Everett-Green Evelyn
Monica, Volume 3 (of 3)
“Oh, my love! my love!”
It was the one irrepressible cry from the depths of her heart; the next moment she repeated dreamily to herself the words that had lately passed her husband’s lips:
“‘Whatever happens, we are in God’s hands. Remember that always.’ Randolph, I will! I will!”
A ringing cheer told her that the boat was off. Nobody had seen the slim figure that had slunk after Randolph down to the beach. No one, in the darkness and general excitement, had seen that same slim figure leap lightly and noiselessly into the boat, and crouch down in the extreme end of the bow.
Conrad Fitzgerald had witnessed the parting between husband and wife; he had heard every word that had passed between them; and now, as he crouched with a tiger-like ferocity in the bottom of the boat, he muttered:
“This time he shall not escape me!”
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.
WIDOWED
The boat launched by the rescuing party vanished in the darkness. Monica stood where her husband had left her in the shelter of the cliff, her pale face turned seawards, her eyes fixed upon the glimmering crests of the great waves, as they came rolling calmly in, in their resistless might and majesty.
Beatrice had twice come back to her, to assure her with eager vehemence that the danger was very slight, that it was lessening every moment as the wind shifted and abated in force – dangerous, indeed, for the poor fellows in the doomed vessel that had struck upon the fatal reef, but not very perilous for the willing and eager and experienced crew that had started off to rescue them. Beatrice urged this many times upon Monica; but the latter stood quite still and spoke not a word; only gazed out to sea with the same strange yearning gaze that was like a mute farewell.
Was it only an hour ago that she had been with her husband at home, telling him of the dim foreboding of coming woe that had haunted her all that day? It seemed to her as if she had all her life been standing beside the dark margin of this tempest-tossed sea, waiting the return of him who made all the happiness of her life – and waiting in vain.
Beatrice looked at her once or twice, but did not speak again. Presently she moved down towards the water’s edge. Surely the boat would be coming back now!
Suddenly there was a glad shout of triumph and joy from the fisher-folk, down by the brink of the sea.
“Here she is!” “Here she comes!” “Steady, there!” “Ease her a bit!” “This way now!” “Be ready, lads!” “Here she comes!” “Now, then, all together!” “After this wave – NOW!”
Cries, shouts, an eager confusion of tongues – the grating of a boat’s keel upon the beach, and then a ringing hearty cheer.
“All safe?”
“All saved – five of them and a lad.” “Just in time only.” “She wouldn’t have floated five minutes longer.” “She was going down like lead.”
What noise and confusion there was – people crowding round, flitting figures passing to and fro in the obscurity, every one talking, all speaking together – such a hubbub as Beatrice had never witnessed before. She stood in glad, impatient expectancy on the outskirts of the little crowd. Why did not Randolph come away from them to Monica? Why did she not hear his voice with the rest? Her heart gave a sudden throb as of terror.
“Where is Lord Trevlyn?”
Her voice, sharpened by the sudden fear that had seized her, was heard through all the eager clamour of those who stood round. A gleam of moonlight, struggling through the clouds, lighted up the group for a moment. The words went round like wildfire: “Where is Lord Trevlyn?” and men looked each other in the face, growing pale with conscious bewilderment. Where, indeed, was Lord Trevlyn? He was certainly not amongst them; yet he had undoubtedly steered the boat to shore. Where was he now? Men talked in loud, rapid tones. Women ran hither and thither, wringing their hands in distressful excitement, hunting for the missing man with futile eagerness. What had happened? Where could he be?
Suddenly a deep silence fell upon all; for in the brightening moonlight they saw that Monica stood amongst them – pale, calm and still, as a spirit from another world.
“Tell me,” she said.
The story was told by one and another. Monica was used to the people and their ways. She gathered without difficulty the substance of the story. The boat had reached, without over-much difficulty or danger, the sinking vessel. She was a small coaling ship, with a crew of seven men and a boy. Two of the former had already been washed away, and the vessel was sinking rapidly. The five survivors were easily rescued; but the lad was entangled in the rigging, and was too much exhausted to free himself and follow. Lord Trevlyn was the first to realise this, and he sprang out of the boat at some peril to himself to the lad’s assistance. Nobody had been able to see in the darkness what had passed, but all agreed that the lad had been handed to those in the boat by a pair of strong arms, and that after an interval of about three minutes – for the boat had swung round, and had to be brought back again, which took a little time – a man had sprung back into the boat, had shouted “All right!” had seized the tiller, and sung out to the crew to “Give way, and put off!” which they had done immediately, glad enough to be clear of the masts of the sinking vessel, which were in dangerous proximity.
