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He spoke with the utmost simplicity. Adrian bowed his head silently. Then averting his eyes, he said: "My wife has gone to Pulwick to fetch her."
Captain Jack crimsoned. "That is kind," he answered, in a low voice; and, after a pause, pursued: "I hope you do not think it wrong of me to wish to see her. But you may trust me. I shall distress her as little as is possible in the circumstances. It is not, as you can fancy" – his face flushed again as he spoke – "to indulge in a pathetic parting scene, or beg from her sweet lips one last kiss – that would be too grossly selfish, and however this poor body of mine, so soon to be carrion, may yearn to hold her once more closely, these lips, so soon to touch death, shall touch hers no more. I have risen so far above this earthliness, that in so many hours I am to shake off for ever, that I can trust myself to meet her soul to soul. She must believe me now, and I would tell her, Adrian, that my deceit was not premeditated, and that the man she once honoured with her love is not the base wretch she deems. I think it may comfort her. If she does mourn for me at all – she has so proud a spirit, my princess, as I used to call her – it may comfort her to know that I was not all unworthy of the love she once gave me, of the tears she may yet give to its memory and mine."
Sir Adrian pressed his hand, but again could not speak, and Captain Jack went on:
"You will give her a happy home, will you not, till she has one of her own? You and your old dragon of an aunt, whose bark is so much worse than her bite, will watch and guard her. Ah, poor old lady! she is one of those that will not weep for Jack Smith, eh, Adrian? Well, well, I have had a happy life, barring one or two hard raps of fate, and when only I have seen Madeleine once more, I'll feel all taut for the port, though the passage there be a rough one."
Sir Adrian turned his gaze with astonishment upon him. The sailor read his thoughts:
"Don't think," he said, while a sudden shadow crossed his face, "don't think that I don't realise my position, that I have not had to fight my battle. In the beginning I had hopes; never in the success of your mission, but, absurd as it was, in Renny's scheme. The good fellow's own hopefulness was infectious, I believe. And when that fell through – well then, man, I just had to make up my mind to what was to be. It was a battle, as I told you. I have been in danger of death many a time upon the brave old St. Nicholas, and my Cormorant– death from the salt sea, from musket ball and cannon shot, fearful deaths of mangling and hacking. But death on the gallows, the shameful death of the criminal; to be hung; to be executed – Pah! Ay! it was a battle – two nights and one day I fought it. And I tell you, 'tis a hard thing to bring the living flesh and the leaping blood to submit to such as that. At first I thought indeed, it could not be borne, and I must reckon upon your or Renny's friendship for a secret speed. I should have had the pluck to starve myself if need be, only I am so damned strong and healthy, I feared it could not have been managed in the time. At any rate, I could have dashed my brains out against the wall – but I see it otherwise now. The prison chaplain, a good man, Adrian, has made me realise that it would be cowardly, that I should accept my sentence as atonement, as deserved – I have deserved to die."
It had been Sir Adrian's own thought; but he broke out now in inarticulate protest. It seemed too gross, too monstrous.
"Yes, Adrian, I have. You warned me, good friend, in your peaceful room – ah, how long ago it seems now! that night, when all that could make life beautiful lay to my hand for the taking. Oh, man, why did I not heed you! You warned me: he who breaks one law will end by breaking many. You were right. See the harm I wreaked – those poor fellows, who were but doing their duty bravely, whose lives I sacrificed without remorse! Your brother, too, whose soul, with the most deliberate vindictiveness, I sent before its Maker, without an instant's preparation! A guilty soul it was; for he hounded me down, one would almost think for the sport of it… God! when I think that, but for him, for his wanton interference – but there, the devils are loose again! I must not think on him. Do I not deserve my fate, if the Bible law be right? 'He who sheds blood, his blood shall be shed.' Never was sentence more just. I have sinned, I have repented; I am now ready to atone. I believe the sacrifice will be accepted."
He laid his hand, for a minute, upon the Bible on the table, with a significant gesture.
But Sir Adrian, the philosopher, though he could find no words to impeach the logic of his friend's reasoning, and was all astir with admiration for a resignation as perfect as either Christian or Stoic could desire, found his soul rising in tumultuous rebellion against the hideous decree. The longing that had beset him in the dawn, now seized upon him with a new passion, and the cry escaped his lips almost unwittingly:
"Oh, if I could die for you!"
