Monica, Volume 3 (of 3)

CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH.

LORD HADDON

“And you forgave him, Monica, you forgave him? The man who had killed your husband?”

It was Beatrice who spoke, and she spoke with a sort of horror in her tone. Tom stood a little apart in the recess of the window, a heavy cloud upon his brow. Lord Haddon was leaning with averted face upon the high carved mantel-shelf.

They had all come over early to Trevlyn to hear the fate of the hapless man who had died in the night. Beatrice felt an unquenchable longing to know if he had spoken before he died – if by chance the terrible secret had escaped in delirium from his lips; and she had insisted on coming with her husband. Her brother, who had arrived unexpectedly the previous evening, had made one of the party. He was hungering for another sight of Monica, and Trevlyn seemed to draw him like a magnet.

Monica’s face had told a tale of its own when she had first appeared; and the whispered question on Beatrice’s lips:

“Did he speak, Monica? Did he say anything?” elicited a reply that led to explanations on both sides, rendering further reserve needless; and Monica told her tale with the quiet calmness of one who has too lately passed through some great mental conflict to be easily disturbed again.

But Beatrice, fiery, impetuous Beatrice, could not understand this calm. She was shaken by a tempest of excitement and wrath.

“You forgave him, Monica? Ah! how could you? Randolph’s murderer!”

“Yes, I forgave him.”

“You should not! You should not! It was not – it could not be right! Monica, I cannot understand you. I think you are made of stone!”

She said nothing; she smiled. That smile was only seen by Haddon. It thrilled him to his heart’s core.

“How came you to be with him at all?” said Tom, almost sternly. “It was not your duty to be there. It was no fit place for you.”

“I think my place is where there is sorrow and need and loneliness,” answered Monica, very gently. “He needed me – and I came to him.”

“He sent for you?”

“I think he did.”

“But you said – ”

Monica lifted her hand; she rose to her feet, passing her hand across her brow.

“You would not understand, dear. There are some things, Beatrice, that you are very slow to learn. You know something of the mysteries of life, but you do not understand anything of those deeper mysteries of death. I have forgiven a dying man, who prayed forgiveness with his latest breath – and you look at me with horror.”

Beatrice gazed at Monica, but yet would not yield her point.

“Mercy can be carried too far – ” but she could not say more, for the look upon Monica’s face brought a sudden sense of choking that would have made her voice falter had she attempted to proceed. Her brother’s murmured words, therefore, were now distinctly heard.

“Not in God’s sight, perhaps.”

Monica turned to him with a swift gesture inexpressibly sweet.

“Ah! you understand,” she said simply. “I am glad you have come just now, Haddon. I shall want help. Will you give it me?”

“I will do anything for you, and esteem it an honour.”

She looked at him steadily.

“Even if it is for one who – for the one who lies upstairs now – dead?”

Haddon bent his head.

“Even for him – at your bidding.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“I will take you home now, Beatrice,” said Tom, curtly. “We are not wanted here.”

Monica looked questioningly at him, as she gave him her hand, to see what this abruptness might signify. He returned her gaze with equal intensity.

“I believe you are an angel, Monica,” he said, lifting her hand for a moment to his lips; “but there are moments when fallen mortals like ourselves feel the angelic presence a little overpowering.”

Monica, as she had said, wanted the help of some man of business, as there was a good deal to be done in connection with Conrad’s sudden death: a good many trying formalities to be gone through, as well as much correspondence, and in Lord Haddon she found an able and willing assistant.

He saw much of Monica in those days. He was often at Trevlyn – hardly a day passed without his riding or driving across on some errand – and she was often at St. Maws herself, for Beatrice’s momentary flash of anger had been rapidly quenched in deep contrition and humility; and both she and her husband treated Monica with the sort of reverential tenderness that seemed to meet her now on all hands.

Lord Haddon watched her day by day, wondering if ever he should dare to breathe a word of the hopes that filled his heart, reading in her calm face and in the sisterly gentleness and fondness with which she treated him, how little conscious she was of the purpose that possessed his soul. Sometimes he paused and shrank from troubling the still waters of their sweet, calm friendship, but then again the thought of leaving her in her loneliness and isolation seemed too sad and mournful, if by any devotion and love he could lighten the burden of her sorrow, and bring back something of the lost happiness into her life. Haddon was very humble, very self-distrustful; he did not expect to accomplish much, but he felt that he would gladly lay down his life, if by that act he could do anything to comfort her. To die for her would, however, be purposeless: the next thing was to try and live for her.

And so one day, as they paced the lonely shore together, on a chill cloudy winter’s afternoon, he put his fate to the touch.

She had noticed his silence – his abstraction: he had not been quite himself all day. Presently they reached a sheltered nook amongst some rocks not far from the water’s edge, and she sat down, motioning him to do the same. She looked at him with gentle, friendly concern.

“Is anything the matter?” she asked. “Have you something on your mind?”

He turned his head, looked into her eyes, and answered:

“Yes.”

