What whisperest thou? Nay, why
Name the dead hours? I mind them well:
Their ghosts in many darkened doorways dwell
With desolate eyes to know them by.
—DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.
Michael Kestyon had paid no heed to the noise of this last arrival. Indeed he had heard nothing since that one awful noise, the departure of the coach which bore her away from him. How long ago that was he could not say. It might have been a moment or a cycle of years. Just before it he had had his last glimpse of her. She crossed the room in company with her father, who had come up to fetch her. She was wrapped from head to foot in cloak and hood; all that he could see of her was her torn wedding gown.
He made no movement as she walked past him, and though his whole soul called out her name, his lips uttered no sound. What were the use? If she did not hear the silent call of love, no words could move her.
"Even his memory hath faded from my ken."
Michael vaguely remembering the sacred tale told him in his childhood by his mother of how God had hurled His sinful angels from Heaven down to Hell, could not recall that in His anger He had used words that were quite so cruel.
Well, that page in life had been written, the book was closed. One brief glimpse at possible happiness, one tiny chink open in the gates of paradise, and then once more the weary tramp along the road which leads to misery on this earth, to perdition hereafter.
The gambler had staked his all upon one venture and had lost. But Michael Kestyon was not made of the mould which rots in a suicide's grave or harbours a brain which goes crazy with grief.
A weaker man would have felt regrets, a better man would have been racked with remorse. Michael with her words ringing in his ears thought only of redemption.
"My father and mother, who loved you as their son, will never again hold their heads high among their kind—for a dishonoured daughter is a lasting curse upon a house. That is your work, stranger—it is writ on the front page in the book of the recording angel, and all the tears which you may shed, all the blood and all the atonement could not now wipe that front page clean."
The gambler in losing all had, it seems, involved others in his ruin; innocent people who had loved and trusted him. The debt which he had thus contracted would have to be paid to them, not in the coin which Michael had tendered—since it had been dross in their sight—but in coin which would compensate them for all that they had lost.
And it was because of the future redemption of that great debt, because of all that there was yet to do, that Michael held such a tight rein over his reason, the while it almost tottered beneath the crushing blow. Nor did he allow the thought of suicide to dwell in his mind. Yet madness and death—the twin phantoms born of cowardice—lurked within the dark shadows of the low-raftered room, after Rose Marie's last passage along the uneven floor when her torn wedding gown swept over the boards with a sighing and swishing sound, which would reverberate in Michael's heart throughout eternity.
From beneath the lintel of that oaken door which had clanged to behind her, the spectre of madness grinned into the deserted room, and beckoned to the man who stood there in utter loneliness; and on the window-sill whereat she had sat awhile ago the gaunt shadow of suicide whispered the alluring words: Rest! Forgetfulness! Rest! Forgetfulness!
Michael did not flee from the twin demons. He called them to his side and looked fully and squarely at their hideous, alluring forms.
Madness and Death! Destruction of the mind or of the body. Both would blot her image from his soul. Madness enticed by drink would mean the bestial forgetfulness of heavy sleep and addled intellect. Death would mean infinite peace.
The struggle 'twixt devils and the man was fierce and short. Anon the crouching spectres vanished into the night; and the man stood there in splendid isolation with the memory of a great crime and of a brief joy for sole companion of his loneliness. But the man was a man for all that; body and mind were still the slaves of his will, not for the carving of his own fortune now, not for the spinning of the web of Fate, but bound and fettered under the heel of an iron determination to wipe out the writing on that front page in the book of the recording angel; not by tears, not by blood and cringing atonement, but by deeds and acts dark if necessary, heroic always, by vanquishing the wrongs of the past with the triumphant redemption to come.
In this mood the good landlady of the "Three Archangels" found him and marvelled at British indifference in the face of a love tragedy. And he was still in this selfsame mood half an hour or so later when my lord of Stowmaries and his friends came upon the solitary watcher in the night.
Michael had not eaten, nor had he relinquished his place by the open window, for it seemed to his over-sensitive mind as if the sound of those wheels which bore his snowdrop further and further away from him echoed against the distant bank of storm-portending clouds, and though the heartrending sound reverberated within him like unto the grinding of the rack which tears the limbs and martyrizes the body, yet it still seemed something of her, the last memory, the final farewell.
It was past ten o'clock now, and of a surety Michael thought that he must have fallen asleep, dreaming by that open window, when the sudden noise of several familiar voices, a loud if somewhat forced laugh, and the peremptory throwing open of the door brought the dreamer back to the exigencies of the moment.
