Part 67 (2/2)
”Is it true,” she timidly asked, ”that the Shadow has been there for the last night or two?”
Janet answered the question by asking another. ”Who told you it was there, Maria?”
”I heard Margery say so.”
”Margery?” repeated Janet. ”That woman appears to know by instinct when the Shadow comes. She dreams it, I think. It is true, Maria, that it has appeared again,” she continued, in a tone of unnatural composure. ”I never saw it so black as it was last night.”
”Do you believe that there can be anything in it--that it foretells ill?” asked Maria.
”I know that it is the tradition handed down with our house: I know that, in my own experience, the Shadow never came but it brought ill,”
was the reply of Miss G.o.dolphin.
”What caused the superst.i.tion to arise in the first instance?” asked Maria.
”Has George never told you the tale?” replied Janet.
”Never. He says he does not remember it clearly enough. Will you not tell it me, Janet?”
Janet hesitated. ”One of the early G.o.dolphins brought a curse upon the house,” she at length began, in a low tone. ”It was that evil ancestor whose memory we would bury, were it possible; he who earned for himself the t.i.tle of the Wicked G.o.dolphin. He killed his wife by a course of gradual and long-continued ill-treatment. He wanted her out of the way that another might fill her place. He pretended to have discovered that she was not worthy: than which a.s.sertion nothing could be more false and shameless, for she was one of the best ladies ever created. She was a de Commins, daughter of the warrior Richard de Commins, and was brave as she was good. She died; and the Wicked G.o.dolphin turned her coffin out of the house on to the Dark Plain; there”--pointing to the open s.p.a.ce before the archway--”to remain until the day of interment. But he did not wait for that day of interment to bring home his second wife.”
”Not wait!” exclaimed Maria, her eager ears drinking in the story.
”The habits in those early days will scarcely admit of allusion to them in these,” continued Janet: ”they savour of what is worse than barbarism--sin. The father, Richard de Commins, heard of his child's death, and hastened to Ashlydyat, arriving by moonlight. The first sounds he encountered were the revels of the celebration of the second marriage; the first sight he saw was the coffin of his daughter on the open plain, covered by a pall, two of her faithful women bending, the one at the head, the other at the foot, mourning the dead. While he halted there, kneeling in prayer, it was told to the Wicked G.o.dolphin that de Commins had arrived. He--that Wicked G.o.dolphin--rushed madly out, and drew his sword upon him as he knelt. De Commins was wounded, but not mortally, and he rose to defend himself. A combat ensued, de Commins having no resource but to fight, and he was killed; murdered.
Weary with his journey, enfeebled by age, weakened by grief, his foot slipped, and the Wicked G.o.dolphin, stung to fury by the few words of reproach de Commins had had time to speak, deliberately ran him through as he lay. In the moment of death, de Commins cursed the G.o.dolphins, and prophesied that the shadow of his daughter's bier, as it appeared then, should remain as a curse upon the G.o.dolphins' house for ever.”
”But do you believe the story?” cried Maria, breathlessly.
”How much of it may be true, how much of it addition, I cannot decide,”
said Janet. ”One fact is indisputable: that a shadow, bearing the exact resemblance of a bier, with a mourner at its head and another at its foot, does appear capriciously on that Dark Plain; and that it never yet showed itself, but some grievous ill followed for the G.o.dolphins. It is possible that the Shadow may have partially given rise to the story.”
”Janet!” cried Maria, leaning forward, her own tones hushed, ”is it _possible_ that one, in dying, can curse a whole generation, so that the curse shall take effect in the future?”
”Hush, child!” rebuked Janet. ”It does not become us to inquire into these things. Controversy about them is utterly useless, worse than profitless; for there will be believers and unbelievers to the end of time. You wished me to tell you the story, Maria, and I have done so. I do no more. I do not tell you it is to be believed, or it is not to be believed. Let every one decide for himself, according as his reason, his instinct, or his judgment shall prompt him. People accuse me of being foolishly superst.i.tious touching this Shadow and these old traditions. I can only say the superst.i.tion has been forced upon me by experience.
When the Shadow appears, I cannot close my eyes to it and say, 'It is not there.' It _is_ there: and all I do is to look at it, and speculate.
When the evil, which _invariably_ follows the appearance of the Shadow, falls, I cannot close my heart to it, and say, in the teeth of facts, 'No evil has happened.' The Shadow never appeared, Maria, but it brought ill in its wake. It is appearing again now: and I am as certain that some great ill is in store for us, as that I am talking to you at this moment. On this point I _am_ superst.i.tious.”
”It is a long time, is it not, since the Shadow last appeared?”
”It is years. But I have not quite finished the story,” resumed Janet.
”The Wicked G.o.dolphin killed Richard de Commins, and buried him that night on the Dark Plain. In his fury and pa.s.sion he called his servants around him, ordered a grave to be dug, and a.s.sisted with his own hands.
De Commins was put into it without the rites of burial. Tradition runs that so long as the bones remain unfound, the place will retain the appearance of a graveyard. They have been often searched for. That tragedy, no doubt, gave its name to the place--'The Dark Plain.' It cannot be denied that the place does wear much the appearance of a graveyard: especially by moonlight.”
”It is only the effect of the low gorse bushes,” said Bessy. ”They grow in a peculiar form. I know I would have those bushes rooted up, were I master of Ashlydyat!”
”Your father had it done, Bessy, and they sprang up again,” replied Janet. ”You must remember it.”
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