No one had been able in the darkness to see the face of the steersman; but all agreed that the voice was “a gentleman’s”; and most mysterious of all was the fact that the boat had been steered to shore with a skill that showed a thorough knowledge of the coast, and that not a man of those who now stood round had ever laid a hand upon the tiller.
A thrill of superstitious awe ran round as this fact became known, together with the terrible certainty that Lord Trevlyn had not returned with them. Was it indeed a phantom hand that had guided the frail bark through the wild, tossing waves? The bravest man there felt a shiver of awe – the women sobbed, and trembled unrestrainedly.
The boat was put to sea once more without a moment’s delay. The wind was dropping, the tide had turned, and the danger was well nigh over. But heads were shaken in mute despair, and old men shook their heads at the bare idea of the survival of any swimmer, who had been left to battle with the waves round the sunken reef on a stormy winter’s night.
Monica stood like a statue; she heeded neither the wailing of the women, the murmurs of sympathy from the men, nor the clasp of Beatrice’s hand round her cold fingers. She saw nothing, heard nothing, save the tossing, the moaning of the pitiless sea.
The boat came back at last – came back in dead, mournful silence. That silence said all that was needed.
Monica stepped towards the weary, dejected men, who had just left the boat for the second time.
“You have done all that you could,” she said gently. “I thank you from my heart.”
And then she turned quietly away to go home – alone.
No one dared follow her too closely; even Beatrice kept some distance behind, sick with misery and sympathetic despair. Monica’s step did not falter. She went back to the spot where her husband had left her, and stood still, looking out over the sea.
“Good-bye, my love – my own dear love,” she said, very softly and calmly. “It has come at last, as I knew it would, when he held me in his arms for the last time on earth. Did he know it, too? I think he did just at the last. I saw it in his brave, tender face as he gave me that last kiss. But he died doing his duty. I will bear it for his sake.” Yet with an irrepressible gesture of anguish she held out her arms in the darkness, crying out, not loud, indeed, but from the very depth of her broken heart, “Ah, Randolph! – husband – my love! my love!”
That was all; that one passionate cry of sorrow. After it calmness returned to her once more. She stepped towards Beatrice, who stood a little way off, and held out her hand.
“Come, dear,” she said. “We must go home.”
Beatrice was more agitated than Monica. She was convulsed with tearless sobs. She could only just command herself to stumble uncertainly up the steep cliff path that Monica trod with ease and freedom.
The moon was shining clearly now. She could see the gaze that her companion turned for one moment over the tossing waste of waters. She caught the softly-whispered words, “Good-bye, dear love! good bye!” and a sudden burst of tears came to her relief; but Monica’s eyes were dry.
As they entered the castle hall, they saw that the ill news had preceded them. Pale-faced servants, both men and women, stood awed and trembling, waiting, as it seemed, for their mistress. A sound as of hushed weeping greeted them as they entered.
No one ever forgot the look upon Monica’s face as she entered her desolated home. It was far more sad in its unutterable calm than the wildest expression of grief could have been. Nobody dared to speak a word, save the old nurse who had tended Randolph from childhood. She stepped forward, the tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks.
“Oh, my lady! my lady!” she sobbed.
Monica paused, looked for one moment at the faithful servant; then bent her head, and kissed her.
“Dear nurse,” she said gently, “you always loved him;” and then she passed quietly on to the music-room – the room that she and her husband had quitted together less than three hours before, and shut herself up there – alone.