"No, no," said Jack, with his sweet smile, "your life is too valuable, too precious to the world. Adrian, believe me, you can still do much good with it. And I know you will be happy yet."
It was the only allusion he had made to his friend's more personal sorrows. Before the latter had time to reply, he hastened to proceed:
"And now to business. All the gold entrusted to me lies at Scarthey and, faith, I believe it lies as weightily on my mind as if it was all stored there instead! Renny knows the secret hiding-place. Will you engage to restore it to its owners, in all privacy? This is a terribly arduous undertaking, Adrian, and it is asking much of your friendship; but if I know you, not too much. And it will enable my poor bones to lie at rest, or rather," with a rueful laugh, "hang at rest on their gibbet; for you know I am to be set up as a warning to other fools, like a rat on a barn door. I have, by the kindness of the chaplain, been able to write out a full schedule of the different sums, and to whom they are due. He has taken charge of the closed packet directed to you, and will give it to you intact, I feel sure. He is a man of honour, and I trust him to respect the confidence I have placed in him… Egad! the poor old boys will be right glad to get their coin back in safety. A couple of them have been up here already, to interview me, in fear and trembling. They were hard set to credit me when I assured them that they would be no losers in the end, after all – barring the waiting. You see, I counted upon you."
"I shall never rest until it is done," said Sir Adrian, simply. And Captain Jack as simply answered: "Thank you. Among the treasure there is also £10,000 of my own; the rest of my laboriously acquired fortune is forfeit to the Crown, as you know – much good may it do it! But this little hoard I give to you. You do not want it, of course, and therefore it is only to be yours that you may administrate it in accordance to my wishes. Another charge – but I make no apology. I wish you to divide it in three equal shares: two to be employed as you see best, for the widows and families of those poor fellows of the preventive service, victims of my venture; the third, as well as my beautiful Peregrine, I leave to the mate and men who served me so faithfully. They have fled with her, and must avoid England for some time. But Renny will contrive to hear of them; they are bound to return in secret for tidings, and I should like to feel that the misery I have left behind me may be mitigated… And now, dear Adrian, that is all. The man outside grows impatient. I hear him shuffling his keys. Hark! there he knocks; the fellow has a certain rude feeling for me. An honest fellow. Dear Adrian, good-bye."
"My God! this is hard – is there nothing else – nothing – can indeed all my friendship be of no further help? – Hubert!"
"Hush, hush," cried Jack Smith hastily, "Adrian, you alone of all living beings now know me by that name. Never let it cross your lips again. I could not die in peace were it not for the thought that I bring no discredit upon it. My mother believes me dead – God in His mercy has spared me the crowning misery of bringing shame to her white hairs – shame to the old race. Hubert Cochrane died ten years ago. Jack Smith alone it is that dies by the hangman's hand. One other," his voice softened and the hard look of pain left his face, "one other shall hear the secret besides you – but I know she will never speak of it, even to you – and such is my wish."
It was the pride of race at its last and highest expression.
There was the sound, without, of the key in the lock.
"One last word – if you love me, nay, as you love me – do not be there on Saturday! This parting with you – the good-bye to her – that is my death. Afterwards what happens to this flesh," he struck at himself with his chained hands, "matters no more than what will happen to the soulless corpse. I know you would come to help me with the feeling of your love, your presence – but do not – do not – and now good-bye!"
Adrian seized his friend by the hands with a despairing grip, the door rolled back with its dismal screech.
The prisoner smiled at him with tender eyes. This man whom, all unwillingly he had robbed of his wife's heart, was broken with grief that he could not save the life that had brought him misery. Here was a friend to be proud of, even at the gate of death!
"God be with you, dear Adrian! God bless you and your household, and your children, and your children's children! Hear my last words: From my death will be born your happiness, and if its growth be slow, yet it will wax strong and sure as the years go by."
The words broke from him with prophetic solemnity; their hands fell apart, and Adrian, led by the jailer, stumbled forth blindly. Jack Smith stood erect, still smiling, watching them: were Adrian to turn he should find no weakness, no faltering for the final remembrance.
