Two Years Ago Volume Ii Part 53

Along that strip of shadow she ran, crouching; now stumbling over a boulder, now crus.h.i.+ng her bare feet between the sharp pebbles, as, heedless where she stepped, she kept her eye fixed on her mother. As if fascinated, she could see nothing else in heaven or earth but that dark figure, hurrying along with a dogged determination, and then stopping a moment to look round, as if in fear of a pursuer. And then Grace lay down on the cold stones, and pressed herself into the very earth; and the moment her mother turned to go forward, sprang up and followed.

And then a true woman's thought flashed across her, and shaped itself into a prayer. For herself she never thought: but if the Coast Guardsman above should see her mother, stop her, question her? G.o.d grant that he might be on the other side of the point! And she hurried on again.

Near the Nose the rocks ran high and jagged; her mother held on to them, pa.s.sed through a narrow chasm, and disappeared.

Grace now, not fifty yards from her, darted out of the shadow into the moonlight, and ran breathlessly toward the spot where she had seen her mother last. Like Anderssen's little sea-maiden she went, every step on sharp knives, across the rough beds of barnacles; but she felt no pain, in the greatness of her terror and her love.

She crouched between the rocks a moment; heard her mother slipping and splas.h.i.+ng among the pools; and glided after her like a ghost--a guardian angel rather--till she saw her emerge again for a moment into the moonlight, upon a strip of beach beneath the Nose.

It was a weird and lonely spot; and a dangerous spot withal. For only at low spring-tide could it be reached from the land, and then the flood rose far up the cliff, covering all the s.h.i.+ngle, and filling the mouth of a dark cavern. Had her mother gone to that cavern? It was impossible to see, so utterly was the cliff shrouded in shadow.

s.h.i.+vering with cold and excitement, Grace crouched down, and gazed into the gloom, till her eyes swam, and a hundred fantastic figures, and sparks of fire, seemed to dance between her and the rock. Sparks of fire!--yes; but that last one was no fancy. An actual flash; the crackle and sputter of a match! What could it mean? Another match was lighted; and a moment after, the glare of a lanthorn showed her mother entering beneath the polished arch of rock which glared lurid overhead, like the gateway of the pit of fire.

The light vanished into the windings of the cave. And then Grace, hardly knowing what she did, rushed up the beach, and crouched down once more at the cave's mouth. There she sat, she knew not how long, listening, listening, like a hunted hare; her whole faculties concentrated in the one sense of hearing; her eyes wandering vacantly over the black saws of rock, and glistening oar-weed beds, and bright phosphoric sea. Thank Heaven, there was not a ripple to break the silence. Ah, what was that sound within? She pressed her ear against the rock, to hear more surely.

A rumbling as of stones rolled down. And then,--was it a fancy, or were her powers of hearing, intensified by excitement, actually equal to discern the c.h.i.n.k of coin? Who knows? but in another moment she had glided in, silently, swiftly, holding her very breath; and saw her mother kneeling on the ground, the lanthorn by her side, and in her hand the long-lost belt.

She did not speak, she did not move. She always knew, in her heart of hearts, that so it was: but when the sin took bodily shape, and was there before her very eyes, it was too dreadful to speak of, to act upon yet. And amid the most torturing horror and disgust of that great sin, rose up in her the divinest love for the sinner; she felt--strange paradox--that she had never loved her mother as she did at that moment.

"Oh, that it had been I who had done it, and not she!" And her mother's sin was to her her own sin, her mother's shame her shame, till all sense of her mother's guilt vanished in the light of her divine love. "Oh, that I could take her up tenderly, tell her that all is forgiven and forgotten by man and G.o.d!--serve her as I have never served her yet!-- nurse her to sleep on my bosom, and then go forth and bear her punishment, even if need be on the gallows-tree!" And there she stood, in a silent agony of tender pity, drinking her portion of the cup of Him who bore the sins of all the world.

Silently she stood; and silently she turned to go, to go home and pray for guidance in that dark labyrinth of confused duties. Her mother heard the rustle; looked up; and sprang to her feet with a scream, dropping gold pieces on the ground.

Her first impulse was wild terror. She was discovered; by whom, she knew not. She clasped her evil treasure to her bosom, and thrusting Grace against the rock, fled wildly out.

"Mother! Mother!" shrieked Grace, rus.h.i.+ng after her. The shawl fell from her shoulders. Her mother looked back, and saw the white figure.

"G.o.d's angel! G.o.d's angel, come to destroy me! as he came to Balaam!"

and in the madness of her guilty fancy she saw in Grace's hand the fiery sword which was to smite her.

