"What do you mean, Davies?" I asked, but without looking up in the glass for fear of meeting her eyes there. "What has the sea-wall to do with my illness? It was not there you found me when I fainted. You told me it was by the fountain."
The old woman took a paper from her stays, and out of it a muddy piece of linen which she spread out on the dressing-table in front of me. It was a handkerchief of mine; and I understood that she had found it, treasured it as a sign of what I had witnessed. The place, the moment, might mean my death-warrant; for what I thought I saw had been really seen.
"It was on the sea-wall the morning that Lady Brandling fainted in the shrubbery," she answered. And I felt that her eyes were on my face, asking what I had seen that day.
I made a prodigious effort over myself.
"And why have you kept it in that state instead of washing it? Did you—was it picked up then or only now?I suppose some one else found it?"
Merciful God! how every word of that last sentence beat itself out in my heart and throat!—and yet I heard the words pronounced lightly, indifferently.
"I picked it up myself, my lady," answered Mrs. Davies. "I went down to the sea-wall after I had put Lady Brandling to bed. I thought she might have left something there. I thought I should like to go there before the others came. I thought Lady Brandling had seen something. I want Lady Brandling to tell me truly if she saw something on the sea-wall."
I felt it was a struggle, perhaps a struggle for life and death between her and me. I took a comb in my hand, to press it and steady me; and I looked up in the mirror and faced Davies's eyes, ready, I knew, to fix themselves on mine. "Perhaps I may answer your question later, Davies," I said. "But first you must answer mine: am I right in thinking that you were set to spy upon my husband and me from the moment we first came to St. Salvat's?"
A great change came over Davies's face. Whatever her intentions, she had not expected this, and did not know how to meet it. I felt that, were her intentions evil, I now held her in my hands, powerless for the time being.
But to my infinite surprise, and after only a short silence, she looked into my eyes quite simply and answered without hesitating.
"Lady Brandling is right. I was set to spy on Lady Brandling at the beginning. I did not love Lady Brandling at the beginning; her husband was taking the place of Sir Thomas. But I love Lady Brandling now."
I could have sworn that it was true, for she has shown it throughout my illness. But I kept my counsel and answered very coldly,
"It is not a question whether you love me or not, Davies. You acknowledge that you were the spy of Mr. Hubert and his brothers. And if you were not spying for their benefit, why were you watching me as I came up the glen the day I was taken ill? Why did you go to the sea-wall to see in case I had left anything behind; and why did you treasure this handkerchief as a proof that I had been there?"
Mrs. Davies hesitated; but only, I believe, because she found it difficult to make her situation clear.
"Lady Brandling must try and understand," she answered. "I was not spying for Mr. Hubert. I have not spied for Mr. Hubert for a long while. I kept the handkerchief to show Lady Brandling that I knew what had made her faint that day. Also to show her that others did not know. Lady Brandling is safe. She must know that they do not yet know. If they know what Lady Brandling perhaps shall have seen, Lady Brandling and her husband are dead people, like the people in the ship; dead like Sir Thomas."
Dead like Sir Thomas! I repeated to myself. But I still kept my eyes fixed on hers in the glass, where she stood behind me, brush in hand.
"Davies," I said, "you must explain if I am to understand. You tell me you love me now though you did not love me at first. You tell me you were placed to spy over me by Mr. Hubert, and you tell me that you were not spying for him when you went to see whether I had left anything on the sea-wall. You have been good and kind beyond words during my sickness, and I desire to believe in you. But I dare not. Why should I believe that you have really changed so completely? Why should I believe that you are withme, and againstthem?"
Mrs. Davies's face changed strangely. It seemed to me to express deep perplexity and almost agonised helplessness. She twisted her fingers and raised her shoulders. She was wrestling with my unbelief. Suddenly she leaned over the dressing table close to me.
"Listen," she said. "I have learned things since then. Hubert told me lies, but I learned. I am againstthembecause I know they tried to kill my son."
A look of incredulity must have passed over my face, for she added,
"Aye; they only tried to kill one of my sons, Hugh, who I thought had gone overboard, whom they thought they had drowned, but who has come and told me. But—" and she fixed her eyes on mine, "theydidkill my other son; I know that now. My other son of the heart, not the belly. And that son, my Lady, was your brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Brandling."
