he would not inflict upon himself the shameful humiliation of striving to believe that, by prayers and tears, he could suddenly atone for a crime as terrible as that of which he was guilty.

"Father Capel," he said, when the priest rose from his knees, "from what you have said, I gather that the man Gautran made confession to you before he died. I do not seek to know what that confession was, but with absolute certainty I can divine its nature. The man you saw in my study brought to me Gautran's dying declaration, signed by Gautran himself, which charges me with a crime so horrible that, were I guilty of it, laden as I am with the consequences of a sin which I do not repudiate, I should deserve the worst punishment. Are you aware of the existence of this document?"

"I hear of its existence now for the first time," replied the priest. "When I left the bedside of this unhappy woman, and while I was wending my way home through the storm, I heard cries and screams for help on a hill near the House of White Shadows, as though two men were engaged in a deadly struggle. I proceeded in the direction of the conflict, and discovered only Gautran, who had been crushed to the earth by the falling of a tree which had been split by the storm. He admitted that he and another man were fighting, and that the design was murder. I made search, both then and afterwards, for the other man, but did not succeed in finding him. I left Gautran for the purpose of obtaining assistance to extricate him, for the tree had fallen across his body, and he could not move. When I returned he was dead, and some gold which he had asked me to take from his pocket was gone; an indication that, during my absence, human hands had been busy about him. If Gautran's dying declaration be authentic, it must have been obtained while I was away to seek for assistance."

"I can piece the circumstances," said the Advocate. "The man you saw in my study was the man who was engaged in the struggle with Gautran. It was he who obtained the confession, and he who stole the gold. In that confession I am charged with undertaking the defence of Gautran with the knowledge that he was guilty. It is not true. When I defended him I believed him to be innocent; and if he made a similar declaration to you, he has gone to his account with a black lie upon his soul. That will not clear me, I know, and I do not mention it to you for the purpose of exciting your pity for me. It is simply because it is just that you should hear my denial of the charge; and it is also just that you should hear something more. Up to the hour of Gautran's acquittal I believed him, degraded and vile as he was, to be innocent of the murder; but that night, as I was walking to the House of White Shadows, I met Gautran, who, in the darkness, supposing me to be a stranger, would have robbed me, and probably taken my life. I made myself known to him, and he, overcome with terror at the imaginary shadow of his victim which his remorse and ignorance had conjured up, voluntarily confessed to me that he was guilty. My error-call it by what strange name you will-dated from that moment. Knowing that the public voice was against me, I had not the honesty to take the right course. But if I," he added, with a gloomy recollection of his wife and friend, "had not by my own act rendered valueless the fruits of a life of earnest endeavour, it would have been done for me by those in whom I placed a sacred trust."

For several hours Father Capel and the Advocate remained by the bedside of Pauline, who lay unconscious, as if indeed, as the priest had said, life was ebbing away in her sleep. The storm continued and increased in intensity, and had it not been that the little hut which sheltered them was protected by the position in which it stood, it would have been swept away by the wind. From time to time the peasant gave them particulars of the devastation created by the floods, which were rushing in torrents from every hill, but their duty chained them to the bedside of Pauline. An hour before noon she opened her eyes, and they rested upon the face of the Advocate.

"You have come," she sighed.

He knelt by the bed, and addressed her, but it was with difficulty he caught the words she spoke. Death was very near.

"Was Madeline my daughter?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Pauline, "as I am about to appear before my God!"

The effort exhausted her, and she lay still for many minutes. Then her hand feebly sought her pillow, and the Advocate, perceiving that she wished to obtain something from under it, searched and found a small packet. He knew immediately, when she motioned that she desired him to retain it, that it contained the certificate of his daughter's birth. The priest prayed audibly for the departing soul. Pauline's lips moved; the Advocate placed his ear close. She breathed the words:

"We shall meet again soon! Pray for forgiveness!"

Then death claimed her, and her earthly sorrows were ended.

CHAPTER IV
ONWARD-TO DEATH

Late in the afternoon the Advocate was stumbling, almost blindly, through the tempest towards the House of White Shadows. Father Capel had striven in vain to dissuade him from making the attempt to reach the villa.