Beatrice dared not follow. She let Wilberforce take her upstairs, and tend her like a child, whilst they mingled their tears together over the brave young life cut short in its manhood’s strength and prime. Randolph’s nurse was no stranger to Beatrice, and it was easy for the good woman to speak with authority to one whom she had known as a child, force her to take some nourishment, and exchange wet garments for dry. She could not be induced to go to bed, exhausted though she was, but the wine and soup did her good, and the hearty burst of weeping had relieved her overcharged heart. She felt more like herself when, after an hour’s time, she went downstairs again; but, oh! what a different house it was from what it had been a few hours back!
It was by that time eleven o’clock. Monica was still shut up in the music-room. Nothing had been heard of Haddon; she had hardly even given him a thought. She went down slowly to the hall, and found herself face to face with Tom Pendrill. He wore his hat and great coat. He had evidently just arrived in haste. As he removed the former she was startled at the look upon his face. She had not believed it capable of expressing so much feeling.
“Beatrice,” he said hoarsely, “is it true?”
He did not know he had called her by her Christian name, and she hardly noticed it at the moment. She only bent her head and answered:
“Yes, it is true.”
Together they passed into the lighted drawing-room, and stood on either side the glowing hearth, looking at each other fixedly.
“Where is Monica?”
“In the music-room, alone. They were there together when the guns began. It will kill her, I am certain it will!”
“No,” answered Tom quietly; “she will not die. It would be happier for her if she could.”
Beatrice looked at him with quivering lips.
“Oh!” she said at last. “You understand her?”
“Yes,” he answered absently, looking away into the fire. “I understand her. She will not die.”
Both were very silent for a time. Then he spoke.
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You have not heard?”
“Only the barest outline. Sit down and tell me all.”
She did not resent his air of authority. She sat down, and did his bidding. Tom listened in deep silence, weighing every word.
He made no comment on the strange story; but a very dark shadow rested upon his sharp featured face.
He was a man of keen observation and acuteness of perception, and his mind often leaped to a conclusion that no present premises seemed to justify. Not for a moment would he have given utterance to the question that had suggested itself to his mind; but there it was, repeating itself again and again with persistent iteration.
“Can there have been foul play?”
He spoke not a word, his face told no tales; but he was musing intently. Where was that half mad fellow, Fitzgerald; who some months ago had seemed on the high-road to drink himself to madness or death? He had not been heard of for some time past; but Tom could not get the question out of his mind.
In the deep silence that reigned in the room every sound could be heard distinctly. Beatrice suddenly started, for they were aware that the door of the music-room had been opened, and that Monica was coming towards them. The girl turned pale, and looked almost frightened. Tom stood up as his hostess appeared, setting his face like a flint.
The long hour that had seemed like a life-time to the wife – the widow – how could they bring themselves to think of her as such? – had left no outward traces upon Monica. Her face was calm and still, and very pale, but it was not convulsed by grief, and her eyes did not look as though they had shed tears, although there was no hardness in their depths. They shone with something of star-like brightness, at once soft and brilliant. The sweet serenity that had long been the habitual expression of her face seemed intensified rather than changed.
“Beatrice,” she said quietly, “where is your brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has he not come in?”
“Not that I know of.”
“We must inquire. He has been so many hours gone. I am uneasy about him.”
“Oh, never mind about him,” said Beatrice, quickly. “He will be all right.”
“We must think of him,” she answered. “Tom, it was good of you to come back. What brought you? Did you hear?”
“I heard a rumour. Of course I came back. Is there anything I can do?” He spoke abruptly, like a man labouring under some weight of oppression.
“I wish you would go and inquire for Lord Haddon. Randolph sent him to the life-boat station, because he believed he would ride over faster than anybody else. I think he should be followed now, if he has not come back. I cannot think what can have detained him so long.”
“I will go and make inquiries,” said Tom.
“Thank you. I should be much obliged if you would.”
But as it turned out, there was no need for him to do this. Even as Monica spoke they became aware of a slight stir in the hall. Uncertain, rapid steps crossed the intervening space, and the next moment Haddon stood before them in the doorway, white, drenched, dishevelled, exhausted, leaning as if for support against the framework, whilst his eyes sought those of his sister with a strange look of dazed horror.
“Beatrice!” he cried, in a strained, unnatural tone. “Say it is not true!”
