By What Authority? Part 44

The week crept by, and Sat.u.r.day came. She went out soon after dinner to see a sick body or two in an outlying hamlet; for she had never forgotten Mrs. Dent's charge, and, with the present minister's approval, still visited the sick one or two days a week at least. Then towards sunset she came homewards over some high ground on the outskirts of Ashdown Forest.

The snow that had fallen before Christmas, had melted a week or two ago; and the frost had broken up; it was a heavy leaden evening, with an angry glow s.h.i.+ning, as through c.h.i.n.ks of a wall, from the west towards which she was going. The village lay before her in the gloom; and lights were beginning to glimmer here and there. She contrasted in a lifeless way that pleasant group of warm houses with their suggestions of love and homeliness with her own desolate self. She pa.s.sed up through the village towards the Hall, whither she was going to report on the invalids to Lady Maxwell; and in the appearance of the houses on either side she thought there was an unaccustomed air. Several doors stood wide open with the brightness s.h.i.+ning out into the twilight, as if the inhabitants had suddenly deserted their homes. Others were still dark and cold, although the evening was drawing on. There was not a moving creature to be seen.

She pa.s.sed up, wondering a little, through the gatehouse, and turned into the gravel sweep; and there stopped short at the sight of a great crowd of men and women and children, a.s.sembled in dead silence. Some one was standing at the entrance-steps, with his head bent as if he were talking to those nearest him in a low voice.

As she came up there ran a whisper of her name; the people drew back to let her through, and she pa.s.sed, sick with suspense, to the man on the steps, whom she now recognised as Mr. James' body-servant. His face looked odd and drawn, she thought.

"What is it?" she asked in a sharp whisper.

"Mr. James is here, madam; he is with Lady Maxwell in the cloister-wing.

Will you please to go up?"

"Mr. James! It is no news about Mr. Anthony--or--or Mr. Hubert!"

"No, madam." The man hesitated. "Mr. James has been racked, madam."

The man's voice broke in a great sob as he ended.

"Ah!"

She reeled against the post; a man behind caught her and steadied her; and there was a quick breath of pity from the crowd.

"Ah, poor thing!" said a woman's voice behind her.

"I beg your pardon, madam," said the servant. "I should not have----"

"And--and he is upstairs?"

"He and my lady are together, madam."

She looked at him a moment, dazed with the horror of it; and then going past him, pushed open the door and went through into the inner hall. Here again she stopped suddenly: it was half full of people, silent and expectant--the men, the grooms, the maid-servants, and even two or three farm-men. She heard the rustle of her name from the white faces that looked at her from the gloom; but none moved; and she crossed the hall alone, and turned down the lower corridor that led to the cloister-wing.

At the foot of the staircase she stopped again; her heart drummed in her ears, as she listened intently with parted lips. There was a profound silence; the lamp on the stairs had not been lighted, and the terrace window only let in a pale glimmer.

It was horrible to her! this secret presence of incarnate pain that brooded somewhere in the house, this silence of living anguish, worse than death a thousand times!

Where was he? What would it look like? Even a scream somewhere would have relieved her, and snapped the tension of the listening stillness that lay on her like a shocking nightmare. This lobby with its well-known doors--the banister on which her fingers rested--the well of the staircase up which she stared with dilated eyes--all was familiar; and yet, somewhere in the shadows overhead lurked this formidable Presence of pain, mute, anguished, terrifying....

She longed to run back, to shriek for help; but she dared not: and stood panting. She went up a couple of steps--stopped, listened to the sick thumping of her heart--took another step and stopped again; and so, listening, peering, hesitating, came to the head of the stairs.

Ah! there was the door, with a line of light beneath it. It was there that the horror dwelt. She stared at the thin bright line; waited and listened again for even a moan or a sigh from within, but none came.

Then with a great effort she stepped forward and tapped.

There was no answer; but as she listened she heard from within the gentle tinkle of some liquid running into a bowl, rhythmically, and with pauses.