"There is safety only in the sheltered heights," said the priest. "By this time the valleys are submerged, and the dwellings therein are being swept away. Ah me-ah me! how many of my poor are ruined; how many dead! Not in my experience have I seen a storm as terrible as this. It is sent as a warning and a punishment. Only the strongest houses in the villages that lie in the valleys will be able to withstand its fury. Be persuaded, and remain here until its force is spent."

He spoke to one who was deaf to reason. It seemed to the Advocate as though the end of his life had come, as though his hold upon the world might at any moment be sapped; but while he yet lived there was before him a task which it was incumbent upon him to perform. It was imperative that he should have speech with his wife and Christian Almer.

"I have work to do," he said to the priest, "and it must be done to-day."

An unaccustomed note in his voice caused Father Capel to regard him with even a more serious attention than he had hitherto bestowed upon him.

"There are men," said the priest, "who, when sudden misfortune overtakes them, adopt a desperate expedient to put an end to all worldly trouble, and thus add sin to sin."

"Have no fear for me," said the Advocate. "I am not contemplating suicide. What fate has in store for me I will meet without repining. You caution me against the storm, yet I perceive you yourself are preparing to face it."

"I go to my duty," said the priest.

"And I to mine," rejoined the Advocate.

Thus they parted, each going his separate way.

The Advocate had not calculated the difficulties he was to encounter; his progress was slow, and he had to make wide detours on the road, and frequently to retrace his steps for a considerable distance, in order to escape being swept to death by the floods. From the ranges all around the village in which the House of White Shadows was situated the water was pouring in torrents, which swirled furiously through the lower heights, carrying almost certain destruction to those who had not already availed themselves of the chances of escape. Terrific as was the tempest, he took no heed of it. It was not the storm of Nature, but the storm within his soul which absorbed him. He met villagers on the road flying for safety. With terror-struck movements they hurried past, men, women, and children, uttering cries of alarm at the visitation. Now and then one and another called upon him to turn back.

"If you proceed," they said, "you will be engulfed in the rapids. Turn back if you wish to live."

He did not answer them, but doggedly pursued his way.

"My punishment has come," he thought. "I have no wish to live, nor do I desire to outlast this day."

Once only, of his own prompting, did he pause. A woman, with little children clinging to her, passed him, sobbing bitterly. His eyes happening to light upon her face, he saw in it some likeness to the peasant girl whom in years gone by he had betrayed. The likeness might or might not have been there, but it existed certainly in his fancy. He stopped and questioned her, and learned that she had been utterly ruined by the storm, her cottage destroyed, her small savings lost, and all her hopes blasted. He emptied his pockets of money, and gave her what valuables he had about him.

"Sell them," he said; "they will help to purchase you a new home."

She called down blessings on his head.

"If she knew me for what I am," he muttered as he left her, "she would curse me."

On and on he struggled and seemed to make no progress. The afternoon was waning, and the clouds were growing blacker and thicker, when he saw a man staggering towards him. He was about to put a question to him respecting the locality of the House of White Shadows-his course had been so devious that he scarcely knew in what direction it lay-when a closer approach to the man showed him to be no other than John Vanbrugh.

"Ah!" cried Vanbrugh, seizing the Advocate's arm, and thus arresting his steps, "I feared we had lost you. A fine time I have had of it down in your villa yonder! Had it not been for the storm, I should have been bundled before a magistrate on a charge of interloping; but everybody had enough to do to look after himself. It was a case of the devil take the hindmost. A scurvy trick, though, of yours, to desert a comrade; still, for my sake, I am glad to see you in the land of the living."

"Have you come straight from the villa?" asked the Advocate.

"Straight!" cried Vanbrugh with a derisive laugh. "I defy the soberest saint to walk straight for fifty yards in such a hurricane. Three bottles of wine would not make me so unsteady as this cursed wind-enough to stop one's breath for good or ill. What! you are not going on?"

"I am. What should hinder me?"

"Some small love of life-a trivial but human sentiment. There is no one in your house. It is by this time deserted by all but the rats."

"My wife-"

"Was the last to leave, with a friend of yours, Christian Almer by name. He and I had some words together. Let me tell you. I happened to drop a remark concerning you which he considered disparaging, and had I been guilty of all the cardinal sins he could not have been more angered. A true friend-but probably he does not know what I know. Well for you that I did not enlighten him. You will meet them a little lower down on the road, but I advise you not to go too far. The valleys are rivers, carrying everything, headlong, in their course."

