Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “You are a wise woman.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “And yet you must be very young.”

  “No. But though I have had my own life apart, I have lived outwardly very much in the world, although I am still young. Most of the secrets which have been told me have been repeated to me by the people in whom others had confided.”

  “All that is true,” he answered. “Nevertheless—” He paused. “I am desperate!” he exclaimed, with sudden energy. “I cannot bear this any longer — I am alone, always, always. Sometimes I think I shall go mad! You do not know what a life I lead. I have not even a vice to comfort me!” He laughed low and savagely. “I tried to drink, but I am sick of it — it does no good! A man who has not even a vice is a very lonely man.”

  Francesca’s clear eyes opened wide with a startled look, and gazed towards his averted face, trying to catch his glance. She felt that she was close to something very strong and dreadful which she could not understand.

  “Do not speak like that!” she said. “No one is lonely who believes in God.”

  “God!” he exclaimed bitterly. “God has forgotten me, and the devil will not have me!” He looked at her at last, and saw her face. “Do not be shocked,” he said, with a sorrowful smile. “If I were as bad as I seem to you just now, I should have cut my throat twenty years ago.”

  “Hush! Hush!” Francesca did not know what to say.

  His manner changed a little, and he spoke more calmly.

  “I am not eloquent,” he said, looking into her eyes. “You may not understand. But I have suffered a great deal.”

  “Yes. I know that. I am very sorry for you.”

  “I think you are,” he answered. “That is why I want to be honest and tell you the truth about myself. For that reason, and because I cannot bear it any longer. I cannot, I cannot!” he repeated in a low, despairing tone.

  “If it will help you to tell me, then tell me,” said Francesca, kindly. “But I do not ask you to. I do not see why we should not be the best of friends without my knowing this thing which weighs on your mind.”

  “You will understand when I have told you,” answered Lord Redin. “Then you can judge whether you will have me for a friend or not. It will seem very bad to you. Perhaps it is. I never thought so. But you are a Roman Catholic, and that makes a difference.”

  “Not in a question of right and wrong.”

  “It makes the question what it is. You shall hear.”

  He paused a moment, and the lines and furrows deepened in his face. The sun was sinking fast, and the long beams had faded away out of the shadows. There was no one in sight now, but the music of the benediction service echoed faintly in the distance. Francesca felt her heart beating with a sort of excitement she could not understand, and though she did not look at her companion, her ears were strained to catch the first word he spoke.

  “I married a nun,” he said simply.

  Francesca started.

  “A Sister of Charity?” she asked, after a moment’s dead silence. “They do not take vows—”

  “No. A nun from the Carmelite Convent of Subiaco.”

  His words were very distinct. There was no mistaking what he said. Francesca shrank from him instinctively, and uttered a low exclamation of repugnance and horror.

  “That is not all,” continued Lord Redin, with a calm that seemed supernatural. “She was your kinswoman. She was Maria Braccio, whom every one believed was burned to death in her cell.”

  “But her body — they found it! It is impossible!” She thought he must be mad.

  “No. They found another body. I put it into the bed and set fire to the mattress. It was burned beyond recognition, and they thought it was Maria. But it was the body of old Stefanone’s daughter. I lived in his house. The girl poisoned herself with some of my chemicals — I was a young doctor in those days. Maria and I were married on board an English man-of-war, and we lived in Scotland after that. Gloria was the daughter of Maria Braccio, the Carmelite nun — your kinswoman.”

  Francesca pressed her handkerchief to her lips. She felt as though she were losing her senses. Minute after minute passed, and she could say nothing. From time to time, Lord Redin glanced sideways at her. He breathed hard once or twice, and his hands strained upon his stick as though they would break it in two.

  “Then she died,” he said. When he had spoken the three words, he shivered from head to foot, and was silent.

  Still Francesca could not speak. The sacrilege of the deed was horrible in itself. To her, who had grown up to look upon Maria Braccio as a holy woman, cut off in her youth by a frightful death, the truth was overwhelmingly awful. She strove within herself to find something upon which she could throw the merest shadow of an extenuation, but she could find nothing.

  “You understand now why, as an honourable man, I wished to tell you the truth about myself,” he said, speaking almost coldly in the effort he was making at self-control. “I could not ask for your friendship until I had told you.”

  Francesca turned her white face slowly towards him in the dusk, and her lips moved, but she did not speak. She could not in that first moment find the words she wanted. She felt that she shrank from him, that she never wished to touch his hand again. Doubtless, in time, she might get over the first impression. She wished that he would leave her to think about it.

  “Can you ever be my friend now?” he asked gravely.

  “Your friend—” she stopped, and shook her head sadly. “I — I am afraid—” she could not go on.

  Lord Redin rose slowly to his feet.

  “No. I am afraid not,” he said.

  He waited a moment, but there was no reply.

  “May I take you to your carriage?” he asked gently.

  “No, thank you. No — that is — I am going home in a cab. I would rather be alone — please.”

  “Then good-bye.”

