Disappeared From Her Home: A Novel by Catherine Louisa Pirkis - HTML preview

CHAPTER XV.

“SHE was like a wild bird beating its wings against its prison bars,” said Amy, continuing her narrative a few days before they started for England. “The excitement and pleasure of seeing me had acted magically on her, so much so that I found it difficult to realize the truth of Isola’s description of her before my coming. In a day or two, however, the excitement subsided, and I became seriously alarmed. She seemed possessed by a spirit of unrest, and I began to fear for her reason. No sleep at night, no rest for one five minutes in the day. She fulfilled all her religious duties faithfully (they were not heavy ones, and the Abbess was indulgent) but every spare moment she spent with me was passed in one ceaseless moan. ‘I must see him; there will be no peace for me till I have looked at the dear face again. Help me, my child, help me!’ I knew not what to do for the best. I felt it would be useless to consult the Abbess, or even the Convent Confessor, on the matter, as their experience in the world’s ways was even less than mine, and they looked upon everything in the light of their religion. Besides, I knew there was no possibility of their allowing my mother outside the walls, even in charge of a sister, for their rules on this point were strict. What could be done? I felt, too, that you ought to be written to by some one, but by whom? Mercy to Mrs. Warden, whom I was convinced was ignorant of my mother’s existence, withheld my hand, and whom could I trust in such a matter, or to whom, indeed, could I expose my father’s guilt? I felt confident in my own mind that you would naturally guess whither I had gone, and would possibly frame some excuse for me to Mrs. Warden and others. But, O, my father, I have no words to express the agony, the absolute torture of mind I suffered at the thought of your unworthiness, of your cruelty to one whom I believed to be so noble and good as my mother.

“The difficulties, too, of my position were very great. The Abbess was kindness itself to me, and bade me stay with my mother as long as I pleased, but she was constantly asking me questions as to my family and connections, and I, not knowing how much of my mother’s story had been confided to her, was fearful of betraying my mother every hour of the day. Latterly, however, all these anxieties gave way to one more terrible than all. Little as I knew of such cases, I felt sure that my mother was in a state bordering on madness, and every day that passed increased her danger. Isola, who came daily to see us, had but one thought in her mind, how to save my mother, and was for ever suggesting to me some wild plan, which I felt to be either wrong or impracticable. At one time she would propose I should receive a letter, informing me of your death; at another she suggested I should frame some story that would prove you to be utterly base, and unworthy of any woman’s love. But that I could not do, for deep down in my heart there was a feeling I could not explain, nor put into words, but which made me angry or indignant whenever Isola began to anathematize you.

“At length, one evening after I had gone to my own room, utterly worn out with my mother’s excitement and misery, a sudden thought came into my head. ‘Why not gratify her, why not enable her to see the man she so blindly worships?’ Then it flashed across my mind how easily the thing could be done! I had but to assume my mother’s nun’s dress and hood, and no ordinary observer could have told it was not my mother herself. She in my dress would easily be permitted to pass the portress’s lodge, and once outside the convent walls Isola would be at hand with further disguises, if necessary, and means of facilitating the journey to England.

“I felt, as you may imagine, I was incurring heavy responsibility in acting thus. But what was to be done? I had no one to advise me. I knew that you ought to be communicated with, and it was simply an impossibility for me to leave my mother in the state she was in. Once I had hinted at the advisability of my going back to consult with you as to what ought to be done, but she became perfectly frantic at the bare thought of such a thing, and throwing herself at my feet, had implored me ‘not to quench the last ray of light in her life.’

“Isola entered heart and soul into my plan. ‘I will go with her,’ she exclaimed. ‘She is too much of a child to be trusted by herself in the world. Where she wanders thither will I go, where she dies there will I die, and there will I be buried.’ I gladly consented to this, as Isola had already once made the journey to England, and would know all the details of the route. My mother, too, was so bright and quick, and her remembrance of the English you taught her so perfect, that I had scarcely any fear of difficulties arising on the road. My one and only anxiety was how would she conduct herself in her interview with you. Would she act quietly and with discretion, or would she cause some open scandal and disgrace to you and to your family? I did my best to prevent this by exacting from her a solemn promise that she would not go down to Harleyford, but remain in London at the hotel where Isola stayed, write to you from there, and there wait your reply. My heart misgave me when she made me this promise. Yet, I thought to myself, after all it doesn’t much matter what she says or does in England. The truth will have to be made known to the world, and the rightful wife acknowledged. ‘Ah! it was a weary, bitter time,’” and here Amy broke down utterly. “My brain aches now when I think of it, and a pain comes into my heart which, I think, will be there till my dying day.”