Monica had stepped forward, anxious and startled at his appearance. The look upon her face must have brought conviction home to Haddon’s heart, and this terrible conviction completed the work begun by previous over-fatigue and exhaustion. He made two uncertain steps forward, looked round him in a dazed bewildered way; then putting his hand to his head with a sudden gesture as of pain, called out:
“I say, what is it? – Look out!” and Tom had only just time to spring forward and guide his fall as he dropped in a dead faint upon the couch hard by.
“Poor boy!” said Monica gently; “the shock has been too much for him.”
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH.
MONICA
Lord Haddon was carried upstairs by Tom’s direction, and put to bed at once, but it was a very long time before he recovered consciousness, and the doctor’s face was grave when he rejoined Monica and Beatrice an hour later.
Afterwards they learned that he had reached the life-boat station, only to find the boat out in another direction, that he had lost his way in the darkness, and had been riding for hours over trackless moors, wet through by driving storms of rain, obliged often to halt, despite the cold and wet, to wait for passing gleams of moonlight to show him his way; and this after a long day’s shooting and a long fast. He had reached the castle at last, utterly worn out and exhausted, only to hear the terrible news of the death of his best friend. The strain had been too much, and he had given way.
He awoke to consciousness only in a high state of fever, with pain in every joint; and Beatrice, in answer to Tom’s question, admitted that her brother had had a sharp attack of rheumatic fever some three years before, and had always been rather susceptible to cold and damp ever since.
Tom looked gravely at Monica.
“I was afraid he was in for something of that kind.”
“Poor boy!” she said again, very gently. “I am so sorry. You will stay with us, Tom? It will be a comfort to have you.”
“Of course I will stay,” he answered, in his abruptest fashion. “I shall sit up with Haddon to-night. You two must go to bed at once – I insist upon it.”
“Come, Beatrice,” said Monica, holding out her hand. “We must obey orders you see.”
As they went together up the broad staircase, Beatrice said, with a little sob:
“I cannot bear to think of our giving you all this trouble – just now.”
But Monica stopped her by a kiss.
“Have you not learned by this time Beatrice, that the greatest help in bearing our own sorrows is to help others with their burdens? I am grieved for you, dear, that this other trouble should have come; but Tom is very clever, and we will all nurse him back to health again. Good-night, dearest. You must try to sleep, that you may be strong to-morrow.”
The next day Lord Haddon was very ill – dangerously ill – the fever ran very high, other unfavourable symptoms had showed themselves. Tom’s face was grave and absorbed, and Raymond, who came over at his brother’s request, looked even more anxious. Yet possibly this alarming illness of a guest beneath her roof was the very best thing that could have happened, as far as Monica herself was concerned. But for his illness, Beatrice and her brother must have left Trevlyn at once; it was probable that Monica would have elected to remain there entirely alone during the early days of her widowhood, alone in her own desolation, more heart-breaking to witness than any wild abandonment of grief, alone without even those last melancholy offices to perform, without even the solemn pageantry of a funeral to give some little occupation to the mind, or to bring home in its own incontrovertible way the fact that a loved being has passed away from the world for ever.
Randolph had, as it were, vanished from this life almost as if spirited away. There was nothing to be done, no obsequies to be performed. For just a few days a faint glimmer of hope existed in some minds that a passing vessel might have picked him up, that a telegram announcing his safety might yet arrive; but at the end of a week every spark of such hope had died out, and Monica, who had never from the first allowed herself to be so buoyed up, put on her heavy widow’s weeds with the steady unflinching calmness that had characterised her throughout.
She devoted herself to the task of nursing Lord Haddon, in which task she showed untiring care and skill. All agreed that it was best for her to have her thoughts and attention occupied in some quiet labour of love like this, and certainly her skill at this time was such as to render her services almost invaluable to the patient.
Haddon lay for weeks in a very critical state, racked with pain and burning with fever. Without being always delirious, he was not in any way master of himself, and no one could soothe, or quiet, or compose him, during these long, weary days, except Monica. She seemed to possess a power that acted upon him like a charm. He might not always know her – very often he did not appear to recognise her, but he always felt her influence. At her bidding he would cease the restless tossing and muttering that exhausted his strength and gave him much needless pain. He would take from her hand food that no one else could persuade him to touch. She could often soothe him to sleep, simply by the sound of her voice, or the touch of her hand upon his burning brow.
