The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 50

"And because your unde, James O'Keefe, heard the report that got about concerning that man and Miss Lorimer, he ran his own soul into a guilt that may by this time have deepened into the crime of murder. Oh, Eleanor! when shall we remember that 'vengeance is mine, saith the Lord?'"

"_My life, and all that is in it!_" The words came forth softly, and Mr. Brewer, turning round, saw Jenifer.

"He has been before the magistrates at Marston, Mr. Brewer. He has denied all knowledge of everything about it. He is remanded on the charge--waiting for more evidence--waiting to see whether Mr. Erskine lives or dies. I hired a gig, and came off here to you as fast as I could be driven. Mr. May, in the old office, says that if Mr. Erskine dies, it will be hard to save him. But the doctor's man tells me Mr.

Erskine has neither had voice nor sight since he was found--I saw Father Daniels in the street, and he, too, is evidence against the poor creature. He knows of Corny Nugent's letter; and Corny wrote to Jem also, so Jem told me, and he came off here to make sure that Horace Erskine and Henry Evelyn were the same people. And he walked from the Northend railway station, and asked his way to Beremouth, and got a gossip with the gate-keeper, and settled to come on to Marston.

And he met Lady Greys took in the carriage, and asked where Eleanor lived, and inquired his way. Did you know him, Eleanor?"

"Yes, I knew him directly; and it was partly because I knew him that I directed him on to you."

"Then he lost his way, and took to getting out of the park by walking straight away in the direction he knew Marston to be lying in. And he got by what we call 'the threshetts,' sir--the water for keeping the fishponds from shallowing--and there he must have fallen in, for he says he climbed the hedge just after, and walked straight away through the gra.s.s fields and meadows, and seeing the lights where the Fells were tending the sick cow last night, he got in there, all dripping wet, as the town-clock struck twelve. He does not deny to the magistrates that if he had found Horace Erskine and Henry Evelyn to be one and the same man, that he might have been tempted to evil; he does not deny that. He says he felt sore tempted to go straight to Beremouth House and have him out from sleep and bed, if to do so could have been possible, and to have given him his punishment on the spot.

He says he wished as he wandered through the park that something might send the man who had injured us all so sorely out to him, to meet him in the way, that they might have come hand to hand, and face to face.

He says he has had more temptations since Corny Nugent's letter to him, and more heart-stirrings in the long silent time before it came, than he can reckon up; and that he has felt as if a dark spirit goaded him to go round the world after that man, and never cease following him till he had made his own false tongue declare to all the earth his own false deeds--but something, he says, kept him back. Always kept him back till now; till now, when Corny's last letter said that Erskine was surely gone to Beremouth to be married. Then, he said, it was as if something sent him--ah yes; and sent him _here_ to see the man, to make sure who he was. To tell you, as a brother Catholic, the whole truth--to keep from the dear convert mother the bitter grief of seeing her child bound to a man whom she could never call that child's husband. So {329} he came, Mr. Brewer. He came, and he was found here--but he knows no more of the punishment of that poor man, that poor girl's husband"--pointing to Eleanor--"than an unborn babe. As I hear him speak, I trace the power of the prayer that I took up long ago in my helplessness--when I could not manage my own troubles, my own life, my own responsibilities, it came into my heart to offer all to him. '_My life and all that is in it_.' You and yours have been in it, Mr. Brewer. Your wife has been in it, her life, and her child's--you, too, my dear," turning to Claudia,--"you whom I have loved like one belonging to me--you have been in it; and that woman, my sister's legacy to my poor helplessness. There were so many to care for, to fear for, to suffer for, and to love--how could I put things right, or keep off dangers? I could only give up all to the Father of us all--'_My life, and all that is in it_.' And I tell you this, Mr.

Brewer--I tell it [to] you because my very soul seems to know it, and my lips must utter it: In that life there will be no red-handed punishment--no evil vengeance--no vile murder, nor death without repentance. I cannot tell you, I cannot even guess, how that bad man got into this trouble--I have no knowledge of whose hands he fell into--but not into the hands of any one who belongs to me, or to that life which has been so long given into G.o.d's keeping."

