Part 99 (2/2)
that is his voice--pardon me!” and Arabella flitted from the room, leaving the door ajar.
A feeble Voice, like the treble of an infirm old man, came painfully to Caroline's ear.
”I want to turn; help me. Why am I left alone? It is cruel to leave me so--cruel!”
In the softest tones to which that harsh voice could be tuned, the grim woman apologised and soothed.
”You gave me leave, Jasper dear. You said it would be a relief to you to have her pardon as well as theirs.”
”Whose pardon?” asked the voice querulously.
”Caroline Lyndsay's--Lady Montfort's.”
”Nonsense! What did I ever do against her? Oh--ah! I remember now. Don't let me have it over again. Yes--she pardons me, I suppose! Get me my broth, and don't be long!”
Arabella came back, closing the door; and while she busied herself with that precious saucepan on the hob--to which the Marchioness of Montfort had become a very secondary object--she said, looking towards Caroline from under her iron-grey ringlets:
”You heard--he misses me! He can't bear me out of his sight now--me, me!
You heard!”
Meekly Lady Montfort advanced, bringing in her hand the tray with the broth-basin.
”Yes, I heard! I must not keep you; but let me help while I stay.”
So the broth was poured forth and prepared, and with it Arabella disappeared. She returned in a few minutes, beckoned to Caroline, and said in a low voice:
”Come in--say you forgive him! Oh, you need not fear him; a babe could not fear him now!”
Caroline followed Arabella into the sick-room. No untidiness there; all so carefully, thoughtfully arranged. A pleasant room, too--with windows looking full on the sunniest side of the Vale of Health; the hearth so cheerily clear, swept so clean--the very ashes out of sight; flowers--costly exotics--on the table, on the mantelpiece; the couch drawn towards the window; and on that couch, in the gay rich dressing-gown of former days, warm coverlets heaped on the feet, snow-white pillows propping the head, lay what at first seemed a vague, undistinguishable ma.s.s--lay what, as the step advanced, and the eye became more accurately searching, grew into Jasper Losely.
Yes, there, too weak indeed for a babe to fear, lay all that was left of the Strong Man! No enemy but himself had brought him thus low-spendthrift, and swindler, and robber of his own priceless treasures--Health and Strength--those grand rent-rolls of joy which Nature had made his inheritance. As a tree that is crumbling to dust under the gnarls of its bark seems, the moment ere it falls, proof against time and the tempest, so, within all decayed, stood that image of strength-so, air scarcely stirring, it fell. ”And the pitcher was broken at the fountain; and the wheel was broken at the cistern; vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher.”
Jasper turned his dull eye towards Caroline, as she came softly to his side, and looked at her with a piteous gaze. The stroke that had shattered the form had spared the face; and illness and compulsory abstinence from habitual stimulants had taken from the aspect much of the coa.r.s.eness--whether of shape or colour--that of late years had disfigured its outline--and supplied the delicacy which ends with youth by the delicacy that comes with the approach of death. So that, in no small degree, the beauty which had been to him so fatal a gift, was once more visible--the features growing again distinct, as wanness succeeded to the hues of intemperance, and emaciation to the bloated cheeks and swollen muscle. The G.o.ddess whose boons adorn the outward sh.e.l.l of the human spirit came back to her favourite's death-couch as she had come to the cradle--not now as the Venus Erycina, G.o.ddess of Smile and Jest, but as the warning Venus Libitina, the G.o.ddess of Doom and the Funeral.
”I'm a very poor creature,” said Jasper, after a pause. ”I can't rise--I can't move without help. Very strange supernatural! She always said that if I raised my hand against her, it would fall palsied!” He turned his eye towards Arabella with a glare of angry terror. ”She is a witch!”
he said, and buried his face in the pillow. Tears rolled down the grim woman's cheeks.
LADY MONTFORT.--”She is rather your good ministering spirit. Do not be unkind to her. Over her you have more power now than you had when you were well and strong. She lives but to serve you; command her gently.”
Jasper was not proof against that sweet voice. With difficulty he wrenched himself round, and again looked long at Caroline Montfort, as if the sight did him good; then he made a sign to Arabella, who flew to his side and raised him.
”I have been a sad dog,” he said, with a mournful attempt at the old rollicking tone--”a very sad dog-in short, a villain! But all ladies are indulgent to villains in fact, prefer them! Never knew a lady who could endure 'a good young man'--never! So I am sure you will forgive me, miss--ma'am. Who is this lady? When it comes to forgiveness, there are so many of them! Oh, I remember now--your ladys.h.i.+p will forgive me--'tis all down in black and white what I've done-Belles has it. You see this hand--I can write with this hand--this is not paralysed.
”This is not the hand I tried to raise against her. But _basta, basta!_ where was I? My poor head! I know what it is to have a head now!--ache, ache!--boom, boom-weight, weight-heavy as a church bell-hollow as a church bell--noisy as a church bell! Brandy! give me brandy, you witch!--I mean Bella, good Bella, give me brandy!”
”Not yet, Jasper dear. You are to have it every third hour; it is not time yet, dearest; you must attend to the doctor, and try to get well and recover your strength. You remember I told you how kind Lady Montfort had been to your father, and you wished to see and thank her.”
”My father--my poor, poor father! You've been kind to him! Bless you, bless you! And you will see him? I want his pardon before I die. Don't forget, and--and--”
”Poor Sophy!” said Mrs. Crane.
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