“Poor child!” said Mr. Warden, tenderly smoothing the masses of dark hair which clustered upon Amy’s white forehead, as she laid her head wearily on his shoulder. “My poor little girl, you have been too much tried. You were too young to bear so heavy a load of responsibility and sorrow. For an old worn-out heart like mine a little suffering, more or less, cannot make much difference, but for you, in your bright, fresh girlhood, it was hard indeed to bear up against such a complication of mistakes and wrong-doing.”

“Yes,” said Amy, wearily, going on with her story, “it was very hard and very miserable, and after my mother had started, I nearly broke down altogether.

“Our plan succeeded beyond our hopes even. In the evening twilight, in the dress in which I left my home, my mother passed out of the Convent gates, with Isola, on the pretext of visiting some old friends on the other side of Le Puy. You, my father, had you seen her then, might have mistaken her for your own daughter, so complete was the resemblance in face, form, and figure. Perhaps she looked a little paler, a little thinner, and a few years older (certainly not more) than I did six months ago, but it would have needed younger and keener eyes than those of the old nuns to have discovered this. And I, in my mother’s dress and hood, had not the slightest fear of detection. I had become so accustomed to the daily routine of the convent, that I knew to the least iota every one of my mother’s religious duties. Latterly, too, she had been so weak and ill she had been allowed to remain very much in her own room. I had acquired, or rather reacquired, the singing intonation peculiar to the Cevenol peasant, and knowing our voices were so nearly one pitch and tone, had no fear of discovery on this point. I drew the hood a little more closely over my face; I was perhaps a little less sociable and friendly with the sisters, and thus for three days I escaped detection.

“But on the fourth day I knew that Pére Ambroise, the Confessor, was expected, and I determined that with him I would attempt no further concealment. He was a personal friend of my mother’s; it was he who induced her to enter the Convent of St. Geneviève, and it was his wise counsels, I don’t doubt, which had restrained and quieted her impetuous temper, as long as it was possible to do so. Such a dear old man, papa, he ought to be made a bishop at the very least, instead of ending his days here as Curé and Confessor to twenty or thirty little nuns. I contrived to meet him as he entered the convent garden, and while walking with him towards the house, told him, in as few words as possible, the story of my mother’s escape, and my reason for planning it. At first he was very angry, although not so much as might have been expected, considering the heavy sin he believed to have been committed.

“‘La petite Sœur (that was the name my mother was known by on account of her comparative youth) ought to have consulted me,’ he said, ‘I have taught her for many years, and she might have relied on my counsels.’

“‘Would you have let her go had she done so?’ I asked.

 “‘Without doubt, no,’ he exclaimed, earnestly.

“‘Was there any other way of saving her life or reason?’ I asked again—

“‘My daughter,’ he replied, very gently, ‘you are very young, but I pray that long ere you have reached my age, you will have learned that there are some things to be thought of before life or reason, and that a man or woman must be at times prepared to sacrifice both rather than honour, faith, or the service of God.’

“I felt so ashamed that he should have to speak to me in this way, that I knew not what to say. I felt how wrongly I had acted from first to last. But what was I to do? I was altogether bewildered, and began to wish I had consulted the good Father before. However, it was too late now. I could only repeat I was very sorry to have grieved and offended him, but perhaps if he knew the whole of my story he would not judge me so harshly.

“‘I do not ask for your confidence, my daughter,’ he replied, ‘there may be things in your family history you would not care to repeat, but I had a right to expect your mother’s confidence, and now I find it was but half-given.’

“Then he told me how I had made myself amenable to the laws of the country in thus assisting in the escape of a nun—

“‘But,’ he added kindly, ‘you, my child are too young to be prosecuted on such a matter, and Isola too old. She will return and repent, she is too true a daughter of the Church not to do so, but your mother never will. The world has had her heart throughout her sojourn here, and the world will claim its own.’