Another step, looking backward still, and she had tripped over a stone.

She fell, and striking the back of her head against the rock, lay senseless.

Tenderly Grace lifted her up: went for water to a pool near by; bathed her face, calling on her by every term of endearment. Slowly the old woman recovered her consciousness, but showed it only in moans. Her head was cut and bleeding. Grace bound it up, and then taking that fatal belt, bound it next to her own heart, never to be moved from thence till she should put it into the hands of him to whom it belonged.

And then she lifted up her mother.

"Come home, darling mother;" and she tried to make her stand and walk.

The old woman only moaned, and waved her away impatiently. Grace put her on her feet; but she fell again. The lower limbs seemed all but paralysed.

Slowly that sweet saint lifted her, and laid her on her own back; and slowly she bore her homeward, with aching knees and bleeding feet; while before her eyes hung the picture of Him who bore his cross up Calvary, till a solemn joy and pride in that sacred burden seemed to intertwine itself with her deep misery. And fainting every moment with pain and weakness, she still went on, as if by supernatural strength: and murmured--

"Thou didst bear more for me, and shall not I bear even this for Thee?"

Surely, if blest spirits can weep and smile over the woes and heroisms of us mortal men, faces brighter than the stars looked down on that fair girl that night, and in loving sympathy called her, too, blest.

At last it was over. Undiscovered she reached home, laid her mother on the bed, and tended her till morning; but long ere morning dawned stupor had changed into delirium, and Grace's ears were all on fire with words --which those who have ever heard will have no heart to write.

And now, by one of those strange vagaries, in which epidemics so often indulge, appeared other symptoms; and by day-dawn cholera itself.

Heale, though recovering, was still too weak to be of use: but, happily, the medical man sent down by the Board of Health was still in the town.

Grace sent for him; but he shook his head after the first look. The wretched woman's ravings at once explained the case, and made it, in his eyes, all but hopeless.

The sudden shock to body and mind, the sudden prostration of strength, had brought out the disease which she had dreaded so intensely, and against which she had taken so many precautions, and which yet lay, all the while, lurking unfelt in her system.

A hideous eight-and-forty hours followed. The preachers and cla.s.s-leaders came to pray over the dying woman: but she screamed to Grace to send them away. She had just sense enough left to dread that she might betray her own shame. Would she have the new clergyman then?

No; she would have no one;--no one could help her! Let her only die in peace!

And Grace closed the door upon all but the doctor, who treated the wild sufferer's wild words as the mere fancies of delirium; and then Grace watched and prayed, till she found herself alone with the dead.

She wrote a letter to Thurnall--

"Sir--I have found your belt, and all the money, I believe and trust, which it contained. If you will be so kind as to tell me where and how I shall send it to you, you will take a heavy burden off the mind of

"Your obedient humble Servant, who trusts that you will forgive her having been unable to fulfil her promise."

She addressed the letter to Whitbury; for thither Tom had ordered his letters to be sent; but she received no answer.

The day after Mrs. Harvey was buried, the sale of all her effects was announced in Aberalva.

Grace received the proceeds, went round to all the creditors, and paid them all which was due. She had a few pounds left. What to do with that she knew full well.

She showed no sign of sorrow: but she spoke rarely to any one. A dead dull weight seemed to hang over her. To preachers, cla.s.s-leaders, gossips, who upbraided her for not letting them see her mother, she replied by silence. People thought her becoming idiotic.

The day after the last creditor was paid she packed up her little box: hired a cart to take her to the nearest coach; and vanished from Aberalva, without bidding farewell to a human being, even to her School-children.

Vavasour had been buried more than a week. Mark and Mary were sitting in the dining-room, Mark at his port and Mary at her work, when the footboy entered.

"Sir, there's a young woman wants to speak with you."

"Show her in, if she looks respectable," said Mark, who had slippers on, and his feet on the fender, and was, therefore, loth to move.

"Oh, quite respectable, sir, as ever I see;" and the lad ushered in a figure, dressed and veiled in deep black.

"Well, ma'am, sit down, pray; and what can I do for you!"

"Can you tell me, sir," answered a voice of extraordinary sweetness and gentleness, very firm, and composed withal, "if Mr. Thomas Thurnall is in Whitbury?"

"Thurnall? He has sailed for the East a week ago. May I ask your business with him? Can I help you in it?"

The black damsel paused so long, that both Mary and her father felt uneasy, and a cloud pa.s.sed over Mark's brow.

"Can the boy have been playing tricks?" said he to himself.

"Then, sir, as I hear that you have influence, can you get me a situation as one of the nurses who are going out thither, so I hear?"