by Grant Allen
He saw it in an instant, how the matter would envisage itself to her un-Catholic mind. She could never understand that to him, a single fall, a temporary backsliding, was but a subject for repentance, confession, absolution, pardon: while to renounce his orders, renounce his Church, contract a marriage that in his eyes would be no marriage at all, but a living lie, was to continue in open sin, to degrade and dishonour her. For her own sake, even, if saints and Madonna were not, Guy de Kermadec could never consent so to taint and to sully her. That pure soul was too dear to him. He had dreamed for a moment, indeed, of foul wrong, in the white heat of passion: all men may be misled for a moment of impulse by the strong demon within them: but to persevere in such wrong, to go on sinning openly, flagrantly, shamelessly — Guy de Kermadec drew back from the bare idea with disdain. As priest and as gentleman alike, he looked down upon it and contemned it.
The reaction was profound. For a minute or two he gazed into Ivy’s face like one spellbound. He paused and hesitated. What way out of this maze? How on earth could he undeceive her? Then suddenly, with a loud cry, he sprang to his feet like one shot, and stood up by the edge of the rocks in his long black soutane. He held out his hands to raise her. ‘Mademoiselle,’ he groaned aloud from his heart, in a very broken tone, ‘I have done wrong — grievous wrong: I have sinned — against Heaven and against you, and am no more worthy to be called a priest.’ He raised his voice solemnly. It was the voice of a bruised and wounded creature. ‘Go back!’ he cried once more, waving her away from him as from one polluted. ‘You can never forgive me. But at least, go back. I should have cut out my tongue rather than have spoken so to you. I am a leper — a wild beast. Ten thousand times over, I crave your pardon.’
Ivy gazed at him, thunderstruck. In her innocence, she hardly knew what the man even meant. But she saw her romance had toppled over to its base, and shattered itself to nothing. Slowly she rose, and took his hand across the rocks to steady her. They reached the track in silence. As they gained it, the Abbé raised his hat for the last time, and turned away bitterly. He took the path to the right. Obedient to his gesture, Ivy went to the left. Back to the hotel she went, lingering, with a heart like a stone, locked herself up in her own room, and cried long and silently.
But as for Guy de Kermadec, all on fire with his remorse, he walked fast along the sea-shore, over the jagged rock path, toward the town of Antibes.
Through the narrow streets of the old city he made his way, like a blind man, to the house of a priest whom he knew. His heart was seething now with regret and shame and horror. What vile thing was this wherewith he, a priest of God, had ventured to affront the pure innocence of a maiden? What unchastity had he forced on the chaste eyes of girlhood? Ivy had struck him dumb by her very freedom from all guile. And it was she, the heretic, for whose soul he had wrestled in prayer with Our Lady, who had brought him back with a bound to the consciousness of sin, and the knowledge of purity, from the very brink of a precipice.
He knocked at the door of his friend’s house like a moral leper.
His brother-priest received him kindly. Guy de Kermadec was pale, but his manner was wild, like one mad with frenzy. ‘Mon père,’ he said straight out, ‘I have come to confess, in articulo mortis. I feel I shall die to-night. I have a warning from Our Lady. I ask you for absolution, a blessing, the holy sacrament, extreme unction. If you refuse them, I die. Give me God at your peril.’
The elder priest hesitated. How could he give the host otherwise than to a person fasting? How administer extreme unction save to a dying man? But Guy de Kermadec, in his fiery haste, overbore all scrupulous ecclesiastical objections. He was a dying man, he cried: Our Lady’s own warning was surely more certain than the guess or conjecture of a mere earthly doctor. The viaticum he demanded, and the viaticum he must have. He was to die that night. He knew it. He was sure of it.
He knelt down and confessed. He would brook no refusal. The country priest, all amazed, sat and listened to him, breathless. Once or twice he drew his sleek hand over his full fat face doubtfully. The strange things this hot Breton said to him were beyond his comprehension. They spoke different languages. How could he, good easy soul, with his cut-and-dried theology, fathom the fiery depths of that volcanic bosom? He nursed his chin in suspense, and marvelled. Other priests had gone astray. Why this wild fever of repentance? Other women had been tempted. Why this passionate tenderness for the sensibilities of a mere English heretic? Other girls had sinned outright. Why this horror at the harm done to her in intention only?
