MY lady, I cannot stay, but I must be the one to bring the news. He is living after all.”
Bride had risen from her knees at the sound of hurrying steps along the corridor, and now stood face to face with the faithful old nurse, who with the doctor had been fighting the two hours’ battle, in the teeth of almost hopeless despair, over the rigid and motionless form of Eustace Marchmont, and now she stood white and panting before her young mistress, but with tears of gladness standing in her eyes.
Bride raised her face for a moment, her eyes alight with the intensity of her thanksgiving. The dawn was just stealing in through the uncurtained window. She looked for a moment at the crimson blush in the east, and then suddenly bent her head and kissed the faithful woman beside her.
“Thank God!” she said very softly; “and thank you, dear nurse, for I know how you have been toiling for him—and for me.”
“Oh, my Ladybird, it would have broken my heart if he had slipped away out of life just when—but there, there! I mustn’t stop to talk. And we mustn’t build too much on keeping him here. He’s been a terrible time in the water, and been fearfully dashed about. He’ll have a fight to pull through; but then he’s young and strong, and he’ll have the best sort of hope to help him. There, deary, there, there! I can’t linger longer. There’s a deal to be done, and the doctor has to go when he can spare a moment to look to that other poor fellow. I don’t know which is the worst of the two, but they are both of them alive at least.”
“Saul too? Ah! I am glad!” cried Bride; and then the nurse hurried away, and she sat down after the long strain of those strange hours, and tried to collect her scattered thoughts.
Eustace living—though by no means out of danger! Ah! but was it not enough just now to be assured that the life was still in him? Surely since God had given him back in answer to her prayers, He had spared him for some great purpose. He had brought him to the very gates of death, but had brought him back therefrom already. Was not that evidence that he was spared for some good purpose? Might she not look forward in faith and confidence to Him, Who had saved him from these terrible bodily perils, that He would also be with him in any other trial that might lie before him, bodily or spiritual? Need she be fearful or troubled any more after the wonderful experiences of the past night? Eustace had been given back to her prayers. What need she fear when that proof of Fatherly love was hers?
Bride mechanically put the finishing touches to her toilet, and washed from her face the traces of her long vigil; then, unable to remain inactive any longer, she left her room and descended the staircase, the light broadening and strengthening in the sky as she did so, as the sun rose from behind banks of low-lying cloud, and looked forth upon the new day now begun.
The great door at the far end of the hall stood wide open to the breezy morning, and even as Bride reached the foot of the staircase a tall figure darkened it for a moment, and Mr. Tremodart came in with an uncertain air, glancing about him here and there, as if in search of something or some one.
Bride stepped forward and held out her hand.
“You have heard?” she asked briefly.
“Ah yes! it is a terrible thing, a terrible thing! Lady Bride, it makes me feel that I must send in my resignation to the Bishop, and ask him to appoint another pastor to this flock. Surely had I done my duty, they would not now be such savages and fiends! I have been down with them, poor miserable men! I have been hearing their confession. They have been led away by a spirit stronger than their own. The Lord forgive me! Perhaps had I been more to them and more with them, they would not have hearkened to such evil counsel!”
The clergyman’s remorse was painful to see. Bride had grown to feel a great liking and respect for Mr. Tremodart during the past year. That he was somewhat out of his element as a parish priest, she never attempted to deny. That he had been placed in his present position without any real aptitude for his vocation, he never himself denied; but he had tried to do his duty according to his own lights; and though often too much engrossed in his favourite pursuits to give all the time he should have done to his flock, he had never neglected to respond to a summons from any one of them, however personally inconvenient, and had always striven to relieve distress, both of body and mind, as far as in him lay, though his methods were sometimes clumsy, and his words halting and lame.
Still on the whole he had won the respect and liking of his flock, and the confidence of the black sheep better, perhaps, than a more truly earnest and devoted man might have done. The fishermen were not afraid of him. They knew he understood their ways of thinking, and had a sympathy with them even in their peccadillos. He did not receive or purchase smuggled goods, as too many of his profession did in those days; but he did not look with any very great displeasure on a traffic that he had been used to all his life, and which seemed almost a part of the economy of life. But with all his faults and his easy-going ways, he had never for a moment encouraged indifference to human life or suffering; and the knowledge that the men of Bride’s Bay had deliberately lured to her doom a great vessel, from which only one man had been rescued alive, was a terrible thought. The moment the news had been brought to him, Mr. Tremodart had hastened down to the shore to learn the truth of the matter, and had now come to the castle with a grave face and heavy heart, to seek news of the survivor, and the man who had been found with him.