Jenifer stopped speaking. She had been listened to with a mute attention. Her hearers could not help feeling convinced by her earnestness. She had spoken gently, calmly, sensibly. The infection of her entire faith in the providence of G.o.d seized them. They, too, believed. Lady Greystock, the only one not a Catholic, said afterward that she felt quite overpowered by the simple trust that Jenifer showed, and the calm strength with which it endowed her. And Lady Greystock was the first to answer her.

"It is no time for self-indulgence," she said. "Father, Eleanor and I must both go to Beremouth. And we must stay there. We must be there on the spot, to see how these things are accounted for--to know how matters end--to help, as far as we may, to bring them right."

And so, before two hours were over, Jenifer was back in Mrs. Morier's parlor, and Mary Lorimer was with her; sent there to stay; and Lady Greystock and Mrs. Evelyn were at Beremouth.

There was silence in the house, that sort of woful silence that belongs to the anxiety of a dreadful suspense. Toward evening there were whispered hopes--Mr. Erskine was better, people thought. But the severest injuries were about the neck and throat, the chest and shoulders. His hair had been cut off in large patches where the head wounds were--his face was disfigured with the bandages that the treatment made necessary. He lay alive, and groaning. He was better.

When more was known about the injuries done to the throat and chest, something less doubtful would be said as to his recovery. "If he can't swallow, he'll die," said one nurse. "He can live long enough without swallowing," said another. And still they waited.

At night, Eleanor and Lady Greystock stood in the room, with Mr.

Brewer, far off by the door, looking at him. There was no love in either heart. The poor wife shrank away, almost wis.h.i.+ng that the period of desertion might last for ever.

A week pa.s.sed, a terribly long week. He could swallow. He could speak.

He could see out of one eye. He had his senses. He had said something about his arm. He would be ready in another week to give some account of all he had gone {330} through. He would be able, perhaps, to identify the man. In the meantime, James O'Keefe was safe in custody.

And Jenifer was saying her prayer--"_My life, and all that is in it;_"

still quite sure, with a strong, simple, never-failing faith, that the great evil of a human and remorseless vengeance was not in it. And yet, as time pa.s.sed on, and, notwithstanding every effort made by the police, backed by the influence of all that neighborhood, and by Mr.

Brewer himself, not a mark of suspicion was found against any one else, it seemed to come home to every one's mind with the force of certainty that James O'Keefe had tried to murder Horace Erskine--that James O'Keefe had done this thing, and no one else.

Very slowly did Horace seem to mend--very slowly. When questions were put to him in his speechless state, he seemed to grow so utterly confused as to alarm his medical attendants. It was made a law at Beremouth that he was to be kept in perfect quietness. James O'Keefe was again brought before the magistrates, and again remanded; and still this time of trial went on, and still, when it was thought possible to speak to Horace on the subject of his injuries, he grew so utterly confused that it was impossible to go on with the matter.

Was there to be no end to this misery? The waiting was almost intolerable. The knowledge that now existed in that house of Horace Erskine's life made it very easy to understand his confusion and incoherency when spoken to of his injuries. But the lingering--the weight of hope deferred--the long contemplation of the miserable sufferer--the slowness of the pa.s.sage of time, was an inexpressible burthen to the inhabitants of Beremouth.

One sad evening, Lady Greystock and her father, on the terrace, talked together. "Come with me to the deer-pond, Claudia." She shrank from the proposal "Nay," he said, "come! You said at Blagden that half victories were powerless things. You must not be less than your own words. Come to the deer-pond--now." So she took his arm and they walked away. It was the beginning of a sweet, soft night--the evening breezes played about them, and they talked together in love and confidence, as they crossed the open turf, and were lost in the thickets that gathered round the gnarled oak and stunted yew that marked the way to the pond.

It had been many years since Claudia had seen its peaceful waters; terrible in dreams once; and now saddened by a history that would belong to it for ever. They reached the spot, and stood there talking.

