“In the house?” Everton looked about him vaguely as though scarcely realizing his surroundings— “Yes — oh yes — of course! My dear Douay, forgive me! You have been so patient — so kind — I forgot! And — you went to meet her — my poor little wife! Oh yes — you must stay here — but you will leave me for a while in this room quite alone, will you not? I shall be better so—”
They saw it was wisest to humor him.
“You shall do just as you like, Mr. Everton,” — said Brand, “Only promise me to try and master yourself! — I am no preacher and cannot offer you the right sort of consolation — but your own trust in God will help you—”
Everton raised a trembling hand in protest.
“Spare me that!” he said— “I know what you would wish to say, and I thank you! But I am not strong enough to stand quite firmly under the blow — not yet! It is all for the best, no doubt! — all for the best that my beloved has been brutally murdered! — yes!” and he smiled, drearily— “All for the best! Yes —— I will try to believe—”
His speech failed him, and his lips moved dumbly for a moment. Then he spoke out again.
“Has — has everything been arranged?”
Brand bent his head in assent.
“Where — where is she?” he asked, in a sighing whisper.
Brand replied in equally hushed accents.
“In her own room.”
Another long and mournful pause. Then the Vicar held out his hand.
“Good-night!”
Tears rushed to Douay’s eyes.
“Good-night, my dear friend!”
Brand could have cried too at the sight of the tall, slender, delicate-featured man before him who was stricken to the very soul by a grief so great that words were all powerless to express it. But he took refuge from his own emotions in practical utterance.
“I should tell you before I go, Mr. Everton,” he said quickly, “that the police are out all over the country after Kiernan. There’s no trace of him as yet, but he will probably be found and arrested in the morning.”
Everton listened, scarcely comprehending.
“And then?” he murmured.
“Then he will be handed over to the law for the punishment of his dastard crime!” exclaimed Douay, hotly.
The Vicar gave a slight gesture of utter weariness.
“What will that avail to me?” he asked.
A silence followed. Everton looked at his two companions with strained tearless eyes.
“It is all no use,” — he said— “My wife is dead! Nothing can bring her back to me again. The vengeance of the law can only increase my suffering. Even as it is, the ways of the law will wring my heart till it is dry of life-blood!
For I suppose there must be an inquest — ?”
“Yes, there must be an inquest, certainly” — answered Brand, with hesitation— “Surely you would wish it—”
“Wish it!” Everton wrung his hands in an energy of desperation— “I!,’ wish that strange men should desecrate by their looks the dead body of my wife! I tell you, Brand, the law, in seeking to avenge a wronged man, often wrongs him most in the manner of its avenging!” He gave another convulsive movement of his hands. “Leave me now, — he implored— “leave me, I beg of you both! It will be the truest kindness to me — it will indeed! I talk wildly, unreasonably, I know — I am not myself — I shall be calmer when I have had time to think!”
He sank into a chair wearily and closed his eyes. He heard whispered words exchanged between Brand and Douay, — he felt rather than knew that Douay had impulsively caught his hand and pressed it — then the study door opened and was softly shut again, — they had gone, and he was alone. Alone, — and yet the first impression of his solitude was that Azalea had come in, and that she stood beside him. He could almost see the folds of her white gown, — the gleam of her gold hair. Only she did not move at all, — she was perfectly still, and though she smiled at him she was very pale. He stretched out his arms to the vacant air.
“My love, my wife! I dreamed that you were dead!
But you are not — you cannot be! You are here with me, are you not? — yes, always, always with me!”
And he fancied he heard the sweet familiar voice like a breath of music, answer him —
“Always!”
He started up amazed, looking eagerly round him. The candles were burning brightly — the room was empty, and gradually the awful weight of realized desolation fell back on his heart with doubly suffocating pressure.
“Dead!” he murmured— “Azalea! Not possible!”