“Perhaps we might all have done more for them than we did,” said Bride gently; “but men will listen so much more readily to the voice of the tempter than to those who would hold them back from their sinful deeds. And Saul Tresithny had such power over them! I fear it was he who led them on.”
“Ay! ay! there can be no doubting that. One and all, they all say it. ’Twas his doing—his planning from first to last. They, poor fellows, thought of the spoil to be had, and listened with greedy ears; but he was thinking darker thoughts, I fear. They say he wanted nothing for himself. All his mind was fixed upon some evil hope of vengeance. His hatred for mankind had driven him well-nigh mad. Ah! Lady Bride, I think that we may well say that if God is Love—as we have His blessed assurance—then the devil is—hatred. For sure only the devil himself could so have inspired that spirit of hatred which could vent itself in such an act as that of last night.”
“Indeed, I think so,” answered Bride, in a low tone of great feeling. “It is too terrible to think of. What will happen to those poor men? Where are they now?”
“The officers have taken them. I fear they will be committed for trial. I scarce know the penalty—transportation, I should think. Perhaps a few may be released—a few of the younger men; but example will be made of some. It would scarce be right to wish it otherwise. That noble vessel! and all hands lost, and every soul on board save one! Ah me! ah me! And the men of St. Bride the culprits! I could sink to the ground for shame!”
“Do you know who the survivor is?” asked Bride.
“Nay; I did but hear he had been carried here—he and Tresithny, locked in one embrace, none knowing whether either were alive or dead. I came for news of them.”
“They are both living—now,” answered Bride, with a strange light in her eyes, “though we must not build too much on that. The survivor from the wreck is our kinsman, Eustace Marchmont.”
“God bless my soul! you don’t say so?” cried the clergyman, starting back in great astonishment.
“Yes,” answered Bride; “we were expecting him shortly, and he spoke of coming by sea in one of the new steam-ships. That was the one which was wrecked last night. Eustace was there. He had on a great life-belt, and Saul was clinging round him when they were carried in. Saul had been left behind on the wreck whilst the other men took their first load of spoil to shore. What happened then nobody yet knows; but when my father and his men reached the wreck, they found those two in the water, floating near to it at the end of a rope—whether alive or dead, it was hours before anybody knew.”
“You don’t say so? What an extraordinary thing! Do you think they were struggling together in the water? Could Saul have been striving to do some injury to Mr. Marchmont——?”
“Oh no, no,” cried Bride quickly; “I am sure that was not so. What it all means I cannot tell yet; but I know that Saul loved Eustace. I think he was the only being in the world he has ever truly loved. I cannot help thinking he was trying to save him—trying to draw him out of the water. But we may never know the truth of it. Yet I shall never believe that Saul would lift up a hand against Eustace.”
“I trust not—I trust not. Ah! poor fellow, it will be a mercy for him if he die a natural death from exposure. He has nothing to live for now, I fear, save transportation or the gallows.”
Bride turned pale and took a backward step. That aspect of the case had not struck her before.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, with a little gasp, and was silent, trying to take it all in. Oh, that blind, misguided nature, warped and deformed by unreasoning and unreasonable hatred! How had the springs of nobility lying latent there been poisoned at their very source! How had the man’s whole career been blasted and shattered through the entering in of that demon of jealousy and hatred, which had gradually struggled with and overpowered every other emotion, and become absolute master of the man! And there had been a time when Saul had been spoken of as a youth of such promise. Alas! how had that promise been fulfilled?
Bride and the clergyman stood facing each other in silence, the morning sunshine lying in broad bands across the paved floor of the hall, and the sounds of life from without speaking cheerful things of the awakening day. The butler came forward and broke the spell of silent musing by informing his young mistress that breakfast had been carried in, but that His Grace was still resting after the fatigues of the night, and did not wish to be disturbed.
“Then you will breakfast with me, Mr. Tremodart,” said Bride, “and then we will ask for fresh news of the patients.”