But Adrian did not turn. And the door closed, closed upon hope and happiness and life, shut in shame and death. Out yonder, with Adrian, was the fresh bright world, the sea, the sunshine, the dear ones; here the prison smells, the gloom, the constraint, the inflicted dreadful death. All his hard-won calm fled from him; all his youth, his immense vitality woke up and cried out in him again. He raised his hands and pulled fiercely at his collar as if already the rope were round his neck strangling him. His blood hammered in his brain. God – God – it was impossible – it could not be – it was a dream!
Beyond, from far distant in the street came the cry of a little child:
"Da-da – daddy."
The prisoner threw up his arms and then fell upon his face upon the bed, torn by sobs.
Yes, Adrian would have children; but Hubert Cochrane, who, from the beautiful young brood that was to have sprung from his loins would have grafted on the old stock a fresh and noble tree, he was to pass barren out of life and leave no trace behind him.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE ONE HE LOVED AND THE ONE WHO LOVED HIM
On the evening of the previous day Lady Landale and her Aunt had arrived at Pulwick. The drive had been a dismal one to poor Miss O'Donoghue. Neither her angry expostulations, nor her tender remonstrances, nor her attempts at consolation could succeed in drawing a connected sentence from Molly, who, with a fever spot of red upon each cheek only roused herself from the depth of thought in which she seemed plunged to urge the coachman to greater speed. Miss O'Donoghue tried the whole gamut of her art in vain, and was obliged at last to desist from sheer weariness and in much anxiety.
Madeleine and Sophia were seated by the fireside in the library when the unexpected travellers came in upon them. Sophia, in the blackest of black weeds, started guiltily up from the volume of "The Corsair," in which she had been plunged, while Madeleine, without manifesting any surprise, rose placidly, laid aside her needlework – a coarse flannel frock, evidently destined for charity – and bestowed upon her sister and aunt an affectionate though unexpansive embrace.
She had grown somewhat thinner and more thoughtful-looking since Molly and she had last met, on that fatal 15th of March, but otherwise was unchanged in her serene beauty. Molly clutched her wrist with a burning hand, and, paying not the slightest attention to the other two, nor condescending to any preamble, began at once, in hurried words to explain her mission.
"He has asked for you, Madeleine," she cried, her eyes flaming with unnatural brilliance as they sought her sister's mild gaze. "He has asked for you, I will take you back with me, to-morrow, not later than to-morrow. Don't you understand?" shaking her impatiently as she held her, "he is in prison, condemned to death, he has asked for you, he wants to see you. On Saturday – on Saturday – " Something clicked in her throat, and she raised her hand to it with an uneasy gesture, one that those who surrounded her had grown curiously familiar with of late.
Madeleine drew away from her at this address, the whole fair calm of her countenance troubled like a placid pool by the casting of a stone. Clasping her hands and looking down: "I saw that the unfortunate man was condemned," she said. "I have prayed for him daily, I trust he repents. I am truly sorry for him. From my heart I forgive him the deception he practised upon me. But – " a slight shudder shook her, "I could not see him again – surely you could not wish it of me."
She spoke with such extreme gentleness that for a minute the woman before her, in the seething turmoil of her soul, failed to grasp the meaning of her words.
"You could not go!" she repeated in a bewildered way, "I could not wish it of you – !" then with a sort of shriek which drew Tanty and Miss Sophia hurriedly towards her, "Don't you understand – on Saturday – if it all fails, they will hang him?"
"A-ah!" exclaimed Madeleine with a movement as if to ward off the sound – the cry, the gesture expressive, not of grief, but of shrinking repugnance. But after a second, controlling herself:
"And what should that be now, sister, to you or to me?" she said haughtily.
Lady Landale clapped her hands together.
"And this is the woman he loves!" she cried with a shrill laugh. And she staggered, and sank back upon a chair in an attitude of utter prostration.
"Molly, Molly," exclaimed her sister reprovingly, while she glanced in much distress at Miss O'Donoghue, "you are not yourself; you do not know what you are saying."
"Remember," interposed Sophia in tragic tones, "that you are speaking of the murderer of my beloved brother." Then she dissolved in tears, and was obliged to hide her countenance in the folds of a vast pocket-handkerchief.
"Killing vermin is not murder!" cried Molly fiercely, awakening from her torpor.