"There was an old lawyer in the house. Do you know what has become of him?"

"I saw him perched on the back of a fool, and by their side a girl with the sweetest face, and an old woman I should take to be her grandmother."

"Farewell," said the Advocate, wrenching himself free. "Should we meet again I will pay you for your friendly services."

"Well said," replied Vanbrugh. "I am content. No man ever knew you to be false to your word. A woman perhaps-but that lies in the past. Ah, what a storm! It is as though the end of the world had come."

"To those whose minutes are numbered," said the Advocate between his set teeth, "the end of the world has come. Farewell once more."

"Farewell then," cried Vanbrugh, proceeding onward. "For my sake be careful of yourself. If this be not the Second Deluge I will seek you to-morrow."

"For me," muttered the Advocate, as he left Vanbrugh, "there may be no to-morrow."

Bearing in mind the words of Vanbrugh that he would meet his wife and Christian Almer lower down on the road, he looked out for them. He saw no trace of them, and presently he began to blunder in his course; he searched in vain for a familiar landmark, and he knew not in which direction the House of White Shadows was situated. Evening was fast approaching when he heard himself hailed by loud shouts. The sounds proceeded from a strongly-built stone hut, protected on three sides from wind and rain, and so placed that the water from the ranges rolled past without injuring it. Standing within the doorway was Fritz the Fool.

Thinking his wife might have sought shelter there, the Advocate made his way to it, and found therein assembled, in addition to Fritz, old Pierre Lamont, Mother Denise and her husband Martin, and their pretty granddaughter Dionetta.

"Welcome, comrade, welcome," cried Pierre Lamont. "It is pleasant to see a familiar face. We were compelled to fly from the villa, and Fritz here conveyed us here to this hospitable hut, where we shall be compelled to stay till the storm ceases. Where is 'your fair lady?"

"It is a question I would ask of you," said the Advocate. "She is not here, then?"

"No. She left the villa before we did, in the company of your friend" – the slight involuntary accent he placed upon the word caused the Advocate to start as though he had received a blow-"Christian Almer. They have doubtless found another shelter as secure as this. We wished them to stop for us, but they preferred not to wait. Fritz had a hard job of it carrying me to this hut, which he claims as his own, and which is stored with provisions sufficient for a month's siege. I have robbed the old house of its servants-Dionetta here, for whom" (he dropped his voice) "the fool has a fancy, and her grandmother, whom I shall pension off, and Fritz himself-an invaluable fool. Fritz, open a bottle of wine; do the honours of your mansion. The Advocate is exhausted."

The Advocate did not refuse the wine; he felt its need to sustain his strength for the work he had yet to perform. He glanced round the walls.

"Is there an inner room?" he asked.

"Yes; there is the door."

"May I crave privacy for a few minutes?"

Pierre Lamont waved his hand, and the Advocate walked to the inner room, and closed the door upon himself.

"What has come over this man?" mused Pierre Lamont. "There is in his face, since yesterday, such a change as it is rare in life's experience to see. It is not produced by fatigue. Has he made discovery of his wife's faithlessness and his friend's treachery. And should I not behave honestly to him, and make him as wise as I am on events within my knowledge? What use? What use? But at least he shall know that the secret of Gautran's guilt is not his alone."

In the meantime the Advocate was taking advantage of the solitude for which he had been yearning since he left the bedside of Pauline. It was not until this moment that he could find an opportunity to examine the packet she had given him.

It contained what he imagined-the certificate of the birth of his child. He read it and mentally took note of the date and also of certain words written on the back, in confirmation of the story related to him by John Vanbrugh. No room was there for doubt. Madeline was his child, and by his means her murderer had escaped from justice.

"A just Heaven smote him down," he thought; "so should retribution fall upon me. I am partner in his crime. Upon my soul lies guilt heavier than his."