  The lonely man went away and left her there. His head was bent, and she thought that he walked unsteadily, as she watched him. Suddenly a great wave of pity filled her heart. He looked so very lonely. What right had she to judge him? Was she perfect, because he called her good? She called him before he turned the great pillar of the dome.

  “Lord Redin! Lord Redin!”

  But her voice was weak, and in the vast, dim place it did not reach him. He went on alone, past the high altar, round the pillar, down the nave. The benediction service was not quite over yet, but every one who was not listening to the music had left the church. He went towards the door by which he had entered. Before going out he paused, and looked towards the little chapel on the right of the entrance. He hesitated, and then went to it and stood leaning with his hands upon the heavy marble balustrade, that was low for his great height as he stood on the step.

  A single silver lamp sent a faint light upwards that lingered upon the Pietà above the altar, upon the marble limbs of the dead Christ, upon the features of the Blessed Virgin, the Addolorata — the sorrowing mother.

  Bending a little, as though very weary, the friendless, wifeless, childless man raised his furrowed face and looked up. There was no hope any more, and his despair was heavy upon him whose young love had blasted the lives of many.

  His teeth were set — he could have bitten through iron. He trembled a little, and as he looked upward, two dreadful tears — the tears of the strong that are as blood — welled from his eyes and trickled down upon his cheeks.

  “Maria Addolorata!” he whispered.

  CHAPTER XLVII.

  FRANCESCA HAD HALF risen from her seat when she had seen that Lord Redin did not hear her voice, calling to him. Then she realized that she could not overtake him without running, since he had got so far, and she kept her place, leaning back once more, and trying to collect her thoughts before going home. The music was still going on in the Chapel of the Choir, and though it was dusk in the vast church, it would not be dark for some time. The vergers did not make their rounds to give warning of the hour of closing until sunset. Francesca
sat still and tried to understand what she had heard. She was nervous and shaken, and she wished that she were already at home. The great dimness of the lonely transept was strangely mysterious — and the tale of the dead girl, burned to take the place of the living, was grewsome, and made her shiver with disgust and horror. She started nervously at the sound of a distant footstep.

  But the strongest impression she had, was that of abhorrence for the unholy deeds of the man who had just left her. To a woman for whom religion in its forms as well as in its meaning was the mainstay of life on earth and the hope of life to come, the sacrilege of the crime seemed supernatural. She felt as though it must be in some way her duty to help in expiating it, lest the punishment of it should fall upon all her race. And as she thought it over, trying to look at it as simply as she could, she surveyed at a glance the whole chain of the fatal story, and saw how many terrible things had followed upon that one great sin, and how very nearly she herself had been touched by its consequences. She had been involved in it and had become a part of it. She had felt it about her for years, in her friendship for Reanda. It had contributed to the causes of his death, if it had not actually caused it. She, in helping to bring about his marriage with the daughter of her sinning kinswoman, had unconsciously made a link in the chain. Her friendship for the artist no longer looked as innocent as formerly. Gloria had accused him of loving her, Francesca. Had she not loved him? Whether she had or not, she had done things which had wounded his innocent young wife. In a sudden and painful illumination of the past, she saw that she herself had not been sinless; that she had been selfish, if nothing worse; that she had craved Reanda’s presence and devoted friendship, if nothing more; that death had taken from her more than a friend. She saw all at once the vanity of her own belief in her own innocence, and she accused herself very bitterly of many things which had been quite hidden from her until then.

  She was roused by a footstep behind her, and she started at the sound of a voice she knew, but which had changed oddly since she had last heard it. It was stern, deep, and clear still, but the life was gone out of it. It had an automatic sound.

  “I beg your pardon, Princess,” said Paul Griggs, stopping close to her behind the bench. “May I speak to you for a moment?”

  She turned her head. As the sun went down, the church grew lighter for a little while, as it often does. Yet she could hardly see the man’s eyes at all, as she looked into his face. They were all in the shadow and had no light in them.

  “Sit down,” she said mechanically.

  She could not refuse to speak to him, and, indeed, she would not have refused to receive him had she been at home when he had called that day. Socially speaking, according to the standards of those around her, he had done nothing which she could very severely blame. A woman he had dearly loved had come to him for protection, and he had not driven her away. That was the social value of what he had done. The moral view of it all was individual with herself. Society gave her no right to treat him rudely because she disapproved of his past life. For the rest, she had liked him in former times, and she believed that there was much more good in him than at first appeared.

  She was almost glad that he had disturbed her solitude just then, for a nervous sense of loneliness was creeping upon her; and though there had been nothing to prevent her from rising and going away, she had felt that something was holding her in her seat, a shadowy something that was oppressive and not natural, that descended upon her out of the gloomy heights, and that rose around her from the secret depths below, where the great dead lay side by side in their leaden coffins.

  “Sit down,” she repeated, as Griggs came round the bench.

  He sat down beside her. There was a little distance between them, and he sat rather stiffly, holding his hat on his knees.

  “I should apologize for disturbing you,” he began. “I have been twice to your house to-day, but you were out. What I wish to speak of is rather urgent. I heard that you might be here, and so I came.”