Then again she tapped, nervously and rapidly, and there was a murmur from the room; she opened the door softly, pushed it, and took a step into the room, half closing it behind her.

There were two candles burning on a table in the middle of the room, and on the near side of it was a group of three persons....

Isabel had seen in one of Mistress Margaret's prayer-books an engraving of an old Flemish Pieta--a group of the Blessed Mother holding in her arms the body of her Crucified Son, with the Magdalen on one side, supporting one of the dead Saviour's hands. Isabel now caught her breath in a sudden gasp; for here was the scene reproduced before her.

Lady Maxwell was on a low seat bending forwards; the white cap and ruff seemed like a veil thrown all about her head and beneath her chin; she was holding in her arms the body of her son, who seemed to have fainted as he sat beside her; his head had fallen back against her breast, and his pointed beard and dark hair and her black dress beyond emphasised the deathly whiteness of his face on which the candlelight fell; his mouth was open, like a dead man's. Mistress Margaret was kneeling by his left hand, holding it over a basin and delicately sponging it; and the whole air was fragrant and aromatic with some ointment in the water; a long bandage or two lay on the ground beside the basin. The evening light over the opposite roofs through the window beyond mingled with the light of the tapers, throwing a strange radiance over the group. The table on which the tapers stood looked to Isabel like a stripped altar.

She stood by the door, her lips parted, motionless; looking with great eyes from face to face. It was as if the door had given access to another world where the pa.s.sion of Christ was being re-enacted.

Then she sank on her knees, still watching. There was no sound but the faint ripple of the water into the basin and the quiet breathing of the three. Lady Maxwell now and then lifted a handkerchief in silence and pa.s.sed it across her son's face. Isabel, still staring with great wide eyes, began to sigh gently to herself.

"Anthony, Anthony, Anthony!" she whispered.

"Oh, no, no, no!" she whispered again under her breath. "No, Anthony! you could not, you could not!"

Then from the man there came one or two long sighs, ending in a moan that quavered into silence; he stirred slightly in his mother's arms; and then in a piteous high voice came the words "_Jesu ... Jesu ... esto mihi ... Jesus_."

Consciousness was coming back. He fancied himself still on the rack.

Lady Maxwell said nothing, but gathered him a little closer, and bent her face lower over him.

Then again came a long sobbing indrawn breath; James struggled for a moment; then opened his eyes and saw his mother's face.

Mistress Margaret had finished with the water; and was now swiftly manipulating a long strip of white linen. Isabel still sunk on her knees watched the bandage winding in and out round his wrist, and between his thumb and forefinger.

Then he turned his head sharply towards her with a gasp as if in pain; and his eyes fell on Isabel.

"Mistress Isabel," he said; and his voice was broken and untuneful.

Mistress Margaret turned; and smiled at her; and at the sight the intolerable compression on the girl's heart relaxed.

"Come, child," she said, "come and help me with his hand. No, no, lie still," she added; for James was making a movement as if to rise.

James smiled at her as she came forward; and she saw that his face had a strange look as if after a long illness.

"You see, Mistress Isabel," he said, in the same cracked voice, and with an infinitely pathetic courtesy, "I may not rise."

Isabel's eyes filled with sudden tears, his attempt at his old manner was more touching than all else; and she came and knelt beside the old nun.

"Hold the fingers," she said; and the familiar old voice brought the girl a stage nearer her normal consciousness again.

Isabel took the priest's fingers and saw that they were limp and swollen.

The sleeve fell back a little as Mistress Margaret manipulated the bandage; and the girl saw that the forearm looked shapeless and discoloured.

She glanced up in swift terror at his face, but he was looking at his mother, whose eyes were bent on his; Isabel looked quickly down again.

"There," said Mistress Margaret, tying the last knot, "it is done."

Mr. James looked his thanks over his shoulder at her, as she nodded and smiled before turning to leave the room.

Isabel sat slowly down and watched them.

"This is but a flying visit, Mistress Isabel," said James. "I must leave to-morrow again."