The meal was a silent one, but both stood in need of refreshment and felt strengthened by it. At the conclusion Bride rose up, and looking at her companion said—
“Will you come with me? I am going to ask news of him at his door. Perhaps, if he is conscious, he will like to see you. I fear his life will be in danger for some time. He may feel the need of your presence.”
“I—I—hardly know whether I could help him if such were the case,” answered Mr. Tremodart, always rather nervous at the prospect of being called upon for spiritual ministrations, especially by those of the educated and superior classes. He was not a man of ready speech, and felt his deficiency greatly. “Perhaps Mr. St. Aubyn would come,” he suggested. “I think he knows Mr. Marchmont better than I.”
“I think it is likely he will come when he hears,” answered Bride; “but we belong to you too, Mr. Tremodart, and at least you will come and hear the news from the sick-room?”
He was very anxious to do so, and followed the girl up the staircase and along the corridors. Bride paused at length at a half-open door. It led into a pleasant room furnished as a study, and beyond it was the bedroom, from which proceeded a quiet murmur of voices.
Bride held her breath to listen. Was it Eustace speaking? No, she thought it was the doctor; but was there not a still lower voice, a mere whisper? or was it only the beating of her heart?
The door of communication opened suddenly, and the nurse came out. Her face lighted at the sight of Bride.
“Oh, my lady, I think he is asking for you. We can’t quite make out his words. He has no voice, and scarce any breath; but I saw his lips move, and I’m almost sure he’s saying your name. We can’t tell whether he knows us yet—whether his mind is there. But I think if you would go in to him we might be able to tell.”
Bride looked at her companion.
“Let us go in together,” she said, feeling a strange desire for the support of another presence. She hardly knew what it was that she would be called upon to witness in that room; but at least Eustace was there—Eustace was still living; and if he wanted her, was not that enough?
Her face was very pale, but her manner was quite composed as she walked forward, passed the screen, and stood beside the bed.
Upon the bed, perfectly flat, with only one thin pillow beneath his head, lay Eustace, as motionless and almost as rigid as though life were extinct. His arms lay passively outside the bed-clothing just as they had been placed. The left arm was bound up in a splint, but the right lay almost as helpless and powerless beside him. There was a white bandage about his head, and his face was almost as white as the linen. The lips were ashen grey, and a shadow seemed to rest upon the face, robbing it of almost all semblance of life. Only the eyes retained any of their colour. They were sunken and dim, but there was life in their glance yet; and as Bride stood beside him, and softly spoke his name, a sudden gleam of joyous recognition flashed from them, and the white lips curved to the faint semblance of a smile.
“Bride,” he said, in the lowest whisper.
She took the powerless hand in his, and then bent down and kissed him.
“I am here, Eustace, I am with you. You will live for my sake,” she said, in soft clear tones, which seemed to penetrate the mists of weakness closing him in. The dim eyes brightened more and more, and fixed themselves upon her fair, sweet face. She felt a very slight answering pressure of the fingers she held, and again she heard the whisper of her name.
The doctor was standing a little distance off. He had known Bride from her infancy, and was watching the little scene with extreme interest, both professional and personal. Now he came forward and stood on the other side of the bed; his kind old face was beaming with satisfaction.
“That is good, very good, Lady Bride,” he said; “I can see what is the medicine our patient wants. You have done more for him in a minute than I have been able to do all these hours. We want him to get a grip on life again—just to help him to hold on to it till Nature can make up for the terrible exhaustion of those hours in the water. Now look here, it’s most important he should take the hot soup and the cordial nurse has over there. We can’t get more than a few drops down at a time, but perhaps you will be more successful. We are keeping up the animal heat by outward applications, but we must keep the furnace inside going still. Try what you can do for him, my dear. I think you have made him understand as we have not succeeded in doing yet.”
The nurse came to the bedside with cup and spoon, and Bride took them from her hand. With a gentle tenderness almost like that of a mother she bent over Eustace, raised his head as she had been wont to do for her mother in her long last illness, and gave him what the doctor bade her.
He swallowed it without a murmur, perfectly understanding her voice and touch. Three or four spoonsful were taken in this way, the doctor looking on and slightly rubbing his hands.