“Can I help you?” she continued, in the same sweet way. “You help me so often, that it is my turn to help you now if I can.”

He looked with a glance she could not altogether understand.

“Monica,” he said, “may I speak to you? – may I tell you something? I have tried to do so before, and have failed; but I ought not to go on longer without speaking. Have I your permission to tell you what is on my mind?”

He did not often call her by her Christian name: only in moments of excitement, when his soul was stirred within him. The unconscious way in which it dropped now from his lips told that he was deeply moved. A sort of vague uneasiness arose within her, but she looked into his troubled, resolute face, and answered:

“Tell me if you wish it, Haddon” – although she shrank, without knowing why, from the confession she was to hear.

“Monica,” he said, not looking at her, but out over the sea, and speaking with a manly resolution and fluency unusual with him, the outcome of a very earnest purpose, “I am going to speak to you at last, and I must ask you beforehand to pardon my presumption, of which I am as well aware as you can ever be. Monica, I think that no woman in the wide world is like you. I have thought so ever since I saw you first, in your bridal robes, standing beside Randolph in that little church over yonder. When I saw you then – nay, pardon me if I pain you; I should not have recalled the memory, and yet I cannot help it – I said within myself that you were one to be worshipped with the truest devotion of a man’s heart; and the more I saw of you in later life, the deeper did that feeling sink into my soul. He, your husband, had been as a brother to me, and to feel that I was thus brought near to you, admitted to friendship and to confidence, was a source of keen pleasure such as I can ill describe. You did not know your power over me, Monica. I hardly knew it myself; but I think I would at any time have laid down my life either for him or for you. I know I would that fatal night – but I must not pain you more. When I awoke, Monica, from that long fever, to find you watching beside me, to hear that he, my friend, was dead, and you left all alone in your desolation – Monica, Monica, how can I hope to express to you what I felt? It is not treachery to his memory – believe me, it is not. If I could call him back, ah! how gladly would I do it! – at the cost of my life if need be – but that can never, never be! I know I can never fill his place. I know I am utterly unworthy of the boon I ask; but if a life-long devotion, if a love that will never change nor falter, if the ceaseless care of one, who is yours wholly and entirely, can ever help to fill the blank, can in ever so small a degree make up to you for that one irretrievable loss, believe me, it will be the greatest happiness I can ever know. Monica, need I say more? Have I said too much? I only ask leave to watch over you, to comfort you, to love you; I ask nothing for myself – only the right to do this. Can you not give it to me? God helping me, you shall never repent it if you do.”

A long pause followed this confession – this appeal. Monica’s face had expressed many fluctuating feelings as he had proceeded with his speech. Now it was full of a sort of divine compassion and tenderness: a look sometimes seen in a pictured saint or Madonna drawn by a master hand.

“You are so good,” she said, very low; “so very, very good; and it grieves me so sadly to give you pain.”

He turned his head and looked at her. His eyes darkened with sudden sorrow.

“I have spoken too soon,” he said, in the same gentle, self-contained way. “I have tried to be patient, but seeing you lonely and sad makes it so hard. I should have waited longer – it is only a year now since. Monica, do not think me hard or callous to say it, but time is a great softener – a great healer. I do not mean that you will ever forget; but years will go by, and you are still quite young, very young to live your life always alone. Think of the years that lie before you. Must they all be spent alone? Monica, do not answer me yet; but if in time to come – if you want a friend, a helper – let me – can you think of me? Ah! how can I say it? Can I ever be more to you than I am now? You understand: you have only to call me, to command me – I will come.”

He spoke with some agitation now, but it was quickly subdued. It seemed as if he would have left her, but she laid her hand upon his arm and detained him.

“Haddon,” she said, softly, “I am lonely and I do want a friend. You have been a friend to me always; I trust and love you as a brother. May I not do so always? Can you not be content with that? Must it end with us, that love and trust? I should miss it sorely if it were withdrawn.”

Her sweet, pleading face was turned towards him. There was a sort of struggle in the young man’s mind: then he answered quietly:

“It shall be so, if you wish it,” he said. “My chiefest wish is for your happiness. But – ”

She checked him by a look.

“Haddon, I am Randolph’s wife!”

His eyes gave the reply his tongue would never have uttered. She answered as if he had spoken.

“Yes, he is dead. Did you think that made any difference? Ah, you do not understand. When I gave myself to Randolph, I gave myself for ever – not for a time only but for always. He is my husband. I am his wife. Nothing can change that.”

“Not even death?”

The words were a mere whisper; yet she heard them. It seemed as if a sudden ray of light shone upon the face she turned towards him. He was awed; he watched her in mute silence.

