CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE TRAGEDY ENDS.
’LIZABETH Bampfylde went on to Stanton that same afternoon, where the remains of her two sons were lying. But she would not go in Lady Stanton’s carriage.
“Nay, nay; carriages were never made for me. I will walk, my lady. It’s best for me, body and soul.”
She had recovered herself after the anguish of that discovery. Before the sympathisers round her had ceased to sob, ’Lizabeth had raised herself up in the midst of them like an old tower. The storm had raged round her, but had not crushed her. Her face and even her lips had lost all trace of colour, her eyes were hollow and widened out in their sockets, like caves to hold the slow welling out of salt tears. There was a convulsive trembling now in the pose of her fine head, and in her hands; but her strength was not touched.
“Oh, how can you walk?” Lady Stanton said; “you are not able for it.”
“I am able for anything it’s God’s pleasure to send,” she said; “though it’s little even He can do to me now.” The women stood round her with pitiful looks, some of them weeping unrestrainedly; but the tears that ’Lizabeth shed came one by one, slow gathering, rarely falling. She put on her red handkerchief over her cap again, with hands that were steady enough till that twitch of nervous movement took them. “It should be black,” she said, with a half-smile; “ay, I should be a’ black from head to foot, from head to foot, if there was one left to mind.” Then she turned upon them with again her little stately curtsey. “I’m not a woman of many words, and ye may judge what heart I have to speak; but I thank ye all,” and, with once more a kind of smile, she set out upon her way.
John Musgrave had been standing by; he had spoken to no one, not even to Lady Stanton, who, trembling with a consciousness that he was there, had not been able, in the presence of this great anguish, to think of any other. He, and his story, and his return, altogether had been thrown entirely into the background by these other events. He came forward now, and followed ’Lizabeth out of the gate. “I am going with you,” he said. The name “mother” was on his lips, but he dared not say it. She gave a slight glance at him, and recognised him. But if one had descended from heaven to accompany her, what would that have been to ’Lizabeth? It was as if they had parted yesterday.
“Ay,” she said; then, after a pause, “it’s you that has the best right.”
The tragedy had closed very shortly after that penultimate chapter which ended with the death of Wild Bampfylde. When the carriage and its attendants arrived to remove him to Stanton he was lying on Geoff’s shoulder, struggling for his last breath. It was too late then to disturb the agony. The men stood about reverentially till the last gasp was over, then carried the vagrant tenderly to the foot of the hill, with a respect which no one had ever shown him before. One of the party, a straggler, who had strayed further up the dell in the interval of waiting, saw traces above among the broken bushes, which made him call some of his comrades as soon as their first duty was done. And there on the little plateau, where Walter Stanton’s body had been found fifteen years before, lay that of his murderer, the madman who had wrought so much misery. He was found lying across the stream as if he had stooped to drink, and had not been able to raise himself. The running water had washed all traces of murder from him. When they lifted him, with much precaution, not knowing whether his stillness might mean a temporary swoon, or a feint of madness to beguile them, his pale marble countenance seemed a reproach to the lookers-on. Even with the aspect of his victim fresh in their eyes, the men could not believe that this had ever been a furious maniac or man slayer. One of them went to look for Geoff, and to arrest the progress of the other funeral procession. “There’s another one, my lord,” he said, “all torn and tattered in his clothes, but with the look of a king.” And Geoff, notwithstanding his horror, could not but look with a certain awe upon the worn countenance. It might have been that of a man worn with great labours, with thought, with the high musings of philosophy, or schemes of statesmanship. He was carried down and laid by the side of his brother whom he had killed. All the cottagers, the men from the field, the passengers on the way, stood looking on, or followed the strange procession. Such a piece of news, as may be supposed, flew over the country like wildfire. There was no family better known than the Bampfyldes, notwithstanding their humble rank. The handsome Bampfyldes: and here they had come to an end!