é
But to Guy de Kermadec himself it was a crime of lè-majesté against a young girl’s purity. A crime whose very nature it would be criminal to explain to her. A crime that he could only atone with his life. Apology was impossible. Explanation was treason. Nothing remained for it now but the one resource of silence.
In an orgy of penitence, the young priest confessed, and received absolution: he took the viaticum, trembling; he obtained extreme unction. Then, with a terrible light in his eyes, he went into a stationer’s shop, and in tremulous lines wrote a note, which he posted to Ivy.
‘Très chère dame,’ it said simply, ‘you will see me no more. This morning, I offered, half unawares, a very great wrong to you. Your own words, and Our Lady’s intervention, brought me back to myself. Thank Heaven, it was in time. I might have wronged you more. My last prayers are for your pure soul. Pray for mine and forgive me.
Adieu! Guy de Kermadec.’
After that, he strode out to the Cape once more. It was growing dark by that time, for he was long at Antibes. He walked with fiery eagerness to the edge of the cliff, where he had sat with joy that morning — where he had sat before so often. The brink of the rocks was wet with salt spray, very smooth and slippery. The Abbé stood up, and looked over at the black water. The Church makes suicide a sin, and he would obey the Church. But no canon prevents one from leaning over the edge of a cliff, to admire the dark waves. They rolled in with a thud, and broke in sheets of white spray against the honeycombed base of the rock, invisible beneath him.
‘Si dextra tua tibi offenderit,’ they said, in their long slow chant— ‘si dextra tua tibi offenderit.’ If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off. And Ivy was dearer to him than his own right hand. Yet not for that, oh Mary, Star of the Sea, not for that; nor yet for his own salvation; — let him burn, if need were, in nethermost hell, to atone this error — but for that pure maid’s sake, and for the cruel wrong he had put upon her. ‘Oh, Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows,’ he cried, wringing his hands in his agony, ‘who wert a Virgin thyself, help and succour this virgin in her own great sorrow. Thou knowest her innocence, her guilelessness, her simplicity, and the harm beyond healing that I wrought her unawares. Oh, blot it out of her pure white soul and bless her. Thou knowest that for her sake alone, and to undo this sin to her, I stand here to-night, on the brink of the precipice. Queen of the Waves, Our Lady of the Look-out, if the sacrifice please thee, take me thus to thine own bosom. Let thy billows rise up and blot out my black sin. Oh, Mary, hear me! Stella maris adesto!’
He stood there for hours, growing colder and stiffer. It was quite dark now, and the sea was rising. Yet still he prayed on, and still the spray dashed upward. At last, as he prayed in the dim night, erect, with bare head, a great wave broke higher than ever over the rocks below him. With a fierce joy, Guy de Kermadec felt it thrill through the thickness of the cliff: then it rose in a head, and burst upon him with a roar like the noise of thunder. He lost his footing, and fell, clutching at the jagged pinnacles for support, into the deep trough below. There, the billows caught him up, and pounded him on the sharp crags. Thank Heaven for that mercy! Our Lady had heard his last prayer. Mary, full of grace, had been pleased to succour him. With a penance of blood, from torn hands and feet, was he expiating his sin against Heaven and against Ivy.
Next morning, the douanier, pacing the shore alone, saw a dead body entangled among the sharp rocks by the precipice. Climbing dow
n on hands and knees, he fished it out with difficulty, and ran to fetch a gendarme. The face was beaten to a jelly, past all recognition, and the body was mangled in a hideous fashion. But it wore a rent soutane, all in ribbons on the rocks; and the left third finger bore a signet-ring with a coat of arms and the motto, ‘Foy d’un Kermadec.’
Ivy is still unwed. No eye but hers has ever seen Guy de Kermadec’s last letter.
V
WOLVERDEN TOWER
I
Maisie Llewelyn had never been asked to Wolverden before; therefore, she was not a little elated at Mrs. West’s invitation. For Wolverden Hall, one of the loveliest Elizabethan manor-houses in the Weald of Kent, had been bought and fitted up in appropriate style (the phrase is the upholsterer’s) by Colonel West, the famous millionaire from South Australia. The Colonel had lavished upon it untold wealth, fleeced from the backs of ten thousand sheep and an equal number of his fellow-countrymen; and Wolverden was now, if not the most beautiful, at least the most opulent country-house within easy reach of London.