The aspect of the room was almost weird, dark and gloomy with only the slanting moonbeams to touch with pale and capricious light the tall, solitary figure in the window embrasure.
For a moment the three men paused beneath the lintel, their volatile imagination strangely gripped by the picture before them, that dark silhouette against the moonlit landscape beyond, the total air of desolation and loneliness which seemed to hang like a pall even in the gloom.
Sir John Ayloffe was the first to shake himself free from this unwonted feeling of superstitious awe:
"Friend Michael, by the Mass!" he shouted with somewhat forced jocoseness. "Still astir, and like the love-sick poet contemplating the moon."
The loud words broke the spell of subtle and weird magic which seemed to pervade the place. Michael Kestyon gave a start and turned abruptly away from the window.
"Are we welcome, Michael?" added Lord Rochester pleasantly. "Or do we intrude?"
Michael whose surprise at seeing the three men had been quite momentary, now came forward with outstretched hands.
"Not in the least," he said cordially, "and ye are right welcome. I had thoughts of going to bed and yet was longing for merry company, little guessing that it would thus unexpectedly fall from heaven. And may I ask what procures St. Denis the honour of this tardy visit from so distinguished a company?"
"The desire to see you, Cousin," here interposed Lord Stowmaries, "and if you'll allow us, to sup with you, for we were not invited to your wedding feast, remember, and have not enjoyed the worthy tailor's good cheer."
"We have not tasted food since the middle of the day," added Ayloffe, "and that was none of the best."
"But mayhap Michael hath supped," suggested Lord Rochester, who contrary to his usual freedom of manner and speech seemed unaccountably reticent for the nonce.
"Nay, nay! And if I had I could sup again in such elegant company," rejoined Michael. "But I was dreaming indeed since I was forgetting that we were still in the dark. Our amiable host must bring us light as well as food. It will give me much pleasure to see your amiable faces more clearly."
Even as he spoke he went to the door, and soon his calls to Mme. Blond for lights and supper echoed pleasantly through the house.
The three others were left staring at one another in blank surprise. They had not thought of putting questions to mine host on their arrival, but had merely and somewhat peremptorily ordered M. Blond to show them up to the room occupied by their friend, the English milor. They, therefore, knew nothing of what had happened, but all three of them vaguely felt—by a curious, unexplainable instinct—that something was amiss, and knew that Michael's attitude of serene indifference was only an assumed rôle.
"Strike me dead but there's something almost uncanny about the man," said Lord Rochester, forcing a laugh.
"Something has happened of course," rejoined Ayloffe, "but nothing to concern us. Mayhap an early quarrel with the bride."
"'Tis strange, forsooth, to find the bridegroom alone at this hour," added Stowmaries, whilst the refrain of a ribald song rose somewhat affectedly to his lips.
But Rochester quickly checked him, for Michael's footstep was heard on the landing. The latter now entered, closely followed by M. Blond who carried a couple of candelabra of heavy metal and fitted with tallow candles.
These he soon lighted and the flickering yellow flames quickly dispersed the gloom which lingered in the corners of the room. They threw into full relief the faces of the four men, three of whom retained an expression of great bewilderment, whilst the fourth looked serene and placid, as if the entertaining of his friends was for nonce the most momentous thing in his existence.
Michael went to the window and with a quick, impatient gesture he pulled the curtains together, shutting out the moonlit landscape and the silhouette of the trees, whose soft sighs had been the accompaniment to the murmur of her voice; mayhap he had a thought of shutting out at the same time the very remembrance of the past.
Then he turned once more to the others and his face now was a perfect mirror of jovial good-humour as he said gaily:
"I hope, gentlemen, that you are anhungered. As for me I could devour a wilderness of frogs, so be it that it is the only food of which this remarkable country can boast. I pray you sit. Supper will not be long—and in the meanwhile tell me, pray, the latest gossip in London."
The company settled itself around the table. Every one was glad enough to be rid of the uncanny sensation of awhile ago. M. Blond in the meanwhile had bustled out of the room but he soon reappeared bearing platters and spoons, and, what was more to the purpose, pewter mugs and huge tankards of good red wine. Close behind him came his portly spouse holding aloft with massive, outstretched arms, the monumental tureen whence escaped the savoury fumes of her famous croûte-au-pot.
Loud cheers greeted the arrival of the worthy pair. Mme. Blond quickly fell to, distributing the soup with no niggardly hand, the while her man made the round, filling the mugs with excellent wine.