“Ah! no,” she said, very softly, “not death – death least of all. Death can only divide us, it cannot touch our love. Ah! you do not know, you do not understand. How can I make it clear to you? Love is like nothing else in the world – it is us, our very selves. Somewhere– ” Monica clasped her hands together, and stretched them out before her towards the eternal ocean, with a gesture more eloquent than any words, whilst the light upon her face deepened in intensity every moment as her eyes fixed themselves upon the far horizon. “Somewhere he is waiting for me to come to him – he, my husband, my love; and though he may not come back to me, I shall go to him in God’s good time, and when I join him in the great, eternal home, I must go to him as he left me – with nothing between us and our love; and there will be no parting there, no more death, and no more sea.”

Her words died away in silence; but her parted lips, her shining eyes, the light upon her face, spoke an eloquent language of their own. Her companion sat and looked at her in mute, breathless silence, not unmixed with awe.

He knew his cause was lost. He knew she could never, never be his; yet, strange to say, he was not saddened or cast down, for by this revelation of her innermost heart he felt himself uplifted and ennobled. His idol was not shattered. Monica was, as ever, enshrined in his heart – the one ideal woman to be worshipped, reverenced, adored. Even in this supreme hour of his life, when the airy fabric of his dreams was crumbling into dust about him, he had a perception that perhaps even thus it was best. He never could be worthy of her, and now he might still call himself her friend; had she not said so herself?

There was a long, long silence between them. Then he moved, kneeling on one knee before her, and taking her hand in his.

“Monica,” he said, “I understand now. I shall never trouble you again. You have judged well, very well; it is like you, and that is enough. But before I go may I crave one boon?”

“And that is – ?”

“That you forget all that I have said, all the wild, foolish words that I have spoken; and let me keep my old place – as your brother and friend.”

She looked at him with her own gentle smile.

“I wish for nothing better,” she answered. “I cannot afford to lose my friend.”

He pressed her hand for one moment to his lips, and was gone without another word.

Tears slowly welled up in Monica’s eyes as she rose at last, and stood looking out over the vast waste of heaving grey sea – sad, colourless, troubled.

“Like my life,” she said softly to herself. And yet she had just put away a love that might at least have cast a glow upon it, and gilded its dim edges.

She stretched out her hand with a sort of mute gesture of entreaty.

“Ah! Randolph, husband, come back to me! I am so lonely, so desolate!”

Even as she spoke, the setting sun, as it touched the horizon, broke through the bank of cloud which had veiled it all the day, and flooded the sea as with liquid gold – that cold grey sea that she had just been likening to her own future life.

She could not help an involuntary start.

“Is it an omen?” she asked; and despite the heavy load at her heart, she went home somewhat comforted.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST.

CHRISTMAS

It was Christmas Eve; the light was just beginning to wane, and Monica’s work was done at last. She was free now until the arrival of her guests – the Pendrills and Lord Haddon – should give her new occupation in hospitable care for them.

Monica had been too busy for thoughts of self to intrude often upon her during these past days. She wished to be busy; she tried to occupy herself from morning to night, for she found that the aching hunger of her heart was more eased by loving deeds of mercy and kindness than in any other way – self more fully lost in ceaseless care for others. But when all was done, every single thing disposed of, nothing more left to think of or to accomplish; then the inevitable reaction set in, and with a heart aching to pain, almost to despair, Monica entered the music-room, and sat down to her organ.

She played with a sort of passionate appeal that was infinitely pathetic, had any one been there to hear; she threw all the yearning sadness of her soul into her organ, and it seemed to answer her back with a promise of strong sympathy and consolation. Insensibly she was soothed by the sweet sounds she evoked. She fell into a dreamy mood, playing softly in a minor key, so softly that through the door that stood ajar, she became aware of a slight subdued tumult in the hall without, to which she gave but a dreamy attention at first.

The bell had pealed sharply, steps had crossed the hall, the door had been opened, and then had followed the tumultuous sounds expressive of astonishment that roused Monica from her dreamy reverie. She supposed the party from St. Maws had arrived somewhat before the expected time, and rose, and had made a few steps forward when she suddenly stopped short and stood motionless – spell-bound – what was it she had heard? – only the sound of a voice – a man’s voice.

“Where is your mistress?”

The words were uttered in a clear, deep, ringing tone, that seemed to her to waken every echo in the castle into wild surging life. The very air throbbed and palpitated around her – her temples seemed as if they would burst. What was the meaning of that sound – that wild tumult of voices? Why did she stand as if carved in stone, growing white to the very lips, whilst thrill upon thrill ran through her frame, and her heart beat to suffocation? What did it all portend? Whose was the voice she had just heard – that voice from the dead? Who was it that stood in the hall without?

The door was flung open. A tall, dark figure stood in the dim light.

“Monica!”

Monica neither spoke nor moved. The cry of awe and of rapture that rose from her heart could not find voice in which to utter itself – but what matter? She was in her husband’s arms. Her head lay upon his breast. His lips were pressed to her cold face in the kisses she had never thought to feel again. Randolph had come back. She could not speak. She had no will to try and frame a single word. He held her in his arms; he strained her ever closer and closer. She felt the tumultuous beating of his heart as she lay in his arms, powerless to move or think. She heard his murmured words, broken and hoarse with the passionate feeling of that supreme moment.