“Then he told me I was welcome to stay here as long as I pleased, as guest at the convent, or if I had other friends with whom I would prefer staying, he would have much pleasure in conducting me to them. Was he not a splendid man, papa?” added Amy enthusiastically, “he looked so noble and so good while he was speaking, he made me feel thoroughly ashamed of my own conduct, and the part I had played throughout. Of course I told him I would remain gratefully with the nuns till I heard from my mother or you, and then determining there should be no further deceit on my part, told him how I expected to hear through Isola’s nephew, a young woodcutter in the neighbourhood.

“How anxiously I longed and waited for news you may imagine, but a whole week passed, and still not a word. At length, about ten days after my mother’s departure, and when I was feeling positively sick with suspense, and a dread of what was coming, Isola herself, to my great amazement, appeared at the convent gates. I hastened down to her, dreading I knew not what.

“‘Where is my mother?’ was my first question—

“‘I left her in London,’ replied Isola, ‘she ordered me to return here to thee and await her orders, and I have done so. It was hard to part from her, she looked so young and beautiful, but she told me she would manage now her own affairs; that she was going down to the little country village to see him she loved so well, and that thou wouldst need an escort back to thy own country. I gave her all the money I had, and my old brown hood and cloak, and here I am, my child, to take care of thee.’ Then she handed to me a few short hurried lines from my mother, telling me ‘she was safe and happy, and knew well what she should do; that it might be some little time before she wrote again, but when all was happily arranged she would send for me, and I know,’ she concluded, ‘all will be happily arranged. I shall win him back; I have loved him so well I cannot lose him.’

“My heart sank as I read the note. Something told me the worst was to come, and as day after day slipped by, and not a line not a message from either father or mother, my brain began to grow dazed and stupid, and I think I really lost the power of reasoning. I dared not write to you; I felt how justly angry you must be with me, whatever your own fault, for having acted so madly and foolishly. I wandered backwards and forwards from the convent to Isola’s cottage, from Isola’s cottage to the convent, hoping for news, praying for news, and feeling the suspense to be more than I could bear. O, papa, papa!” concluded Amy, breaking down once more, and giving way to a passion of tears, “if you had not come when you did, your poor little Amy would have lost her reason altogether, or else have laid down to die from sheer weariness and sickness of heart.”

 Gently and tenderly Mr. Warden soothed his daughter.

“My poor little girl,” he said, “you have been too much tried for one so young. This is the last time we will talk over this sad story, but before we lay it on one side for ever, you must hear one or two things it is only right you should know. Lord Hardcastle has told you no doubt most of what occurred during your absence, and all our grief for your loss, but did he tell you the part he has played throughout; what he has been to me all through our trials; and how it was he who guided us here? Tell me that Amy!”

“No,” replied Amy, “he has never mentioned anything of that kind to me. Indeed he has scarcely spoken to me the last few days, and whenever he looks at me, his eyes grow so large and cross, that I feel sure he is thinking in his own mind, ‘what an immense deal of trouble this self-willed silly girl has given us all! what a pity everyone is not as sensible and clever as I am!’”

Then Mr. Warden commenced from the very beginning, and told Amy every particular, even to the smallest detail, of all that had occurred during her absence. He spared her nothing. All his own grief and despair he laid bare before her, the solemn vow, too of Frank Varley and Lord Hardcastle, and how each had played their part. He recounted to her all the terrors of that dreadful night when death was in the house and the baying hound betrayed her mother’s presence. Step by step he led her on through the sad story of the finding of her mother’s body, his own broken-hearted sorrow, and Lord Hardcastle’s intense grief. Amy never lifted her eyes from his face, but drank in his every word and tone. Like one awaking from a dream, silent and enthralled she sat and listened. As Mr. Warden repeated to her Lord Hardcastle’s words in the library at the High Elms, “I want to be able to hold up a picture of the girl I love so truly, in all her innocence, and beauty, and purity, and to say to all the world, this is she whom I have loved in life, whom I love in death, whom I shall love after death, through eternity!” Amy sprang to her feet with clasped hands, exclaiming—

“Papa, papa, what is this, I do not understand.” At this moment the door opened and Lord Hardcastle entered the room. Anything more embarrassing could not be imagined. Carried away by his feelings, Mr. Warden had spoken loudly, and Amy’s high-pitched voice must have rung the length of the corridor. For a moment all were silent, and Amy, confused and nervous, leant over the window-ledge, dropping stones and dry leaves from the flower-boxes on to the verandah beneath.

