CHAPTER XXIV.
THE INVALID GENTLEMAN.
MARY stole out in the afternoon, when the day was beginning to wane. It was not only that as soon as her anxieties were relieved the spell of the old associations came back: a far more serious pre-occupation was in her mind, though all was mystery round her. The question that had sprung up within her came back and back like a fitful wind through all the agitations and happiness of the day. Her body was altogether worn out by excitement and anxiety, and by the long vigil of that troubled night; but, as happens sometimes in such a case, her mind was only the more eager and alive, her senses keener to everything around. She had sat by Hetty’s bedside and talked all the day, talked till her throat and breast seemed to be strained with physical exertion, talked against time, against weariness, that her child’s mind might be filled with the peaceful image of home, so as to leave no room for those distracting images which had jarred her whole being. Mary felt the strain of that monologue almost more than any other form of fatigue. She was well used to it, as to all other forms of exhaustion. Talking to children both her own and others, telling stories, giving lessons, the sensation was not new to her; but it made the silence and sweet air very grateful, as, leaving Hetty once more asleep, with Miss Hofland established at her bedside, she stole out into the great quiet of nature, into the dewy park and wonderful serenity of the spring afternoon, as it began to soften into night.
The grass had been growing all day, the flowers struggling, making their way upward, the young leaves unrolling their tightly-bound folds out of their sheaths; and now all seemed to have paused in the midst of that hopeful, cheerful progress, to rest a little, to get strength for a warmer effort still. Life, all thrilling through the awakened earth in every vein, in every pore, paused in the midst of that warm impulse to rest. She felt in sympathy with all the world, delivered from a terror beyond description,—from death, and worse than death, her very exhaustion adding to the refreshment and blessedness of that quiet and repose. For the moment, except for a vague sense in her mind of an uneasiness which she held at arm’s length, she was able to give herself up entirely to this tranquil sweetness. She wandered out, going round the old house, with every line of which her eyes were familiar, the dear old house, about which she had tripped in her childhood, when she had been “only Mary,” running everybody’s errands, doing what everybody told her—a little unconsidered happy creature, sent up and down, here and there, but never unkindly, never untenderly, she said to herself with tears in her eyes. Oh, never unkind! nothing but a little wholesome neglect, the carelessness of familiarity which in its way was sweet. She had not been like her own children, wrapped in love from their cradles, their little interests and pleasures put above everything; but Mary knew that she had been as happy as a lamb or a bird—creatures which have no special tendance, but to which all nature is sweet. She had never known what harsh words were, or harsh judgments. They had let her grow like a flower; they had kept her from the colds and from the heats of life; covered her and sheltered her, and loved her in their way. She looked back upon her young life with a tender gratitude, more profound than if they had made her the chief object. She had not been so to any one in Horton, but how much more, she said to herself, in consequence, all their sweetness and kindness was. To make your own child happy, upon whom your happiness depends, what is that but selfishness of the most refined kind? But to make a little creature happy upon whom your happiness does not depend—is not that true love, the charity of the Gospel? She thought of them all who had been so good to her, so kind, so careless, so indulgent, her heart swelling with tenderness and gratitude.
When she had got far enough off to take in the full view of the house, she turned back, renewing as it were her acquaintance with it, following with tender recollection every line and curve. It was changed in some respects. The front of the house had been renovated, some parts of the architecture carefully restored, the grounds about the house all put into luxurious order. Altogether, she said to herself, it looked as if a wave of prosperity had visited the place, as if there were no longer a deficiency of gardeners or of servants to keep it in perfection, as there once was. The lawn looked as if it were rolled every day; there was no sign of neglect anywhere—and once there had been so many signs. Only one thing in which there was no change met her eyes. The east wing was all shut up as of old, the windows closely shuttered, every opening closed. All the same, and yet a little different. In former days it had been evidently a natural expedient, the shutting up of a portion of the house which the family was not numerous enough or wealthy enough to keep up. Now it was different. It was an obvious breach of the wealthy propriety of the place, about which there was no indication that such an expedient could be necessary. Mary walked slowly round that side of the house. The shutting up even was not as before. It was far more elaborate, done with precaution, as if with the view of closing the interior from all inspection. In the old times, no one had minded what loop-hole there might be; appearances had not been thought of. And then her heart began to beat loudly in her ears. Was it possible that this was a prison, a place of confinement? and who was it that was shut up there?