“If he pulls through it will be your doing,” Tom sometimes said to her. And Monica felt she could not do enough for the youth, who had suffered all this in carrying out her husband’s last command, and who had succumbed when his task was done, in hearing of the fate that had befallen his friend.
A curious bond seemed established between those two, the power of which he felt with a throb of keen joy almost akin to pain, when at last the fever was subdued, and he began to know in a feeble, uncertain sort of fashion, what it was that had happened, and how life had been going with him during the past weeks.
It was of Monica he asked the account of that terrible night, and from her lips he learned the story to which none else had dared to allude in her presence. It was he who talked to her of Randolph, recalled incidents of the past, talked of their boyish days and the escapades they had indulged together, passing on to the increase of mutual understanding and affection that had bound them together as manhood advanced.
Nobody else talked to her like this. Haddon never could have done so, had not weakness and illness brought them into such close communion one with another. His feelings towards Monica were those of simple adoration – he worshipped the very ground she trod on. He often felt that to die with her hand upon his head, her eyes looking gently and kindly into his, was all and more than he could wish. His intense loving devotion gave him a sort of insight into her true nature, and he knew by instinct that he did not hurt her when he talked to her of him who was gone. Perhaps from no other lips could Monica have borne that name to be spoken just then; but Haddon in his hours of wandering had talked so much of Randolph, that she had grown used to hear him speak of the husband she had loved and lost, and she knew by the way in which he had betrayed himself then how deeply and truly he loved him.
When the fever had gone, and the patient lay white and weak, hardly able to move or speak, yet with a mind cleared from the haunting shadows of delirium, eager to know the history of all that had passed, it had not seemed very hard then, in answer to the wistful look in the big grey eyes, and the whispered words from the pale lips to tell him all the truth; and the ice once broken thus, it had been no effort to talk of Randolph afterwards, and to let Haddon talk of him too.
This outlet did her good. She was not a woman to whom talking was a necessity, yet it was better for her to speak sometimes of the sorrow that was weighing upon her crushed spirit; and it was far, far easier to do this to a listener like Haddon, who from his weakness and prostration could rise to no great heights of sympathy, could offer no attempt at consolation, could only look at her with wistful earnestness, and murmur a broken word from time to time, than it would have been to those who would have met her with a burst of tears, or with those quiet caresses and marks of sympathy that must surely have broken down her hardly-won composure and calm.
So this illness of Haddon’s had really been a boon to her, and perhaps to others as well; but for a few weeks Monica’s life seemed passed in a sort of dream, and she was able to notice but little that passed around her. She was wrapped in a strange trance – she lived in the past with her husband, who sometimes hardly seemed to have left her. Only when ministering to the needs of the young earl did she arouse herself from her waking dream, and even then it sometimes seemed as if the dream were the reality, and the reality a dream.
Tom was a great deal at Trevlyn just now. For a long time Haddon’s condition was so exceedingly critical that his presence was almost a necessity, and when the patient gradually became convalescent, Monica needed his help in getting through the business formalities that began to crowd upon her when all hopes of Randolph’s rescue became a thing of the past.
Monica was happy at least in this – there was no need for her to leave her old home – no new earl to claim Trevlyn, and banish her from the place she loved best in the world. The Trevlyns were a dying race, as it seemed. Randolph and Monica were the last of their name, and the entail expired with him. Trevlyn was hers, as well as all her husband’s property. She was a rich woman, but in the first instance it was difficult to understand the position, and she naturally turned in her perplexity to Tom Pendrill, who was a thorough man of business, shrewd and hard-headed, and who, from his long acquaintance and connection with Trevlyn, understood more about the estate than anybody else she could have selected. He was very good to her, as she always said. He put himself entirely at her disposal, and played the part of a kind and wise brother. His dry, matter-of-fact manner of dealing with transfer of property, and such-like matters, was in itself a comfort. She was never afraid of talking things over with him. He kept sentiment studiously and entirely in the back-ground. Although she knew perfectly that his sympathy for her was very great, he never obtruded it upon her in the least; it was offered and accepted in perfect silence on both sides.