Lord Hardcastle was the first to recover himself.

“Mr. Warden,” he said, “I have come in to say good-bye; I shall leave, I think, before daylight to-morrow, for a little run through Spain. I am rather interested in Dr. Lytton’s account of the Moorish excavations going on just now. You are looking so thoroughly well and happy, that I quite feel my services are no longer needed.”

 He spoke carelessly, almost indifferently, but there was a mournful ring in the last few words which went straight to Amy’s heart.

“He must not go, he shall not leave us in this way,” she exclaimed, suddenly turning from the window, addressing her father, but stretching out her hands to Lord Hardcastle. The old bright look had come back to her eyes, the old imperious tones sounded once more in her voice, “How can we thank him? What can we do for him who has done so much for us. Lord Hardcastle,” she continued, turning impetuously towards him, with flushed face and sparkling eyes, “I was very rude to you a short time ago, can you forgive me? You were wearing my ruby ring, will you take it back again, and keep it for ever and ever in remembrance of my gratitude to you? I have so little to offer,” she added apologetically, with a little sigh, drawing the ring from her finger and holding it towards him.

“But I want something more than the ring to keep for ever and ever,” said Lord Hardcastle, in low earnest tones, for Amy’s voice and manner, told him that the icy barriers between them were broken down at last. “Not now, Amy,” he added tenderly, as he felt the little hand he had contrived to secure, trembling in his own; “not now, for we have scarcely as yet passed from beneath the cloud of the shadows of death, but by-and-by, when the dark winter days have come and gone, and the bright spring sun shines down once more upon us, then I shall hope to come to you and ask not only for this little hand, but for all you have to give, even for your own sweet self!”

There was yet one more dark shadow to fall before the travellers started on their homeward journey. Amy had proposed to her father that they should pay a farewell visit to the little brown nuns at St. Geneviève, to thank them for their hospitality to her. Mr. Warden gladly acceded to her request, and the visit was paid the day before they started for England. On leaving the convent, they purposed visiting Isola in her lonely little hut in the valley, intending to make some permanent provision for her comfort for the rest of her life.

“Poor faithful creature,” said Mr. Warden pityingly, as they descended by the wild steep footway, “I would gladly ask her to return with us, were it not for the recollection of falsehood and misery which her face brings with it.”

Before they reached the hut, however, they were met by Isola’s nephew, the young woodcutter, of whom mention has already been made. He looked grave and sad, and lifting his hat respectfully to Mr. Warden, waited for him to speak.

“How is your aunt this morning, André,” said Amy, “shall we find her within?”

The young man shook his head.

“She is gone, mademoiselle, she will never return. This morning at daybreak the angels carried her soul away. Since mademoiselle left us, she wearied and sickened, she eat nothing, she never slept. There in the window is her lace cushion with the bobbins untouched, and day and night she sat and moaned in her wicker chair. Yesterday, when I tried to make her take some food, she turned her face to the wall, ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘the summer flowers are faded and dead, why should the withered leaf hang upon the bough?’ She never spoke to me afterwards, and this morning, when I went to her room to ask how she was, I found her lying dead and silent on her bed. Will mademoiselle come in and see her as she lies? She looks beautiful with her wreaths and garlands of flowers.”

This, however, Mr. Warden would not permit, for he felt his young daughter had already been tried beyond her strength, and Amy, with the mists of tears hanging over her eyes, looked her last at the Cevenol valley, and said a long farewell to the beautiful solitude.

And so the winter snows and clouds came and went, and the spring sun shone out once more, calling into life and being a thousand sweet sights and sounds. It lighted up the grey house at Harleyford, and fell slantwise through the tall elms on to the tender grass beneath. It shone through the east window of Harleyford Old Church, on to a quiet wedding party assembled there one bright May morning, and played in many coloured beams on two monuments standing side by side in the grassy graveyard.

And far away in the lonely valley of the Cevennes, the same spring sunshine lighted up a quiet weed-grown resting-place, and fell in quivering lines and curves upon a simple wooden cross, engraved in rude peasant’s carving, with these few words—

“ISOLA.”

“Fidèle jusques à la mort.”