Miss O'Donoghue, who in the most unwonted silence had been watching the scene with her shrewd eyes, here seized the horrified Sophia by the elbow and trundled her, with a great deal of energy and determination, to the door.
"Get out of this, you foolish creature," she said in a stern whisper, "and don't attempt to show your nose here again till I give it leave to walk in!" Then returning to the sisters, and looking from Molly's haggard, distracted face to Madeleine's pale one: "If you take my advice, my dear," she said, a little drily, to the latter, "you will not make so many bones about going to see that poor lad in the prison, and you'll stop wrangling with your sister, for she is just not able to bear it. We shall start to-morrow, Molly," turning to Lady Landale, and speaking in the tone of one addressing a sick child, "and Madeleine will be quite ready as early as you wish."
"My dear aunt," said Madeleine, growing white to the lips, "I am very sorry if Molly is ill, but you are quite mistaken if you think I can yield to her wishes in this matter. I could not go; I could not; it is impossible!"
"Hear her," cried the other, starting from her seat. "Oh, what are you made of? Is it water that runs in your veins? you that he loves" – her voice broke into a wail – "you who ought to be so proud to know he loves you even though your heart be broken! You refuse to go to him, refuse his last request!.. Come to the light," she went on, seizing the girl's wrists again; "let me look at you. Bah! you never loved him. You don't even understand what it is to love… But what could one expect from you, who abandoned him in the moment of danger. You are afraid; afraid of the painful scene, the discomfort, the sight of the prison, of his beautiful face worn and changed – afraid of the discredit. Oh! I know you, I know you. But mind you, Madeleine de Savenaye, he wishes to see you, and I swore you would go to him, and you shall go, if I have to drag you with these hands of mine."
Her grip was so fierce, her eyes so savage, the words so strange, that Madeleine screamed faintly, "She is mad!" and was amazed that Miss O'Donoghue did not rush to the rescue!
But Miss O'Donoghue, peering at her from the depths of her arm-chair, merely said snappishly: "Ah, child, can't you say you will go, and have done! Oughtn't you to be ashamed to be so hard-hearted?" and mopped her perspiring and agitated countenance with her kerchief. Then upon the girl's bewildered mind dawned a glimmer of the truth; and, blushing to the roots of her hair, she looked at her sister with a growing horror.
"Oh, Molly, Molly!" she said again, with a sort of groan.
"Will you go?" cried Molly from between her set teeth.
Again the girl shuddered.
"Less than ever – now," she murmured. And as Molly threw her from her, almost with violence, she covered her face with her hands and fell, weeping bitter tears, upon the couch behind her.
Lady Landale, with great steps, stormed up and down the room, her eyes fixed on space, her lips moving; now and again a word escaped her then, sometimes hurled at her sister, sometimes only in desperate communing with herself.
"Base, cowardly, mean! Oh, my God, cruel – cruel! To go back without her."
After a little, with a sudden change of mood, she halted and stood a while, as if in deep reflection, holding her hand to her head, then crossing the room hurriedly, she knelt down, and flung her arms round the weeping figure.
"Ma petite Madeleine," she said in a voice of the most piteous pleading, "thou and I, we were always good friends; thou canst not have the heart to be so cruel to me now. See, my darling, he must die, they say – oh, Madeleine, Madeleine! And he asked for you. The one thing, he told René, the only thing we could do for him on earth was to let him see you once more. My little sister, you cannot refuse: he loves you. What has he done to offend you? Your pride cannot forgive him for being what he is, I suppose; yet such as he is you should be proud of him. He is too noble, too straightforward to have intentionally deceived you. If he did wrong, it was for love of you. Madeleine, Madeleine!"
Her tones trailed away into a moan.
Miss O'Donoghue sobbed loudly from her corner. Madeleine, who had looked at her sister at first with repulsion, seemed moved; she placed her hands upon her shoulders, and gazed sadly into the flushed face.
"My poor Molly," she said hesitatingly, "this is dreadful! But I too – I too was led into deceit, into folly." She blushed painfully. "I would not blame you; it was not your fault that you were carried away in his ship. You went only for my sake: I cannot forget that. Yet that he should have this unhappy power over you too, you with your good husband, you a married woman, oh, my poor sister, it is terrible! He is a wicked man; I pray that he may yet repent."