Gossip became general. Rochester as usual was full of anecdotes, bits of scandal and gossip, retailed with a free tongue and an inexhaustible fund of somewhat boisterous humour. The soup was beyond reproach and the wine more than drinkable.
"Gad's 'ounds," he cried presently when Blond and his wife had retired, leaving the English company to itself, "this is a feast fit for the gods! Michael Kestyon, our amiable host, I raise my glass to thee! Gentlemen, our host!"
He raised his glass, Stowmaries following suit; but Ayloffe checked them both with a peremptory lifting of his hand.
"Nay, nay!" he said, "my lord Rochester you do forget—and you, too, gentlemen! Fie on you, fie, I say! Not a drop shall pass your lips until you have pledged me as you should. 'Tis I will give you the first toast of the evening. Gentlemen, the bride!"
There was loud clapping of mugs against the table, then lusty shouts of "The bride! the bride!" The three men raised their bumpers and drained them to the last drop, honouring the toast to the full. Sir John looked keenly at Michael, but even his sharp, observant eyes could not detect the slightest change in the calm and serene face. Michael, too, had raised his mug, but Ayloffe noted that he did not touch the wine with his lips.
Shrewd Sir John ever alive to his own interests fell to speculating as to what had gone amiss, and whether any event had been likely to occur which would affect his own prospects in any way. Mistress Peyton's twelve thousand pounds had not yet—remember,—been transferred to Cousin John's pocket, and no one was more profoundly aware of the truth of the old dictum that "there's many a slip—" than was Sir John Ayloffe himself. But there was naught to read on Michael Kestyon's placid face, only the vague suspicion of carefully concealed weariness; and in Ayloffe's practical mind there was something distinctly unnatural in the serene calm of a man who was richer to-day by one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, not even to mention an excessively pretty and well-dowered bride.
Sir John, relying on his own powers of observation, had every intention of probing this matter to the bottom, but in the meanwhile he thought it best not to let the others see, too clearly, what he himself had only vaguely guessed, therefore it was he again who shouted more lustily even than before:
"Now the bridegroom, gentlemen! I give you the bridegroom! Long live! Long live I say!"
He was on his feet waving his mug with every lusty shout. Then he drained it once more to the last drop, Stowmaries and Rochester doing likewise, for time-honoured custom demanded that such toasts must be responded to right heartily. Michael however made no acknowledgment as he should have done. He sat quite still with slender, nervy fingers idly toying with the crumbs on the table.
"Respond, Michael, respond," cried Lord Rochester who seemed to have quite shaken off his former diffidence. "Man, are you in the clouds?—Of a surety," he continued with a knowing wink directed at his friends, "'twere no marvel on this eventful night, and with a pretty bride awaiting her lord not thirty paces away on the other side of that door. We saw her in church, Michael, and by Gad, man, you are a lucky dog! But we did drink to the bridegroom and—"
"And I, too, drink to him," interposed Michael loudly, as he rose to his feet, bumper in hand and turned directly to his Cousin Stowmaries, "to you, my lord and cousin do I drink—the only bridegroom worthy of such a bride."
To say the least of it, this speech was vastly astonishing. No one quite knew how to take it, and as Michael drained his cup Stowmaries broke into a forced laugh.
"You do flatter me, Coz," he said, feeling strangely uncomfortable under the other's steady gaze, and realising that some sort of reply was expected of him, "but of a truth the flattery is misplaced. The bride is yours and you have won her by fair means; and I, in my turn, will add something to my lord Rochester's toast—something which, an I mistake not, will be vastly acceptable to you—a draft for seventy thousand pounds on my banker, Master Vivish of Fleet Street. The final payment of my debt to you."
And Stowmaries took a paper from the pocket of his surcoat and handed it to Michael, who made no movement to take it.
"Cousin," he said, "when I accepted the bargain which you offered me, I was more deeply in my cups than I myself had any idea of. Let us admit that 'twas an ignoble bargain, shameful alike to me and to you. Now I would pray you to return that draft to your pocket; 'tis but little I have spent of that first fifty thousand pounds, the balance of what remains you shall have on my return to London, as for the rest—that which I have so foolishly spent—I pray you to grant me a few months delay and I will repay you to the full. Thus we two who made the bargain, and these two gentlemen who witnessed it, will cease to have aught but a dim recollection of the shameful doings of a mad and roisterous night."
Silence greeted this strange speech. The beginning of it had at once awakened surprise, the end left the three men there present in a state of complete puzzlement. Stowmaries frankly gazed at Michael with wide-open eyes wherein good-humoured contempt fought with utter amazement.