Within the certificate of birth was a smaller packet, which he had laid aside. He took it up now, and removed the paper covering. It was the portrait of his daughter, Madeline the flower-girl. The picture was that of a young girl just budding into womanhood-a girl whose laughing mouth and sparkling eyes conveyed to his heart so keen a torture that he gave utterance to a groan, and covered his eyes with his hand to shut out the reproach. But in the darkness he saw a vision which sent violent shudders through him-such a vision as had pursued Gautran in the lonely woods, as he had seen in the waving of branch and leaf, as had hovered over him in his prison cell, as he stood by his side in the courthouse during the trial from which he emerged a free man. Bitterly was this man, who had reached a height so lofty that it seemed as if calumny could not touch him, bitterly was he expiating the error of his youth.

He folded the portrait of his child within the certificate of birth, and replaced them in his pocket. Then, with an effort, he succeeded in summoning some kind of composure to his features, and the next minute he rejoined Pierre Lamont.

"You will remain with me," said the old lawyer; "it will be best."

"Nay," responded the Advocate, "a plain duty lies before me. I must seek my wife."

"She herself is doubtless in a place of shelter," said Pierre Lamont, "and while this tempest is raging, devastating the land in every direction, you can scarcely hope to find her."

"I shall find her," said the Advocate in a tone of conviction. "Stern fate, which has dogged my steps since I arrived in Geneva, and brought me to a pass which, were you acquainted with the details, would appear incredible to you, will conduct me to her side. Were I otherwise convinced I must not shrink from my duty."

"Outside these walls," urged Pierre Lamont, "death stares you in the face."

"There are worse things than death," said the Advocate, with an air of gloomy and invincible resolution.

"Useless to argue with such a man as yourself," said Pierre Lamont. He turned to Fritz. "Go, you and your friends, into the inner room for a while. I wish to speak in private with my friend."

"One moment," said the Advocate to the fool as he was preparing to obey Pierre Lamont. "You were the last to leave the House of White Shadows."

"We were the last humans," replied Fritz.

"In what condition was it at the time?"

"In a most perilous condition. The waters were rising around the walls. It had, I should say, not twelve hours to live."

"To live!" echoed Pierre Lamont, striving to impart lightness to his voice, and signally failing. "How do you apply that, Fritz?"

"Trees live!" replied Fritz, "and their life goes with the houses they help to build. If the walls of the old house we have run from could talk, mysteries would be brought to light."

"You have been my wife's maid," said the Advocate to Dionetta, as she was about to pass him. Dionetta curtsied. "Has she discharged you?"

Dionetta cast a nervous glance at Pierre Lamont, and another at Mother Denise. The old grandmother answered for her.

"I thought it as well," said Mother Denise, "in all respect and humility, that so simple a child as Dionetta should be kept to her simple life. My lady was good enough to give Dionetta a pair of diamond earrings and a diamond finger-ring, which we have left behind us." Fritz made a grimace. "These things are not fit for poor peasants, and the pleasure they convey is a dangerous pleasure."

"You are not favourably disposed towards my wife," said the Advocate. Mother Denise was silent. "But you are right in what you say. Diamonds are not fit gifts for simple maids. I wish you well, you and your grandchild. It might have been-" The thought of his own child, of the same age as Dionetta, and as beautiful, crossed his mind. He brushed his hand across his eyes, and when he looked round the room again, he and Pierre Lamont were alone.

"A fool of fools," said Pierre Lamont, looking after Fritz. "If he and the pretty Dionetta wed-it will be a suitable match for beauty to mate with folly-he will be father to a family of fools who may, in their way, be wiser in their generation than you and I. Your decision is irrevocable?"

"It is irrevocable."

"If you do not find your wife you will endeavour to return to us?"

"I shall find her."

"And then?" asked Pierre Lamont with a singular puckering of his brows.

"And then?" echoed the Advocate absently, and added: "Who can tell what may happen from one hour to another?"

"How much does he know?" thought Pierre Lamont; "or are his suspicions but just aroused? There is a weight upon his soul which taxes all his strength. It is grand to see a strong man suffer as he is suffering. Is there a mystery in his trouble with which I am not acquainted? His wife-I know about her. Gautran-I know about him. But the stranger he left in his study in the middle of the night-a broken-down gentleman-vagabond, with a spice of wickedness in him-who is he, and what was his mission? Of one thing I must satisfy myself before I am assured that he is worthy of my compassion." Then he spoke aloud. "You said just now there are worse things than death."