“If you can stay with him two hours, and feed him like that every ten minutes, Lady Bride,” he said, “I think we shall see a change for the better by that time. Everything depends on keeping up the vital power. It was down to the very lowest ebb when he was brought in. If he had not the most magnificent constitution, he could never have survived all that exposure. It will be everything if he can be kept up. Will you be his nurse for to-day, and keep guard over him? You can do more than all the rest of us put together. Are you willing?”
Bride desired nothing better. She had hardly dared to let herself hope to see Eustace for many days, and here she was established beside him as head-nurse, and the person most needful to his recovery. Her heart bounded within her as the doctor and Mr. Tremodart stole away together to visit the other patient, and she found herself left in charge of her lover.
Yes, she called him so now without hesitation or fear. She had long known that love was stealing more and more into her heart, and latterly she had not been afraid to face the thought and to follow it to its conclusion.
She loved Eustace, and he loved her. She had heard that from his own lips before she had had any love to give to him. But since she had begun to pray for him, to intercede for him, to bring his name into the presence of God day by day and night by night, not in despondency, but in perfect faith, faith that her prayers for him would be heard and answered, and that the Father would turn his heart homewards, and go forth to meet him when once his steps were homeward set—since she had begun to think of him and pray for him thus, love had gradually stolen into her heart; whilst since the strange events of the past night, when their spirits had met in the darkness and the storm, and God had used her as an instrument for the saving of her lover’s life, she had not feared to recognise that love, and to call Eustace her own.
His eyes were turned now upon her with a restful look of infinite content. He did not try to speak; he had not strength to return the soft pressure of her hand from time to time, but he lay and looked at her; and when she bent over him, and spoke his name in words that sounded like a caress, and touched his brow with her lips, or smoothed away the dank tumbled hair, he smiled a slight smile of restful peace, and he never resisted her pleading voice when she put food to his lips, and bade him make the effort to swallow it “for her sake.”
Two hours had gone by thus, and Bride began to see a slight, indefinite change in her patient. The grey shadow was lighter than it had been. There was more brightness in the eyes; once or twice she had heard a whispered “thank you” spoken, and when the sound of the opening door fell upon their ears, he as well as she looked to see who was coming—a plain proof of a distinct advance in his condition.
It was the Duke. He looked weary and worn and pale. He had not escaped without some exhaustion and suffering from the effects of the night’s adventure, and was feeling old and shaken, as indeed he looked. But sleep had restored him to some extent, and now his anxiety had brought him to Eustace’s side. His face lighted with pleasure as he saw the look of recognition on the white face, and noted that Bride had taken up her station beside the bed.
He came forward and stood beside them, looking down at his young kinsman.
“You are better, Eustace?” he said kindly; and to Bride’s surprise the answer came quite audibly, though only in a very faint whisper—
“Bride is giving me new life.”
“That is well, very well. Do not talk. Keep quiet, and Bride will take care of you;” and at that moment the doctor came back, and looked at his patient with an emphatic nod of approval.
“Very good, very good, couldn’t be better. Lady Bride, if you will only go on as successfully as you have begun, we shall have him round the corner by the time the day is over. A magnificent constitution—truly a magnificent one! Could not have believed it! Gave very little signs of life four hours ago—just a flicker; but I was afraid to hope too much, and now—why, there’s quite a pulse, and no fever. Wonderful! wonderful!”
Eustace was growing drowsy by this time—a very favourable symptom in the doctor’s sight. The murmur of voices about him induced a state of dreamy torpor. His eyes closed, and he dropped off into a light dose, as people do who are very weak, but have no fever or pain. Bride looked up with a smile at her father.
“He will be better if he sleeps,” she said. “Will you not sit down, papa? you look so tired.”
The doctor gave a shrewd glance at the Duke’s face, and seconded his daughter’s recommendation. They drew a little away from the bed, and Bride asked softly—
“What about Saul?”
The doctor shook his head.
“He is in a raging fever. Whether it is an affection of the brain, or the effects of the exposure and wetting on a constitution already much enfeebled, I hardly know yet, but he is in raving delirium at present, and I doubt if we pull him through. Poor fellow! poor fellow! It is a fine character blasted and ruined, a fine career flung away for the gratification of senseless passion! Ah me!—we live in a world of perplexities. The history of that young man has been a source of wonderment and sorrow to the whole place. I fear it is drawing to its close now.”