"Heavens," interrupted Molly, her passion up in arms again, loosening as she spoke her clasp upon her sister, and rising to her feet to look down on her with withering scorn, "have I not made myself clear? Are you deaf, stupid, as well as heartless? It is you – you —you he loves, you he wants. What am I to him?" with a curious sob, half of laughter, half of anguish. "Your pious fears are quite unfounded as far as he is concerned – the wicked man, as you call him! Oh, he spurns my love with as much horror as even you could wish!"
"Molly!"
"Ay – Molly, and Molly – how shocked you are! Yes, I love him, I don't care who hears it. I love him – Adrian knows – he is not as virtuous as you, evidently, for Adrian pities me. He is doing all he can, though they say it is in vain, to get a reprieve for him – though I do love him! While you – you are too good, too immaculate even to soil your dainty foot upon the floor of his prison, that floor that I could kiss because his shoe has trod it. But it is impossible! no human being could be so hard, least of all you, whom I have seen turn sick at the sight of a dead worm – Madeleine – !"
Crouching down in the former imploring manner, while her breast heaved with dry tearless sobs: "It cannot hurt you, you who loved him." And then with the old pitiful cry, "it is the only thing he wants, and he loves you."
Madeleine disengaged herself from the clinging hands with a gesture almost of disgust.
"Listen to me," she said, after a pause, "try and compose yourself and understand. All this month I have had time to think, to realise, to pray. I have seen what the world is worth, that it is full of horror, of sin, of trouble, of dreadful dissensions – that its sorrow far outweighs its happiness. I have suffered," her pretty lips quivered an instant, but she hardened herself and went on, "but it is better so – it was God's will, it was to show me where to find real comfort, the true peace. I have quite made up my mind. I was only waiting to see you again and tell you – next week I am going back to the convent for ever. Oh, why did we leave it, Molly, why did we leave it!" She broke down, and the tears gushed from her eyes.
Lady Landale had listened in silence.
"Well – is that all?" she said impatiently, when her sister ceased speaking, while in the background Tanty groaned out a protest, and bewailed that she was alive to see the day. "What does it matter what you do afterwards – you can go to the convent – go where you will then; but what has that to say to your visit to him now?"
"I have done with all human love," said Madeleine solemnly, crossing her hands on her breast, and looking upward with inspired eyes. "I did love this man once," she answered, hardening herself to speak firmly, though again her lips quivered – "he himself killed that love by his own doing. I trusted him; he betrayed that trust; he would have betrayed me, but that I have forgiven, it is past and done with. But to go and see him now, to stir up in my heart, not the old love, it could not be, but agitation, sorrow – to disturb this quietness of soul, this calm which God has given me at last after so much prayer and struggle – no, no – it would not be right, it cannot be! Moreover, if I would, I could not, indeed I could not. The very thought of it all, the disgrace, that place of sin and shame, of him in chains, condemned – a criminal – a murderer!.."
A nervous shudder shook her from head to foot, she seemed in truth to sicken and grow faint, like one forced to face some hideous nauseating spectacle. "As for him," she went on in low, feeble tones, "it will be the best too. God knows I forgive him, that I am sorry for him, that I regret his terrible fate. But I feel it would be worse for him to see me – if he must die, it would be wrong to distract him from his last preparations. And it would only be a useless pain to him, for I could not pretend – he would see that I despise him. I thought I loved a noble gentleman, not one who was even then playing with crime and cheating."
The faint passionless voice had hardly ceased before, with a loud cry, Molly sprang at her sister as if she would have strangled her.
"Oh, unnatural wretch," she exclaimed, "you are not fit to live!"
Tanty rushed forward and dragged the infuriated woman away.
Madeleine rose up stiffly – swayed a moment as she stood – and then fell unconscious to the ground.
Next day in the dawn Lady Landale came into her sister's bedroom. Her circled eyes, her drawn face bespeaking a sleepless night.
Madeleine was lying, beautiful and white, like a broken lily, in the dim light of the lamp; Sophia, an unlovely spectacle in curl papers, wizened and red-eyed from her night's watch, looked up warningly from the arm-chair beside her. But Molly went unhesitatingly to the window, pulled the curtains, unbarred the shutters, and then walked over to the bed.