  “Yes,” she said, and waited for him to say more.

  “What is it?” she asked presently, as he did not speak at once.

  “It is about Dalrymple — about Lord Redin,” he said at last. “You used to know him. Do you ever see him now?”

  Francesca looked at him with a little surprise, but she answered quietly, as though the question were quite a natural one.

  “He was here five minutes ago. Yes, I often see him.”

  “Would you do him a service?” asked Griggs, in his calm and indifferent tone.

  He was forcing himself to do what was plainly his duty, but he was utterly incapable of taking any interest in the matter. Francesca hesitated before she answered. An hour earlier she would have assented readily enough, but now the idea of doing anything which could tend to bring her into closer relations with Lord Redin was disagreeable.

  “I do not think you will refuse,” said Griggs, as she did not speak. “His life is in danger.”

  She turned quickly and scrutinized the expressionless features. In the glow of the sunset the church was quite light. The total unconcern of the man’s manner contrasted strangely with the importance of what he said. Francesca felt that something must be wrong.

  “You say that very coolly,” she observed, and her tone showed that she was incredulous.

  “And you do not believe me,” answered Griggs, quite unmoved. “It is natural, I suppose. I will try to explain.”

  “Please do. I do not understand at all.”

  Nevertheless, she was startled, though she concealed her nervousness. She had not spoken with Griggs for a long time; and as he talked, she saw what a great change had taken place. He was very quiet, as he had always been, but he was almost too quiet. She could not make out his eyes. She knew of his superhuman strength, and his stillness seemed unnatural. What he said did not sound rational. An impression got hold of her that he had gone mad, and she was physically afraid of him. He began to explain. She felt a singing in her ears, and she could not follow what he said. It was like an evil dream, and it grew upon her second by second.

  He talked on in the same even, monotonous tone. The words meant nothing to her. She crossed her feet nervously and tried to get a soothing sensation by stroking her sable muff. She made a great effort at concentration and failed to understand anything.

  All at once it grew dark, as the sunset light faded out of the sky. Again she felt the desire to rise and the certainty that she could not, if she tried. He ceased speaking and seemed to expect her to say something, but she had not understood a word of his long explanation. He sat patiently waiting. She could hardly distinguish his face in the gloom.

  The sound of irregular, shuffling footsteps and low voices moved the stillness. The vergers were making their last round in a hurried, perfunctory way. They passed across the transept to the high altar. It was so dark that Francesca could only just see their shadows moving in the blackness. She did not realize what they were doing, and her imagination made ghosts of them, rushing through the silence of the deserted place, from one tomb to another, waking the dead for the night. They did not even glance across, as they skirted the wall of the church. Even if they had looked, they might not have seen two persons in black, against the blackness, sitting silently side by side on the dark bench. They saw nothing and passed on, out of sight and out of hearing.

  “May I ask whether you will give him the message?” inquired Griggs at last, moving in his seat, for he knew that it was time to be going.

  Francesca started, at the sound of his voice.

  “I — I am afraid — I have not understood,” she said. “I beg your pardon — I was not paying attention. I am nervous.”

  “It is growing late,” said Griggs. “We had better be going — I will tell you again as we walk to the door.”

  “Yes — no — just a moment!” She made a strong effort over herself. “Tell me in three words,” she said. “Who is it that threatens Lord Redin’s life?”

&nbs
p; “A peasant of Subiaco called Stefanone. Really, Princess, we must be going; it is quite dark—”

  “Stefanone!” exclaimed Francesca, while he was speaking the last words, which she did not hear. “Stefanone of Subiaco — of course!”

  “We must really be going,” said Griggs, rising to his feet, and wondering indifferently why it was so hard to make her understand.

  She rose to her feet slowly. Lord Redin’s story was intricately confused in her mind with the few words which she had retained of what Griggs had said.

  “Yes — yes — Stefanone,” she said in a low voice, as though to herself, and she stood still, comprehending the whole situation in a flash, and imagining that Griggs knew the whole truth and had been telling it to her as though she had not known it. “But how did you know that Lord Redin took the girl’s body and burnt it?” she asked, quite certain that he had mentioned the fact.

  “What girl?” asked Griggs in wonder.

  “Why, the body of Stefanone’s daughter, which he managed to burn in the convent when he carried off my cousin! How did you know about it?”

  “I did not know about it,” said Griggs. “Your cousin? I do not understand.”

  “My cousin — yes — Maria Braccio — Gloria’s mother! You have just been talking about her—”

  “I?” asked Griggs, bewildered.

  Francesca stepped back from him, suddenly guessing that she had revealed Lord Redin’s secret.

  “Is it possible?” she asked in a low voice. “Oh, it is all a mistake!” she cried suddenly. “I have told you his story — oh, I am losing my head!”

  “Come,” said Griggs, authoritatively. “We must get out of the church, at all events, or we shall be locked in.”

  “Oh no!” answered Francesca. “There is always somebody here—”

  “There is not. You must really come.”

  “Yes — but there is no danger of being locked in. Yes — let us walk down the nave. There is more light.”