“Perhaps that is the happiest thing for him,” said Bride softly, “if only——”
She did not finish her sentence—there was no need. All who knew the young man’s story could finish it themselves. As the girl sat beside Eustace whilst the hours sped by, each one renewing her hope and sense of thankful relief in seeing the flame of life within him burn more steadily and brightly, her thoughts were much with that other patient lying not so far away, wondering what was going on in his soul, and whether this chastening had indeed been for the salvation of his soul. Towards evening Eustace was so wonderfully recovered that he had spoken a few short sentences, and would have told her something of the wreck of the vessel, only that consecutive speech was forbidden him. The grey shadow had vanished, a faint colour had come into his lips. He was able to take such nourishment as his condition required, and to dispense with much of the outward application of heat. At last he fell into a sound, refreshing, and perfectly natural sleep, and Bride, at the suggestion of the nurse, stole away to get a mouthful of air on the terrace before dark, after which she went herself to that other part of the house where Saul lay, to try to get speech of Abner, who was with his grandson, as he had been ever since he was brought in the previous night.
The old man came out to her, looking bent and aged, but with a light in his eyes which Bride saw at once.
“Is he better?” she asked eagerly; and the answer was curious.
“I trust and hope that he is, my lady. I think that he has prayed.”
“Prayed?” repeated Bride, her eyes lighting in quick response. “Ah, Abner!—then he must indeed be better!”
“I think he will die,” said Abner, with quiet calmness; “but what matters the death of the corruptible body, if the spark of immortal life and love be quickened in the soul? My lady, in his ravings of fever my boy has laid bare his soul to me—all the terrible darkness, all the wild hatred, all the fearful thoughts which went to prompt that last dread act of his life. But he has told other things as well. He has told how, whilst he sat alone upon the wreck, gloating over the crime he had committed, he saw an object in the water, and knew that one of his victims was near him. I cannot paint that scene as he has painted it in his ravings, but I think I see it all. He turned his light upon the victim, and he saw the face of Mr. Marchmont, his friend. Then I think he saw his handiwork as it appears in the sight of God. He saw himself the blackest of sinners, and with a prayer on his lips that he might be permitted to make this atonement, he sprang into the water to strive and save Mr. Marchmont, who else must surely have been sucked back into the cruel quicksands lying so close at hand.”
“Ah!” cried Bride softly, “I said so—I thought so!”
“So he tied himself to the vessel—ah! he has been acting it all so fearfully, that I can see it as though I had been there!—he flung himself into the sea and grappled with the floating figure, trying to pull it to the wreck and place it in safety. Ah! how he must have struggled with the wind and tide that were fighting against him! but in his mortal agony he turned in prayer to the God he had despised and defied, and prayed to Him that this life—this one life—might be given to him. Ah! how many times has that prayer passed his lips to-day—‘God help me! God give me strength! God be merciful to me, a sinner!’ He knows not what he says now, but he knew it when he lifted his heart in prayer in the hour of his extremest need. It was not for his own life he prayed, but for the life of the one he sought to save. I truly believe that in those terrible moments he lived through a lifetime of agony and repentance. God does not measure time as we do. I think He will accept those moments of agonised penitence as He accepted the repentance of the thief upon the cross. I think he looked to his Saviour in that hour of mortal weakness and despair, when life and all seemed slipping away. Last night was the witness of the crowning sin of his reckless life, yet I believe, by the grace of God, it was witness, too, of a penitent malefactor turning towards Him at the last. This gives me more hope and joy than I have ever known before for him.”
Bride went away with a great awe upon her—a deep respect and sympathy for the faith of this patient man, and a sense of the intense reality of the power of prayer such as she had scarcely experienced in her life before. She knew that Abner had been praying for the conversion of Saul, even as she had been praying that Eustace might turn in faith towards the God of Salvation. Once it had seemed as though nothing could conquer the invincible wildness of the one or the intellectual scepticism of the other. But God had put forth His hand in power, and had caused that even the powers of evil should aid in bringing about the answer. She wanted to think it out. She wanted to be alone in her awe and her thankfulness. She went swiftly up to her own room, and sank upon her knees, burying her face in her hands.