Mrs. West was waiting at the station to meet Maisie. The house was full of Christmas guests already, it is true; but Mrs. West was a model of stately, old-fashioned courtesy: she would not have omitted meeting one among the number on any less excuse than a royal command to appear at Windsor. She kissed Maisie on both cheeks — she had always been fond of Maisie — and, leaving two haughty young aristocrats (in powdered hair and blue-and-gold livery) to hunt up her luggage by the light of nature, sailed forth with her through the door to the obsequious carriage.
The drive up the avenue to Wolverden Hall Maisie found quite delicious. Even in their leafless winter condition the great limes looked so noble; and the ivy-covered hall at the end, with its mullioned windows, its Inigo Jones porch, and its creeper-clad gables, was as picturesque a building as the ideals one sees in Mr. Abbey’s sketches. If only Arthur Hume had been one of the party now, Maisie’s joy would have been complete. But what was the use of thinking so much about Arthur Hume, when she didn’t even know whether Arthur Hume cared for her?
A tall, slim girl, Maisie Llewelyn, with rich black hair, and ethereal features, as became a descendant of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth — the sort of girl we none of us would have called anything more than ‘interesting’ till Rossetti and Burne-Jones found eyes for us to see that the type is beautiful with a deeper beauty than that of your obvious pink-and-white prettiness. Her eyes, in particular, had a lustrous depth that was almost superhuman, and her fingers and nails were strangely transparent in their waxen softness.
‘You won’t mind my having put you in a ground-floor room in the new wing, my dear, will you?’ Mrs. West inquired, as she led Maisie personally to the quarters chosen for her. ‘You see, we’re so unusually full, because of these tableaux!’
Maisie gazed round the ground-floor room in the new wing with eyes of mute wonder. If this was the kind of lodging for which Mrs. West thought it necessary to apologise, Maisie wondered of what sort were those better rooms which she gave to the guests she delighted to honour. It was a large and exquisitely decorated chamber, with the softest and deepest Oriental carpet Maisie’s feet had ever felt, and the daintiest curtains her eyes had ever lighted upon. True, it opened by French windows on to what was nominally the ground in front; but as the Italian terrace, with its formal balustrade and its great stone balls, was raised several feet above the level of the sloping garden below, the room was really on the first floor for all practical purposes. Indeed, Maisie rather liked the unwonted sense of space and freedom which was given by this easy access to the world without; and, as the windows were secured by great shutters and fasteners, she had no counterbalancing fear lest a nightly burglar should attempt to carry off her little pearl necklet or her amethyst brooch, instead of directing his whole attention to Mrs. West’s famous diamond tiara.
She moved naturally to the window. She was fond of nature. The view it disclosed over the Weald at her feet was wide and varied. Misty range lay behind misty range, in a faint December haze, receding and receding, till away to the south, half hidden by vapour, the Sussex downs loomed vague in the distance. The village church, as happens so often in the case of old lordly manors, stood within the grounds of the Hall, and close by the house. It had been built, her hostess said, in the days of the Edwards, but had portions of an older Saxon edifice still enclosed in the chancel. The one eyesore in the view was its new white tower, recently restored (or rather, rebuilt), which contrasted most painfully with the mellow grey stone and mouldering corbels of the nave and transept.
‘What a pity it’s been so spoiled!’ Maisie exclaimed, looking across at the tower. Coming straight as she did from a Merioneth rectory, she took an ancestral interest in all that concerned churches.
‘Oh, my dear!’ Mrs. West cried, ‘please don’t say that, I beg of you, to the Colonel. If you were to murmur “spoiled” to him you’d wreck his digestion. He’s spent ever so much money over securing the foundations and reproducing the sculpture on the old tower we took down, and it breaks his dear heart when anybody disapproves of it. For some people, you know, are so absurdly opposed to reasonable restoration.
‘Oh, but this isn’t even restoration, you know,’ Maisie said, with the frankness of twenty, and the specialist interest of an antiquary’s daughter. ‘This is pure reconstruction.’
‘Perhaps so,’ Mrs. West answered. ‘But if you think so, my dear, don’t breathe it at Wolverden.’