His trembling hand here touched by chance a flower in his buttonhole — it was the rosebud his wife had pinned there when she had left him that afternoon a few hours ago. Only a few hours ago! His fingers closed upon it as a miser’s fingers might close upon some priceless jewel, — his heart heaved — and his throat burned with choking agony, — but no tears relieved the tension of his brain. He would, not unpin the rose, but he bent his head to its petals and kissed it in a frenzy of love and sorrow. The fragrant velvety softness of it was like Azalea’s mouth when — when she was alive. When she was alive! And now — she was dead. Dead — and murdered by Dan Kiernan.
He tried to grapple with this hideous fact — murdered by Dan Kiernan. Yet he was so far from bringing its reality home to himself that his thoughts went groping miserably back over all the old trodden road of past incident, — trifle upon trifle recurred to him with minute distinctness, — and every small detail of everything that had happened, repeated itself in the nature of an accurate chronicle or summary of events since the ill-omened day three years ago when, moved by a spirit of Christian love and service, he had gone forth as a minister of the Gospel to rescue a defenseless woman from her husband’s druken fury. Then it all vanished in a blur, — and the one black horror remained with him — that Azalea was dead. That from henceforth he was without love in the world. And that she, in the full radiance of her beauty and happiness, had been brutally killed by the sodden ruffian who had been the lover of Jacynth. Jacynth! That name, so full of poignant association with his misery, goaded him to a kind of madness, — he began to walk up and down the room, feebly at first, then with swifter and stronger steps, till all at once a thought struck him and he stopped abruptly with an upward glance of reproachful appeal.
“Where was God?”
He put the question sternly to the silence.
“Where was God?”
Where was ‘Our Father,’ the merciful Benefactor and Giver of Life and Love, when Kiernan’s work was done? Where? Where was the Divine Force that should surely have interposed between the slayer and his victim? And with an overwhelming rush as of waves and winds hurtling down upon his sinking soul, the vast abyss of complete Unbelief yawned wide before him. He stood upon its brink and looked down. Blank Nothingness was there, — the nothing of life, the nothing of death, and most desolate of all, the Nothing of God! Of what use was all the praying and the preaching? Swift as a flash his mind flew back to the time when he had stood by young Hadley’s deathbed, and had listened to the lad’s wild ravings. He recalled the terrible words— “Don’t pray! It’s no use! With my last breath I want to make you remember that. It’s no use!” And the frenzied cry— “Love, I say! — love! — it’s what the Lord Christ never knew — it’s what He missed — love for a woman! — and there He fails to be our brother in sorrow!” With what strange self-sufficiency he had heard these dying lamentations! — Yes — self-sufficiency! — the placid self-sufficiency of a minister of the Gospel who was sure of his faith. Sure — quite sure of his faith! And now? The bulwarks were shaking — the fortress was giving way, — and why? Because death had battered down his own house door, and sorrow had pierced his own heart! Here he came to a pause in his meditations, shuddering inwardly as with icy cold.
“O we poor orphans of nothing, — alone on that lonely shore —
Born of the brainless Nature who knew not that which she bore!<
br />
Trusting no longer that earthly flower would be heavenly fruit; Come from the brute — poor souls — no souls — and to die with the brute!”
The passionate words of the greatest of modern English poets (Tennyson) clanged through his brain; they had been written in a grand scorn for the scorners, but were they true? And if true, why should life be lived at all, when there was nothing to live for? Self-slaughter might be called cowardly, but surely self-deception was its equal in cowardice?