Suddenly they heard a sound, they started--a tearing aside of the turning boughs--a sound, strong, positive, angry--then a gentle rustling of the leaves, a soft movement of the feathery fern--and Lady Greystock had let go her father's arm, and was standing with her hand on the head, between the antlers, of a huge old deer--Dapple--"Don Dapple," as the children had called him--and speaking to him tenderly--"Oh, Dapple, do you know me? Oh, Dapple--alas! poor beast--did you do it--that awful thing? Are you so fierce, poor beast--were you the terrible avenger?" How her tears fell! How her whole frame trembled! How the truth came on her as she looked into the large, tearful eyes of the once tame buck, that had grown fanciful and fierce in its age, and of whom even some of the keepers had declared themselves afraid. Mr. Brewer took biscuit from his coat-pocket, chance sc.r.a.ps from lunches, secreted from days before, when he had been out on long rounds through the farms. These old Dapple nibbled, and made royal gestures of satisfaction and approval--and there, viewing his stately head in the water, where his spreading antlers were mirrored, they left him to walk home, with one wonder out of their hearts, and another--wondering awe at the thing that had happened among them--to by their for ever.

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They came back, they called the doctors, they examined the torn clothes. They wondered they had never thought of the truth before.

Time went on. And at last, when Horace could speak, and they asked him about the old deer at the pond, he said that it was so--it was as they had thought. It had been an almost deadly struggle between man and beast; and Horace was to bear the marks upon the face and form that had been loved so well to his life's end. A broken-featured man, lame, with a stiff arm, and a sightless eye--and the story of his ruined life no longer a secret--known to all.

Lady Greystock and Mrs. Evelyn remained at Beremouth. Mary Lorimer was left at her grandmother's under the care of the trusty Jenifer. James O'Keefe had returned to Ireland, leaving his niece and her history in good guardians.h.i.+p with Father Daniels and Mr. Brewer; and Freddy, being at school, had been happily kept out of the knowledge of all but the surface facts, which were no secrets from anybody, that a man who had been seen in the park and was a stranger in the neighborhood had been suspected of being the perpetrator of the injuries of which the old deer had been guilty. Poor old deer--poor aged Dapple! It was with a firm hand and an unflinching determination that the kindest man living met the beast once more at the deer-pond, and shot him dead.

Mr. Brewer would trust his death to no hand but his own--and there in the thicket where he loved to hide a grave was dug, and the monarch of the place was buried in it.

Lady Greystock and Eleanor kept their own rooms, and lived together much as they had done latterly at Blagden. When Horace Erskine was fit to leave his bed-room, he used to sit in a room that had been called "Mr. Brewer's." It was, in fact, a sort of writing-room, fitted up with a small useful library and opening at the end into a bright conservatory. He had seen Lady Greystock. He knew of Eleanor being in the house. He knew also that his former relations with her were known, and he never denied, or sought to deny, the fact of their Catholic marriage.

No one ever spoke to him on the subject. The subject that was first in all hearts was to see him well and strong, and able to act for himself. One thing it was impossible to keep from him; and that was the anger of Mr. Erskine, his unde, an anger which Lucia his wife did not try to modify. Mrs. Brewer wrote to her sister; Mr. Brewer pleaded with his brother-in-law. Not a thing could they do to pacify them.

Horace was everything that was evil in their eyes; his worst crime in the past was his having made a Catholic marriage with a beautiful Irish girl, and their great dread for the future was that he would make this marriage valid by the English law. They blamed Mr. Brewer for keeping Eleanor in the house; they were thankless to Mr. Brewer for still giving to Horace care, kindness, and a home. Finally, the one great dread that included all other dreads, and represented the overpowering woe, was that contained in the thought that Horace might repent, and become a Papist.

Mr. Brewer, when it came to that, set his all-conquering kindness aside for the time, or, to adopt his wife's words when describing these seeming changes in her husbands's character, "he clothed his kindness in temporary armor, and went out to fight." He replied to Mr.

and Mrs. Erskine that for such a grace to fall on Horace would be the answer of mercy to the prayer of a poor woman's faith--that he and all his household joined in that prayer; that priests at the altar, and nuns in their holy homes, were all praying for that great result; and that for himself he would only say that for such a mercy to fall upon his house would make him glad for ever.