Who was it that could be shut up there? By what right or wrong, without warrant or authority, nobody knowing, nobody able to help! All the questions that had been in Mary’s mind, suspended by her exhaustion, and by the grateful quiet of which she had so much need, sprang up again in the fullest force. The strange words which Hetty had murmured in her trance, which she had repeated when in full possession of her mind, which had evidently engraved themselves on her brain, and which had roused her mother to one sudden gleam of enlightenment, came back to her again and seemed to echo in her ears. She had put them away after that first impression. How could it be? Why should it be? In those days such things could not happen. Shut up the master of the house in his own habitation, separate him from his child, conceal him from the world! How could it be? Who could do it? The motives and the means seemed both wanting. But Mary’s brain throbbed and whirled, even as she said all this to herself. She forgot even Hetty in the gathering excitement of her mind. She walked up and down, up and down, at the foot of the grassy slope on which those barricaded windows opened. Yes, they had always been barricaded, but not as they were now!
The night began to darken round her; already the shrubberies, the distant trees in the park, began to grow indistinct. The veil of the twilight dropped slowly over the brightness of the sky. But Mary took no notice; her steps made no sound upon the damp and mossy velvet of the turf; her mind grew every moment less under her own control. What could she do to satisfy that question? Was he there? Who was he? What could she do? She was but a stranger, though a child of the house; she had nothing to prove that the invalid gentleman of whom the doctor had spoken, the wanderer who had broken in upon her child’s rest, had in reality any connection with the family, or was one for whom she could interfere: and how could she interfere?—a stranger, a poor woman, the mother of Miss Rotherham’s companion. That was all Mary was to the servants and people about. And the invalid might be a stranger too, for anything she could tell; he might be—anyone. What right had she to jump to a conclusion, and decide thus who he was? But she could not go in quietly and sit down, and take care of her child, and perhaps sleep, while all the while, close to her, within her reach, might be shut up, deprived of everything, one who perhaps was the rightful master of all. But how could that be? How could that be? Why, and with what motive, could such a thing be done? Her brain turned round more than ever, her mind was all confused, hanging in the misery of doubt and helplessness, suspended between the how and the why.
Suddenly she heard a stealthy sound behind her, as of an opened window or door. She was at the end of the slope, and turned round quickly at this indication of some one moving. At the end of the long range of windows she saw a head put dimly forth, and then disappear. Mary divined that it was her own appearance, vague as it must be in the twilight, which was the cause. She changed her position, rapidly concealing herself behind a clump of laurels, and waited. After a little interval there was a faint stir once more. Almost afraid to breathe, she looked out between the thick leaves. Something had come out into the dimness of the night. She felt only as Hetty had done, a movement, a something that was human, a new breathing in the still atmosphere. The leaves rustled now and then in the night air, and she felt as if it must be she who did it, and put her hands upon the bough to keep them still. A strange horror, half superstitious, came over her; something was coming without any sound, with nothing but a consciousness in the tingling atmosphere. She forgot the yielding of the turf, in which no footstep was audible. It seemed to her that something incorporate, some vision sensible to the mind alone, must be moving past unseen. Terror took possession of her soul. Was it this then, and not any suffering human creature, some one who had come back, some one out of the darkness of the grave, whose presence should chill the blood in her veins, as he had chilled her child’s. Mary felt as if she hung by her hands from the laurel boughs, which she had grasped to keep them still. Then, with a sensation of utter horror, she felt herself slip from them, her hands relaxing. It had passed; her heart stood still; the surging blood went up and up in blinding circles to her brain. Then there was a sudden calm in her being, and the common action of life was taken up again in a moment. In front of her, going softly across the dim lawn, was a long slim shadow, the head bent a little, the gait uncertain, swaying as if with weakness. Mary’s superstitious terrors had vanished in a moment. It was a man she saw; who he was no one could have told, in the faint evening, on the noiseless grass; but at all events it was a man.