A mellow measured sound here boomed upon his ears, — it was the church clock striking midnight. The house was very silent, — he supposed the servants had gone to bed. He had no idea that they were all sitting up together in the kitchen talking in frightened whispers over the day’s ghastly tragedy — listening for the slightest movement on his part, and ready to guard him from any reckless act of grief or desperation he might be moved to commit. He did not know that Douay was likewise on the alert, waiting watchfully in his bedroom with the door just slightly ajar, so that he could hear even the lightest footfall. Douay indeed was sorely troubled — he did not know what to do for the best. He murmured many Pater Nosters and Ave Marias mechanically out of old routine and habit, but felt that they were wholly inadequate to meet the occasion. His impressionable and kindly nature was easily moved to tears, and he wept freely over the fate of the winsome little woman for whom he had felt an almost paternal affection and friendship. How horrible it had been to see her lying dead among the primroses! — how horrible! He had gone to the woods, walking gayly along, light of heart and thinking no evil of any man, every now and then whistling by way of a call to her, — he had found her pretty hat with its blue ribbon lying among the last year’s leaves, and he had picked it up and swung it on his arm. Then he had whistled again — and then — then — he had seen her lying face downward on the ground, with the blood oozing through her white garments! — and he had rushed to a farm close by crying wildly for help! —
“Ah mon Dieu!” he sighed now, as he went over the terrible experience again and again in his mind— “What a cruelty! What a crime! Will all the saints and angels explain why such a thing should be? La pauvre petite! What had she done that she should meet with such an end! A pretty innocent little soul — as harmless as a bird or a butterfly! And Richard so loved her! — poor Richard!
A possible great man! Will his life be quite broken now — or—”
A slight noise as of an opening door startled him. He listened, scarcely breathing — but for the moment there was no further sound.
“Of course the man —— Kiernan — was drunk,” — he went on reflecting— “And so it is Mr. Minchin who is the real murderer! Have I not warned this brewer? I have — many times! I say to him ‘Kiernan is dangerous — there will be mischief!’ But he paid no heed — he is all grin and grab. He rules this foolish place where the gospel is not Christianity, but Drink. He is the little god of the dull brain and potbelly! And hundreds of such little gods ride on the backs of the poor English people, keeping them in slavery worse than that of the dungeon and chain. And how strange are the Governments which punish crime, and yet do nothing to prevent it!”
The noise of the opening door downstairs was repeated, and this time it was followed by the movement of footsteps. Cautiously Douay peered out through the aperture of his own doorway and saw Everton coming slowly up the stairs. His face was deathly pale, and he was talking to himself as he came.
“I must go to my wife!” — he said, whisperingly— “I must look upon her once more as she lies asleep — and then — then I will sleep too — beside her!”
Douay anxiously watched him, himself unseen, as he went by with unfaltering tread straight to the room where Azalea’s body lay, — the room that had mutually belonged to husband and wife. He saw him open the door and hesitate — then enter and shut himself in.
A rush of tears to the little priest’s eyes blurred everything from his view.
“Poor, poor fellow!” he said softly; “If he could only cry like a woman it would do him good! His brain is on fire with sorrow — or else it is frozen with despair; — perhaps the sight of her, so calm, so peaceful, so angelic, may touch the fount of healing! As for me — I will pray for him! — but God forgive me if I say for once it seems but little use!”
And with that he smote his breast and muttered “Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!” many times for this rash utterance, which according to the teaching of his Church amounted to that ‘sin against the Holy Ghost,’ known as presumption of God’s mercy, and kneeling down, he buried his head in his hands, and earnestly and unselfishly besought the loving pity of Heaven for his bereaved and suffering friend.