Then as no one spoke, Michael added quietly:
"I await your answer, Cousin."
"Tush, man, you are joking," retorted Stowmaries with a shrug of the shoulders.
"I never was more serious in my life," rejoined the other with deep earnestness, "and 'tis a serious answer that I ask of you."
"But I know not to what your lengthy speech did tend, how can I give it answer?"
"I asked you to put that draft for money yet unpaid into your pocket; I propose to repay you in full every penny of that which this folly hath already cost you, and you on the other hand can fulfil your obligations to the lady who, of a truth, is still legally your wife."
"Hold on, man, hold on!" cried Stowmaries almost in dismay, for it seemed to him that his cousin was bereft of his senses. "Odd's fish! But you talk like a madman—and a dangerous one, too, for you use words which, were I not your guest, I could not help but resent."
"There is naught to resent, Cousin, in what I say, nor is it the act or speech of a madman to ask you to rescind a bargain which tended neither to your honour nor to mine own."
"But, by the Mass, Cousin, the bargain good or bad, righteous or shameful, is no longer in the making. Even were I so minded—which by our Lady I vow that I am not—I could not now release you of your pledged word to me. What is done, is done, and you have fulfilled your share of the bargain. Now 'tis my turn as an honourable gentlemen to acquit myself of my debt to you. So I pray you take the money—it is justly yours—but do not prate any further nonsense."
"Ay! ay! friend Kestyon," added Ayloffe with his habitual bonhomme, through which nevertheless the cloven hoof of sarcasm was quite perceptible, "do not allow your over-sensitive conscience to persuade you into refusing what is justly your due."
"Odd's fish, man, you have won the bride and thereby rendered Stowmaries an incomparable service," quoth Lord Rochester decisively, "and—"
He was about to say more but Michael interrupted him.
"I pray you, gentlemen," he said, "grant me patience for awhile; I fear me that my gentle cousin did not altogether grasp my meaning. Cousin," he added, turning once more fully to Stowmaries, "will you put your money back into your pocket and instead of fulfilling your engagements to me, fulfil them toward the lady who hath first claims on your loyalty?"
"Tush, man!" retorted Stowmaries, who was waxing wrathful, "cannot you cease that senseless talk? The thing is done, man, the thing is done. Gad! We none of us want it undone, nor could we an we would."
"My lord of Stowmaries is right," concluded Lord Rochester decisively, "and you, Kestyon, do but run your head against a stone wall. An you feel remorse, I for one am sorry for you—but what has been, has been. You no more can withdraw from your present position than you could erase from the Book of Life all that has passed to-day. So take your money, man, you have the right to it. Odd's fish! A hundred and twenty thousand pounds, and you talk of flinging it as a sop to your perturbed conscience."
"Who talked of conscience, my lord?" rejoined Michael haughtily, "or yet of remorse? Surely not I. We have all been gambling on an issue, and I now offer my cousin of Stowmaries his own stakes back again an he'll pay his just debt to his wife rather than to me."
"My wife, man, are you joking!" retorted Stowmaries hotly. "After what has occurred, think you I would take for my countess—"
"The purest, most exquisite woman, Cousin, that ever graced a man's ancestral home," interposed Michael earnestly. "To say less of her were blasphemy."
"Pshaw!" ejaculated Stowmaries with ill-concealed contempt.
"Cousin, I swear to you," reiterated Michael with solemn emphasis, "by all that men hold most sacred, by all that I hold most holy, that the lady is as pure to-day as when her baby hand was placed in yours eighteen years ago, in token that she was to be your wife. She is as worthy to be the wife of a good man, the mother of loyal children, as I am unfit to tie the laces of her shoe. An you'll do your duty by her, you'll never regret it—all that you will regret will be the memory of that turbulent night when in your madness you thought of wronging her!"
"By God, man, I swear that you are crazy!" cried Stowmaries whose impatience had been visibly growing and who now gave full rein to his exasperation. "Are you a damned, canting Puritan that you talk to me like that? Nay, an you wish to be rid of yon baggage, send her back to the tailor's back shop whence she came,—throw her out into the streets,—I care not what you do with her, but in G—d's name I tell you that you shall not palm off on to my mother's son a cast-off troll whom you no longer want."
But even before the words had fully escaped the young man's lips Michael had lifted his glass and thrown its full contents in the face of the blasphemer.