There was no disputing with a man who could so openly take his stand on {332} such a broad ground of hope and prayer in such direct opposition to the wishes of his neighbors. The Erskines became silent, and Mr. Brewer had gained all he hoped for; peace, peace at least for the time.

At last Horace was well enough to move, and Freddy's holidays were approaching, and there was an unexpressed feeling that Horace was not to be at Beremouth when the boy came back. Mr. Brewer proposed that Horace should go for change of air to the same house in which Father Dawson was lodging, just beyond Clayton, where the sea air might refresh him, and the changed scene amuse his mind; and where, too, he could have the benefit of all those baths, and that superior attendance, described in the great painted advertis.e.m.e.nt that covered the end of the lodging-houses in so promising a manner. Horace accepted the proposal gladly. He grew almost bright under the expectation of the change, and when the day came he appeared to revive, even under the fatigue of a drive so much longer than any that he had been before allowed to venture upon.

Mr. Dawson was to be kind, and to watch over him a little; and Father Daniels was to visit him, and write letters for him, and be his, adviser and his friend. Before he left Beremouth he had asked to see Lady Greystock. She went with her father to his room quite with the old Claudia Brewer cheerfulness prettily mingling with woman's strength and woman's experience. He rose up, and said, "I wished to ask you to forgive me, Lady Greystock--to forgive me my many sins toward you!" She trembled a little, and said, "Mr. Erskine, may G.o.d forgive _me_ my pride, my anger, my evil thoughts, which have made me say so often I could never see nor pardon you." It seemed to require all her strength to carry out the resolution with which she had entered that room. "Of course," she went on, "the personal trial that you brought upon me, here, in my young days, I know now to have been a great blessing in a grief's disguise. Though not--_not yet_--a Catholic, I know you were then, as now, a married man." Horace Erskine never moved; he was still standing, holding by the heavy writing-table, and his eyes were fastened on the carpet. She went on: "Since then your wife, a beautiful and even an accomplished woman, has become my own dear friend. We are living together, and until she has a home of her own, we shall probably go on living together. I have nothing, therefore, to say more, except--except--" Here her voice trembled, and changed, and she was only just able to articulate her last words so as to be understood by her hearers, "Except about my dear husband's death--better death than life under misapprehension.

That too was a blessing perhaps. Let us leave it to the Almighty Judge. I forgive you; if you wish to hear those words from my poor erring lips, you may remember that I have said them honestly, submitting to the will of _him_ who loves us, and from whom I seek mercy for myself."

She turned round to leave the room. "Stop, Lady Greystock; stop!"

cried Horace. "In this solemn moment of sincerity, tell me--do you think Eleanor loves me now?" "I would rather not give any opinion."

"If you have ever formed an opinion, give it. I entreat you to tell me what is, as far as you know, the truth. Does Eleanor love me?" "Must I speak, father?" "So solemnly entreated, I should say, _yes_." "Does Eleanor love me?" groaned Horace. "No," said Lady Greystock; and turning round quickly, she left her father alone with Horace, and went out of the room.

Five years pa.s.sed by. Freddy was growing into manhood, enjoying home by his bright sister Lady {333} Greystock's side, and paying visits to his other sister, the happy bride, Mrs. Harrington, of Harrington-leigh, the master of which place, "a recent convert," as the newspapers said, "had lately married the convert step-daughter of Mr. Brewer, of Beremouth." Lady Greystock always lived with her father now, united to him in faith, and joining him in such a flood of good works that all criticism, all wonderment, all lamentation and argument at "such a step!" was simply run down, overpowered, deluged, drowned.

The strong flowing stream of charity was irresistible. The solemn music of its deep waters swallowed up all the surrounding cackle of inharmonious talk. Nothing was heard at Beremouth but prayer and praise--evil tongues pa.s.sed by that great good house to exercise themselves elsewhere. Evil people found no fitting habitation for their wandering spirits in that home of holy peace. And all his life Mr. Brewer walked humbly, looking at Claudia, and calling her "my crown!" She knew why. He had repented with a great sorrow of those early days when he had left her to others' teaching. He had prayed secretly, with strong resolutions, to be blessed with forgiveness. And at last the mercy came--"crowned at last. All the mercies of my life crowned by the great gift of Claudia's soul." So the good man went on his way a penitent. Always in his own sight a penitent. Always recommending himself to G.o.d in that one character--as a penitent.