A fire, of ostentatiously wealthy dimensions, and of the best glowing coal, burned bright on the hearth; but the day was mild, and hardly more than autumnal. Maisie found the room quite unpleasantly hot. She opened the windows and stepped out on the terrace. Mrs. West followed her. They paced up and down the broad gravelled platform for a while — Maisie had not yet taken off her travelling-cloak and hat — and then strolled half unconsciously towards the gate of the church. The churchyard, to hide the tombstones of which the parapet had been erected, was full of quaint old monuments, with broken-nosed cherubs, some of them dating from a comparatively early period. The porch, with its sculptured niches deprived of their saints by puritan hands, was still rich and beautiful in its carved detail. On the seat inside an old woman was sitting. She did not rise as the lady of the manor approached, but went on mumbling and muttering inarticulately to herself in a sulky undertone. Still, Maisie was aware, none the less, that the moment she came near a strange light gleamed suddenly in the old woman’s eyes, and that her glance was fixed upon her. A faint thrill of recognition seemed to pass like a flash through her palsied body. Maisie knew not why, but she was dimly afraid of the old woman’s gaze upon her.
‘It’s a lovely old church!’ Maisie said, looking up at the trefoil finials on the porch— ‘all, except the tower.’
‘We had to reconstruct it,’ Mrs. West answered apologetically — Mrs. West’s general attitude in life was apologetic, as though she felt she had no right to so much more money than her fellow-creatures. ‘It would have fallen if we hadn’t done something to buttress it up. It was really in a most dangerous and critical condition.’
‘Lies! lies! lies!’ the old woman burst out suddenly, though in a strange, low tone, as if speaking to herself. ‘It would not have fallen — they knew it would not. It could not have fallen. It would never have fallen if they had not destroyed it. And even then — I was there when they pulled it down — each stone clung to each, with arms and legs and hands and claws, till they burst them asunder by main force with their new-fangled stuff — I don’t know what they call it — dynamite, or something. It was all of it done for one man’s vainglory!’
‘Come away, dear,’ Mrs. West whispered. But Maisie loitered.
‘Wolverden Tower was fasted thrice,’ the old woman continued, in a sing-song quaver. ‘It was fasted thrice with souls of maids against every assault of man or devil. It was fasted at the foundation against earthquake and ruin. It was fasted at the top against thunder and lightning. It was fasted in the midd
le against storm and battle. And there it would have stood for a thousand years if a wicked man had not raised a vainglorious hand against it. For that’s what the rhyme says —
‘Fasted thrice with souls of men, Stands the tower of Wolverden; Fasted thrice with maidens’ blood, A thousand years of fire and flood Shall see it stand as erst it stood.’
She paused a moment, then, raising one skinny hand towards the brand-new stone, she went on in the same voice, but with malignant fervour —
‘A thousand years the tower shall stand Till ill assailed by evil hand; By evil hand in evil hour, Fasted thrice with warlock’s power, Shall fall the stanes of Wulfhere’s tower.’
She tottered off as she ended, and took her seat on the edge of a depressed vault in the churchyard close by, still eyeing Maisie Llewelyn with a weird and curious glance, almost like the look which a famishing man casts upon the food in a shop-window.
‘Who is she?’ Maisie asked, shrinking away in undefined terror.
‘Oh, old Bessie,’ Mrs. West answered, looking more apologetic (for the parish) than ever. ‘She’s always hanging about here. She has nothing else to do, and she’s an outdoor pauper. You see, that’s the worst of having the church in one’s grounds, which is otherwise picturesque and romantic and baronial; the road to it’s public; you must admit all the world; and old Bessie will come here. The servants are afraid of her. They say she’s a witch. She has the evil eye, and she drives girls to suicide. But they cross her hand with silver all the same, and she tells them their fortunes — gives them each a butler. She’s full of dreadful stories about Wolverden Church — stories to make your blood run cold, my dear, compact with old superstitions and murders, and so forth. And they’re true, too, that’s the worst of them. She’s quite a character. Mr. Blaydes, the antiquary, is really attached to her; he says she’s now the sole living repository of the traditional folk-lore and history of the parish. But I don’t care for it myself. It “gars one greet,” as we say in Scotland. Too much burying alive in it, don’t you know, my dear, to quite suit my fancy.’