Sickened and blinded with his own fury and the pungent odour of the wine which poured down his face into his eyes and mouth, Stowmaries uttered a violent oath and the next instant had sprung upon his kinsman like an infuriated and raging beast, and had him by the throat even before Ayloffe and Rochester who had quickly jumped to their feet were able to interfere.
The onslaught was vigorous and sudden and Stowmaries' fury hot and uncontrolled. But Michael who throughout the wordy warfare had kept his own temper in check, who had foreseen the attack even when he threw the wine in the younger man's face, had already grasped Stowmaries' wrists with a steel-like pressure of his own nervy hands, causing the other to relax his grip and forcing an involuntary cry of pain to escape his throat.
"Nay, Cousin," he said, still speaking quite quietly, but with a slight tone of contempt now, "in a hand-to-hand struggle you would fare worse than I. Have I hurt your wrist? Then am I deeply grieved—but 'tis not broken I assure you—and you know, dear Coz, that since you are still my debtor, you could not in honour kill me until you had acquitted yourself of your debt to me. I have offered you a fair way of paying that debt, not to me but to her to whom you really owe it. An you'll keep your money now, and take back all you've given me, an you'll fulfil your sacred promise to take Rose Marie for wife, you'll be the happiest man on God's earth. This I swear to you, and also that I'll serve you humbly and devotedly as servant or as slave to the last day of my life and with the last drop of blood in my veins. After that an you wish to kill me—why, my life is at your service. Will you do it, Cousin? God and his army of saints and of angels will give you rich reward."
But Stowmaries who with a sulky look on his face was readjusting the lace ruffles at his wrist whilst glowering at the man whose physical strength he had just been made to feel, turned on him now with an evil sneer.
"You seem to be intimately acquainted with the heavenly hierarchy, Cousin," he said, "but, believe me, I have no intention of entering those celestial spheres which are of your own imagining and of which you seem to be the self-constituted guardian."
"Sneer at me as much as you will, Cousin, but give me answer," urged Michael and for the first time his voice shook as he uttered this final, desperate appeal, "'Twere best for you—this I entreat you to believe. Best for you and right for her. As for me, I no longer exist; the ignoble bargain has never been; wipe it out, Cousin, even from your memory. Take back your money and with it your honour. She is worthy of your love, of your faith and of your trust; take her to your heart, Cousin, take her for she is as pure as the Madonna and you will be richer by all that she can give, the priceless guerdon of her exquisite womanhood."
The other two men were silent. They had taken no part in the discussion and had listened to it each with vastly divers emotions. Rochester, a noble gentleman despite his many extravagances, could not help but admire the man who thus stood up boldly to right a wrong, fearless of consequences, fearless of ridicule. But Ayloffe merely hoped that Michael's rugged eloquence, his earnest, passionate appeal would fail to reach the armour of selfishness and vanity which effectually enveloped Stowmaries' better nature.
Now after this last appeal there was a pause. The storm of turbulent passions was lulled to momentary rest, the better to gather strength for the final conflict.
"Take her to your heart, Cousin," Michael had urged, and no one there could guess the infinity of renunciation which lay in this appeal. Stowmaries was silent for awhile. His glowering eyes expressed nothing but unyielding obstinacy. Otherwise he was totally unmoved.
Then, keeping his gaze rivetted on Michael, he pointed with outstretched finger to the paper which lay on the table—the draft for seventy thousand pounds on Master Vivish of Fleet Street.
"That is my answer, Cousin," he said loudly and firmly. "You have rendered me a service; for this now I pay you to the full as agreed. Let there be no more of this crazy talk, for what is done is done, and you above all should be satisfied."
Once more there was silence in the low-raftered room. A gust of wind blew the thin curtains way from the open window and caused the scrap of paper to stir with a soft sound as of a spirit voice that murmured a warning "Hush!"
Michael had neither moved nor spoken, not a line of his face betrayed the conflict in his soul. But three pairs of eyes were fixed upon him. He did not seem to see them, for his own were fixed on the fluttering curtain which had whispered spectral words to him; between the gently swaying folds there peeped cold gleams of moonbeam radiance, and from far away the sighing of the young acacia boughs which had mingled with her voice awhile ago.
Then he turned his gaze back to the paper which lay before him, still gently stirring under the soft breath of the evening air. Deliberately and with a firm hand he took it up, folded it across and across and slipped it in the inner pocket of his coat.
"You know best, Cousin," he said in a quiet, unmodulated voice. "As you say, I have rendered you a service. You have paid me in full according to our bond. We should both be satisfied. And now, gentlemen, shall we proceed with supper?”