Five years were pa.s.sed, and Lady Greystock had been at Mary's wedding, and was herself at Beremouth, still in youth and beauty, once more the petted daughter of the house--but Eleanor was there no longer. Full three years had pa.s.sed since Eleanor had gone to London with Lady Greystock, and elected not to return. They heard from her however, frequently; and knew where she was. When these letters came Claudia would drive off to Marston to see Grandmamma Morier, still enjoying life under Jenifer's care. The letters would be read aloud upstairs in the pretty drawing-room where the fine old china looked as gay and bright as ever, and where not a single cup and saucer had changed its place. Jenifer would listen. Taking careful note of every expression, and whispering--sometimes in the voice of humble prayer, sometimes in soft tones of triumphant thanksgiving--"My life, and all that is in it!"

But now this five years' close had been marked by a great fact; the death of Horace Erskine's uncle, and his great estate pa.s.sing to his nephew, whom he had never seen since their quarrel with him, but whom he had so far forgiven as not to alter his will.

Horace Erskine was in London; and his Beremouth friends were going up to town to welcome him home after four years of life on the continent.

London was at its fullest and gayest. Mr. Erskine had been well known there, making his yearly visits, taking a great house, and attracting round him all the talent of the day. A very rich man, thoroughly well educated, with a fine place in Scotland, and his beautiful wife Lucia by his side, he found himself welcome, and made others in their turn welcome too. Now all this was past. For two seasons London had missed Mr. Erskine, and he had been regretted and lamented over, as a confirmed invalid. Now he was dead. And after a little brief wonder and sorrow the attention of the world was fixed upon his heir, and people of fas.h.i.+on, pleasure, and literature got ready their best smiles for his approval.

Horace had been well enough known once. Never exactly sought {334} after by heads of homes, for he was too much of a speculation. He was known to be in debt; and all inquiries as to his uncle's property had been quenched again and again by those telling words, "no entail." But Horace had had his own world; and had been only too much of a hero in it. That world, however, had lost him; and as the wheels of fas.h.i.+on's chariot fly fast, the dust of the light road rises as a cloud and hides the past, and the people that belonged to Horace Erskine had been left behind and forgotten. Now, however, Memory was alive, and brus.h.i.+ng up her recollections; and Memory had found a tongue, and was hoping and prophesying to the fullest extent of friend Gossip's requirements, when the news came that Horace Erskine had arrived. "He has taken that charming house looking on to the park. Mr. Tudor had seen him. n.o.body would know him. Broken nose, my dear! And he was so handsome. He is lame, too--or if not lame, he has a stiff shoulder. I forget which it is. He was nearly killed by some mad animal in the park at Beremouth. He behaved with the most wonderful courage, actually fought and conquered! But he was gored and trampled on--nearly trampled to death. I heard all the particulars at the time.

His chest was injured, and he was sent to a warmer climate. And there he turned Papist. He did, indeed! and his uncle never forgave him. But I suspect it was a love affair. You know he has brought his wife home.

And she is lovely, everybody who has seen her says. She is so very still--too quiet--too statuesque--that is her only fault in fact. But all the world is talking of her, and if you have not yet seen her lose no time in getting introduced; she is the wonder of the day."

And so ran the talk--and such was Eleanor's welcome as Horace Erskine's wife. Her husband had really repented, and had sought her, and won her heart all over again, and married her once more.

To have these great triumphs of joy and justice in her life was granted to Jenifer's Prayer.

From The Month.

SAINTS OF THE DESERT.

BY VERY REV. J. H. NEWMAN, D.D.

1. Abbot Cyrus said to a brother: "If thou hadst no fight with bad thoughts, it would be because thou didst bad actions; for they who do bad actions are thereby rid of bad thoughts."