Mary’s faculties all came back. Suppose the guess she had made was right, suppose it was he, with only herself in all the world to protect him! She disengaged herself from the bushes, and gliding from one shelter to another, sometimes dropping to the ground in her terror, lest he should be alarmed and fly from her, she followed. The night was soft and dim, wrapping all things in a ghostly shadow; but she never lost sight of the vague, moving thing winding out and in among the bushes, avoiding with a kind of strange skill the front of the house. He made a long round, and Mary kept up mechanically, always following, her limbs failing under her. When he had got round to the other side, he drew slowly near to the corresponding range of windows in the western wing; and after various falterings mounted the slope, and made his way along close to the house. The faltering, stealthy figure stealing along, now with a foot upon the ledge of stone, now all noiseless upon the turf, made her half shudder with terror, notwithstanding the excitement, which was all of which she was now sensible, the only thing that kept her up. Should anyone within catch a glimpse of the noiseless shadow thus stealing round the house, what wonder if panic and maddening terror should follow his steps! Mary, stumbling on, felt that she was going through all that was preliminary to that midnight visit which had half crazed her child. The gliding figure suddenly stopped. She saw it pause, turn inward, put up two arms to the window. Thank God, it was no longer Hetty’s window; the child was safe. And once more, once more—by what chance who could tell?—the opening gave way. With a last effort of strength pulling herself together, Mary climbed the slope.
It had become so dark without that the night had seemed far advanced, but within lights were shining. The door of the room stood open, admitting a cheerful glimmer; the sound of voices was audible. Mary came quickly in, shutting the window behind her, her excitement risen to fever point. She found herself confronting the ghostly figure, which stood bewildered in the middle of the room. Even now, even here, sure as she was that it was a man, and a helpless one, who stood before her, the horrible alternative, the wild suggestion, that at her touch that shadow might dissolve and melt away, and leave her mad with the awful encounter, flashed through Mary’s confused brain. To stand by him in the dark room was somehow more appalling than to follow through the free air and space. But it was only in that flash that she remembered herself at all. The poor wanderer had known his way when he was making that devious course round the house: he had come soberly with an evident intention through the clumps and bosquets to this window—he had meant all along to get here, to enter by it, to pursue his wild search for his child. But the open door on the other side, the lights gleaming, the sounds of the household, all active and awake, bewildered him. He stopped short; perhaps he had already seen that there was no one in the bed. He stood wavering, tremulous, diverted from his intention, looking wildly round him. When he caught sight of Mary he shrank back, as if to escape. Trembling as she was, her lips almost refusing to utter the words that came to them, her limbs to support her, she tottered up to him, and caught him by the arm.
“Yes,” he said, retreating a little before her. “Don’t be angry—I wanted to thee my little girl.”
“Oh, John!” cried Mary. “Cousin John!—oh, dear John, you that were always so good, why won’t they let you live as you ought in your own house?”
He stepped still further back, with a gesture of dismay. “Who is that?” he said. “You’re not Mrs. Mills. I don’t know who you are.”
“Oh yes, John, you know me, if you will only think; I’m Mary. You remember Mary, your little cousin, to whom you were always so good?”
“Mary?” he said. “I know your voice, and I know your name: but they will not like it. They thay I’m not fit—Mary—I wonder if I would know you if I thaw you. But don’t tell them I’m here; I daren’t go into the light.”
“Cousin John,” said Mary, “tell me who you think I am.”
He drew back a little farther; it seemed to bewilder him to be so near her. “I think,” he said, “you must be little Mary that used to be at home in the old time, Mary that wath married to the curate. I wath very found of Mary. But don’t tell them I’m here. I’ll go back—I’ll go back—to my own little place.”
“This is your place, John. Oh, dear John, who has done this to you? You shall not go back; you shall stay in your own house, John.”
“It will only get you into trouble,” he said in a dreamy tone. “She thaid—she told me——” his voice ran off into a murmur of sound; perhaps the effect of that she, which he uttered with a sharp sibilation, was too much for him; or perhaps the thought of her was too much. “Perhapth I had better go back.”
“No,” cried Mary, grasping his arm with both her hands. “Come with me and see your little girl.”
“Oh, my little girl: my little darling!” the poor fellow cried, and resisted no more.