Old ’Lizabeth, as she made her way to Stanton, was followed everywhere by the same atmosphere of sympathy. The women came out to their doors to look after her, and even strong men sobbed as she passed. What would become of her, poor lonely woman? She gave a great cry when she saw the two pale faces lying peacefully together. They were both men in the full prime of life, in the gravity of middle age, fully developed, strongly knit, men all formed for life, and full of its matured vigour. They lay side by side as they had lain when they were children. That one of them had taken the life of the other, who could have imagined possible? The poacher and vagrant looked like some great general nobly dead in battle, the madman like a sage. Death had redeemed them from their misery, their poverty, the misfortunes which were greater than either. Their mother gave a great cry of anguish yet pride as she stood beside them. “My lads,” she cried, “my two handsome lads, my bonny boys!” ’Lizabeth had come to that pass when words have no meaning to express the depths and the heights. What could a woman say who sees her sons stretched dead before her? She uttered one inarticulate wail of anguish, as a dumb creature might have done, and then her overwrought soul reeling, tottered almost on the verge of reason, and she cried out in pride and agony, “My handsome lads! my bonny boys!”
“Come home with me,” said John Musgrave. “We have made a bad business of it, ’Lizabeth, you and I. This is all our sacrifice has come to. Nothing left but your wreck of life, and mine. But come home with me. Where I am, there will always be a place for Lily’s mother. And there is little Lily still, and she will comfort you—— ”
“Eh! comfort me!” She smiled at the word. “Nay, I must go to my own house. I thank you, John Musgrave, and I do not deserve it at your hand. This fifteen years it has been me that has murdered you, not my lad yonder, not my Abel. What did he know? And I humbly beg your pardon, and your little bairns’ pardon, on my knees—but nay, nay, I must go home. My own house—there is no other place for me.”
They came round her and took her hands, and pleaded with her too—Geoff, and his mother, with the tears streaming from her eyes. “Oh, my poor woman, my poor woman!” Lady Stanton cried, “stay here while they are here.” But nothing moved ’Lizabeth. She made her little curtsey to them all, with that strange smile like a pale light wavering upon her face.
“Nay, nay,” she said. “Nay, nay—I humbly thank my lady and my lord, and a’ kind friends—but my own house, that is the only place for me.”
“But you cannot go so far, if that were all. You must be worn out with walking only—if there was nothing more—— ”
“Me—worn out!—with walking!” It was a kind of laugh which came from her dry throat. “Ay, very near—very near it—that will come soon, if the Lord pleases. But good-day to you all, and my humble thanks, my lord and my lady—you’re kind—kind to give them house-room; till Friday; but they’ll give no trouble, no trouble!” she said, with again that something which sounded like a laugh. Laughing or crying, it was all one to ’Lizabeth. The common modes of expression were garments too small for her soul.
“Stay only to-night—it will be dark long before you can be there. Stay to-night,” they pleaded. She broke from them with a cry.
“I canna bide this, I canna bide it! I’m wanting the stillness of the fells, and the arms of them about me. Let me be—oh, let me be! There’s a moon,” she added, abruptly, “and dark or light, I’ll never lose my way.”
Thus they had to leave her to do as she pleased in the end. She would not eat anything, or even sit down, but went out with her hood over her head into the gathering shadows. They stood watching her till the sound of her steps died out on the way—firm, steady, unfaltering steps. Life and death, and mortal anguish, and wearing care, had done their worst upon old ’Lizabeth. She stood like a rock against them all.
She came down to the funeral on Friday, as she had herself appointed, and saw her sons laid in their grave, and again she was entreated to remain. But even little Lilias, whom her father brought forward to aid the pleadings of the others, could not move her. “Honey-sweet!” she said, with a tender light in her eyes; but she had more room for the children when her heart was full of living cares. It was empty now, and there was no room. A few weeks after, she was found dying peaceably in her bed, giving all kinds of directions to her children. “Abel will have your father’s watch, he aye wanted it from a baby—and Lily gets all my things, as is befitting. They will set her up for her wedding. And Dick, my little Dick, that has aye been the little one—who says I was not thinking of Dick? He’s been my prop and my right hand when a’ deserted me. The poor little house and the little bit of land, and a’ his mother has—who should they be for, but Dick?” Thus she died tranquilly, seeing them all round her; and all that was cruel and bitter in the lot of the Bampfyldes came to an end.