Part 82 (1/2)
Ever since he left the castle he had been greatly uncertain whether the things that seemed to have taken place there, had really taken place.
He got himself in doubt about them the moment he failed to find the key of the oak door. When he asked himself what then could have become of his niece, he would reply that doubtless she was all right: she did not want to marry Forgue, and had slipped out of the way: she had never cared about the property! To have their own will was all women cared about! Would his factor otherwise have dared such liberties with him, the lady's guardian? He had not yet rendered his accounts, or yielded his stewards.h.i.+p. When she died the property would be his! if she was dead, it was his! She would never have dreamed of willing it away from him! She did not know she could: how should she? girls never thought about such things! Besides she would not have the heart: he had loved her as his own flesh and blood!
At intervals, nevertheless, he was a.s.sailed, at times overwhelmed, by the partial conviction that he had starved her to death in the chapel.
Then he was tormented as with all the furies of h.e.l.l. In his night visions he would see her lie wasting, hear her moaning, and crying in vain for help: the hardest heart is yet at the mercy of a roused imagination. He saw her body in its progressive stages of decay as the weeks pa.s.sed, and longed for the process to be over, that he might go back, and pretending to have just found the lost room, carry it away, and have it honourably buried! Should he take it for granted that it had lain there for centuries, or suggest it must be lady Arctura--that she had got shut up there, like the bride in the chest? If he could but find an old spring lock to put on the door! But people were so plaguy sharp nowadays! They found out everything!--he could not afford to have everything found out!--G.o.d himself must not be allowed to know everything!
He stood staring. As he stood and stared, his mind began to change: perhaps, after all, what he saw, might be! The whole thing it had displaced must then be a fancy--a creation of the dreaming brain! G.o.d in heaven! if it could but be proven that he had never done it! All the other wicked things he was--or supposed himself guilty of--some of them so heavy that it had never seemed of the smallest use to repent of them--all the rest might be forgiven him!--But what difference would that make to the fact that he had done them? He could never take his place as a gentleman where all was known! They made such a fuss about a sin or two, that a man went and did worse out of pure despair!
But if he had never murdered anybody! In that case he could almost consent there should be a G.o.d! he could almost even thank him!--For what! That he was not to be d.a.m.ned for the thing he had not done--a thing he had had the misfortune to dream he had done--G.o.d never interfering to protect him from the horrible fancy? What was the good of a G.o.d that would not do that much for you--that left his creatures to make fools of themselves, and only laughed at them!--Bah! There was life in the old dog yet! If only he knew the thing for a fancy!
The music ceased, and the silence was a shock to him. Again he began to stare about him. He looked up. Before him in the air hovered the pale face of the girl he had--or had not murdered! It was one of his visions--but not therefore more unreal than any other appearance: she came from the world of his imagination--so real to him that in expectant moods it was the world into which he was to step the moment he left the body. She looked sweetly at him! She was come to forgive his sins! Was it then true? Was there no sin of murder on his soul? Was she there to a.s.sure him that he might yet hope for the world to come?
He stretched out his arms to her. She turned away. He thought she had vanished. The next moment she was in the chapel, but he did not hear her, and stood gazing up. She threw her arms around him. The contact of the material startled him with such a revulsion, that he uttered a cry, staggered back, and stood looking at her in worse perplexity still. He had done the awful thing, yet had not done it! He stood as one bound to know the thing that could not be.
”Don't be frightened, uncle,” said Arctura. ”I am not dead. The sepulchre is the only resurrection-house! Uncle, uncle! thank G.o.d with me.”
The earl stood motionless. Strange thoughts pa.s.sed through him at their will. Had her presence dispelled darkness and death, and restored the lost chapel to the light of day? Had she haunted it ever since, dead yet alive, watching for his return to pardon him? Would his wife so receive him at the last with forgiveness and endearment? His eyes were fixed upon her. His lips moved tremulously once or twice, but no word came. He turned from her, glanced round the place, and said,
”It is a great improvement!”
I wonder how it would be with souls if they waked up and found all their sins but hideous dreams! How many would loathe the sin? How many would remain capable of doing all again? But few, perhaps no burdened souls can have any idea of the power that lies in G.o.d's forgiveness to relieve their consciousness of defilement. Those who say, ”Even G.o.d cannot destroy the fact!” care more about their own cursed shame than their Father's blessed truth! Such will rather excuse than confess.
When a man heartily confesses, leaving excuse to G.o.d, the truth makes him free, he knows that the evil has gone from him, as a man knows that he is cured of his plague.
”I did the thing,” he says, ”but I could not do it now. I am the same, yet not the same. I confess, I would not hide it, but I loathe it--ten times the more that the evil thing was mine.”
Had the earl been able to say thus, he would have felt his soul a cleansed chapel, new-opened to the light and air;--nay, better--a fresh-watered garden, in which the fruits of the spirit had begun to grow! G.o.d's forgiveness is as the burst of a spring morning into the heart of winter. His autumn is the paying of the uttermost farthing. To let us go without that would be the pardon of a demon, not the forgiveness of the eternally loving G.o.d. But--Not yet, alas, not yet!
has to be said over so many souls!
Arctura was struck dumb. She turned and walked out upon the great stair, her uncle following her. All the way up to the second floor she felt as if he were about to stab her in the back, but she would not look behind her. She went straight to her room, and heard her uncle go on to his. She rang her bell, sent for Donal, and told him what had pa.s.sed.
”I will go to him,” said Donal.
Arctura said nothing more, thus leaving the matter entirely in his hands.
Donal found him lying on the couch.
”My lord,” he said, ”you must be aware of the reasons why you should not present yourself here!”
The earl started up in one of his ready rages:--they were real enough!
With epithets of contemptuous hatred, he ordered Donal from the room and the house. Donal answered nothing till the rush of his wrath had abated.
”My lord,” he said, ”there is nothing I would not do to serve your lords.h.i.+p. But I have no choice but tell you that if you do not walk out, you shall be expelled!”
”Expelled, you dog!”
”Expelled, my lord. The would-be murderer of his hostess must at least be put out of the house.”
”Good heavens!” cried the earl, changing his tone with an attempted laugh, ”has the poor, hysterical girl succeeded in persuading a man of your sense to believe her childish fancies?”
”I believe every word my lady says, my lord. I know that you had nearly murdered her.”