Meanwhile, little Laurence, sleeping as he was accustomed to do, all alone in his nursery, was disturbed and frightened by a strange dream. He thought he saw his mother standing near him, — there was a pale brightness all round her like summer moonlight, and she had a white dress on and a wreath of white shining flowers in her hair. She looked at him and said, very gently— “Father wants you, darling!” And he was so sleepy that he could not quite understand her, — so he rubbed his eyes with his two doubled-up little fists and for a moment only stared at her without speaking. Then she came closer to his bedside and bent over him, and kissed him; — her kiss was so quick and light and warm that it was like a flame, and the touch of it woke him up. Yes, he was sure he was wide awake, and equally sure that his mother stood there smiling at him, though her face was very sad, — and she said again— “Baby dear, father wants you!” And he was sorry he had not jumped up before in obedience to her call, but he answered now at once— “All right, Mummy! Are you better?” To this she did not reply, and when he looked at her again she was gone! He slipped hastily out of bed, and stood shivering in his little nightgown, thinking and wondering what he ought to do. Nurse Tomkins slept in the next room, and there was an open door between — should he call her and tell her that his mother had come in to see him? No, — he decided it would be best to do exactly what Mummy had told him, and go to Dad first. So he opened the nursery door very softly and pattered out with his little bare feet on the staircase landing, which was almost dark, save for the glimmer of a gas burner turned low down. He paused, a trifle scared. His mother’s bedroom was immediately opposite, and he was just making up his mind to go thither when some one came out of it —— a strange, drooping figure of a man, with a wild, white haggard face and disheveled hair, — a man piteous and terrible to look at, whose distraught eyes glared stonily in front of him as though fixed on some monstrous vision of hell. Was it — could it be his father? His little heart beat fast with fear, — he ran a step or two forward —
“Dad, Dad!” he cried— “Mother says you want me!” Everton reeled back from him, struck by sudden awe. ‘Mother says’! ‘Mother!’ With hands uplifted as though to ward off a blow or a blessing, he stared vaguely at the little white thing shining out of the night’s blackness, — the little white thing with its crown of golden curls that ran towards him trembling on its small bare feet — what — what was it? A child? — or an angel? Azalea was dead in the room behind there! — he had tried to rouse her with kisses and prayers, — he had knelt beside her, watching for some small sign of returning life that should respond to his entreating love — in vain! And now — had she sent a messenger from heaven to comfort him? Look at it! It seemed afraid of him! Its sweet small voice cried again plaintively —
“Dad, Dad! Mother says you want me!”
A nervous shuddering seized him, — there was a tightness in his throat and he felt as though he were choking.
Involuntarily he stretched out his arms — then he gave a great agonized cry —
“Laurence, Laurence! I had forgotten you! God forgive me, I had forgotten! Her child — mine — life of our lives! Oh yes, I want you, my darling! — God knows I want you! — come — come —— come to me! — I want you, my little, little child!”
Falling on his knees, he gathered up the frigh
tened boy closely in his arms, and wild sobs broke from him, hard and passionate, while the tears, released at last from their burning prison, rained down on the soft golden head which he pressed against his breast with a force of which he was himself unconscious. —
“I had forgotten you,” he cried, again— “I was ready to curse God for His cruelty to me! — and I had forgotten you!”
CHAPTER XIV
DAN KIERNAN meantime had managed to get clear away. When he had fled from the scene of his crime, his first impulse was to make for a railway station and take train to the nearest seaport, from whence he hazily considered he might easily escape on board some trading vessel outward bound; his next idea was to tramp it along the high-road towards London and boldly risk the chances of arrest. In this latter course fortune favored him, for he had not gone above a mile when he found a man in difficulties with the mechanism of a motor-car. It was not a finished upholstered vehicle, — it was merely the body of a ‘racer,’ and its driver had been testing its highest rate of speed, when some trifling thing had gone wrong, and he had cursed his unlucky stars for having brought him to a dead stoppage in the middle of a solitary road without a house anywhere near, when the help of an extra hand for a few moments would have set his apparatus going again in working order. Kiernan came up just in time to render the required assistance, and by way of gratitude for his services the man asked him if he would like a ride on the car, explaining that he meant to drive it at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour ‘steady,’ except where there were likely to be police traps about.
“Where are ye goin’ to?” Dan asked.
“London.”
“Right y’are! That’ll do for me!” and without further parley he took the offered seat beside the driver and was whirled away in a cloud of dust impregnated with the stench of petrol. It was a little after seven when they started and by quarter-past eight they had left the neighborhood of the Cotswolds far behind them and were scudding through another county at a speed which set all laws for motorists at defiance. No one had seen Dan mount the car, — the road where he had picked up his unexpected friend in need, had been quite deserted at the time, and even in the plowed fields on either side there was not so much as a stray laborer left working after sunset, so that no trace was left of him as to how or where he had gone.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 726