And then Davies made a strange imperious gesture, and I must needs listen to her talk. I have since pieced it together out of her odd enigmatic sentences. My late brother-in-law, after years of passive connivance intheirdoings, which paid for his debaucheries in foreign lands, became restive, or was suspected by his uncles, and condemned by them to death as a danger to their evil association. Sir Thomas was decoyed home, and, according to their habit in case of mutiny, taken out, a prisoner, to the deepest part of the channel, and drowned. The report was spread that he had been killed in a drunken brawl at Bristol, a show of legal proceedings was instituted by his uncle in that city (naturally to no effect, there being no murderer there to discover), and a corpse brought back by them for solemn burial at St. Salvat's. But instead of being interred in the family vault, the body of the false Sir Thomas was destroyed by the burning of the Chapel during his wake. The suspicions of Mrs. Davies appeared to have been awakened by this fact, and by the additional one that she was not allowed to see the corpse of her beloved foster-son. Her own son Hugh, Sir Thomas's foster brother, disappeared about this time; and Hubert appears to have made the distracted mother believe that her own boy was the murderer of Sir Thomas, and had met with death at his hands; the whole unlikely story being further garnished for the poor credulous woman with a doubt that the murder of her foster-son had been, in some manner, the result of a conspiracy to bring about the succession of my husband. All this she seems to have believed at the time of our coming, and for this reason to have lent herself most willingly to spy upon my husband and me, in hopes of getting the proofs of his guilt. But her suspicions gradually changed, and her whole attitude in the matter was utterly reversed when, a few days before the wreck of the great Indiaman and my adventure on the sea-wall, her son, whom she believed dead, had stolen back in disguise and told her of an expedition in which the uncles had carried a man to the high seas, gagged and bound, and drowned him: a man who was not one of their crew and whose stature and the colour of whose hair answered to those of the nominal master of St. Salvat's. Her son, in an altercation over some booty, had let out his suspicion to my uncles, and had escaped death only by timely flight masked under accidental drowning from a fishing boat. Since this revelation Davies's devotion to the dead Sir Thomas had transferred itself to Eustace and me, and her one thought had become revenge against the men who had killed her darling.
Davies told me all this, as I said, in short, enigmatic sentences; and I scarcely know whether her tale seemed to me more inevitably true or more utterly false in its hideous complication of unlikely horrors. When she had done:
"Davies," I ask her solemnly, "you have been a spy, you have, by your saying, been the accomplice of the most horrid criminals that ever disgraced the world. Why should I believe one word of what you tell me?"
Davies hesitated as before, then looked me full in the face "If Lady Brandling cannot believe what it is needful that she should believe, let her ask her husband whether I am telling her a lie. Lady Brandling's husband knows, and he is afraid of tellingherbecause he is afraid of them." Davies had been kneeling by the dressing-table, as if to make herself heard to me without speaking above a whisper.
I mustered all my courage, for these last words touched me closer, filled me with a far more real and nearer horror than all her hideous tales.
"Davies," I said, "kindly finish brushing my hair. When it is brushed I can do it up myself; and you may go and wash that handkerchief."
The old woman rose from her knees without a word, and finished brushing my hair very carefully. Then she handed me the hairpins and combs ceremoniously. As she did so she murmured beneath her breath:
"Lady Brandling is a courageous lady. I love Lady Brandling for her courage." She curtsied and withdrew. When the door was well closed on her I felt I could bear the strain no more; I leaned my head on the dressing table and burst into a flood of silent tears.
At that moment Eustace came in. "Good God!" he said, "what is the matter?" taking my hand and trying to raise me up.
But I hid my face. "Oh, Eustace," I answered, "when I think of our child!"
But what I was saying, God help me, was not true.
October1, 1773.
What frightful suspicions are these which I have allowed to creep insidiously into my mind! Did he or did he not know? Does he know yet? Every time we meet I feel my eyes seeking his face, scanning his features, and furtively trying to read their meaning, alas! alas! as if he were a stranger. And I spend my days piecing together bits of the past, and every day they make a different and more perplexing pattern. I remember his change of manner on receiving the news of his brother's death, and the gloom which hung over him during our journey and after our arrival here. I thought then that it was the unexpected return to the scenes of his unhappy childhood; and that his constraint and silence with me were due to his difficulty in dealing with the shocking state of things he found awaiting him. It seemed natural enough that Eustace, a thinker, a dreamer even, should feel harassed at his inability to clean out this den of iniquity. But why have remained here? Good God, is my husband a mere pensioner of all this hideousness, as his wretched brother seems to have been? And even for that miserable debauched creature the day came when he turned against his masters, and faced death, perhaps like a gentleman. Death.... How unjust I am grown to Eustace! I ought to try and put myself in his place, and see things as he would see them, not with the horrified eyes of a stranger. Like me, he may have believed at first that St. Salvat's was merely a nest of smugglers.... Or he may have had only vague fears of worse, haunting him like bad dreams of his childhood....
Besides, this frightful trade in drowned men and their goods has, from what Davies tells me, been for centuries the chief employment of this dreadful coast. Whole villages, and several of the first families of the country, practised it turn about with smuggling. Davies was ready with a string of names, she expressed no special horror and her conscience perhaps represents that of these people; an unlawful trade, but not without its side of peril, commending it to barbarous minds like highway robbery or the exploits of buccaneers, whom popular ballads treat as heroes.
But why have I recourse to such explanations? Men, even men as noble as my husband, are marvellously swayed by all manner of notions of honour, false and barbarous, often causing them to commit crimes in order to screen those of their blood or of their class. Some words of Hubert's keep recurring in my memory, to the effect that all the Brandlings were given up to what the villain called pilchard fishing, andnone more devotedly than Eustace's own father. I remember and now understand the tone in which he added "all of us Brandlings except this superfine gentleman here." Those words meant that however great his horror of it all, Eustace could not break loose from that complicity of silence. For to expose the matter would be condemning all his kinsmen to a shameful death, to the public gallows; it would be uncovering the dishonour of his dead brother, of his father, and all his race.... What right have I to ask my husband to do what no other man would do in his place?
But perhaps he does not know, or is not certain yet.... To what a size have I allowed my horrid suspicions to grow! Behold me finding excuses for an offence which very likely has never been committed; and while seemingly condoning, condemning my husband in my mind, without giving him a chance of self-defence! What a confusion of disloyalty and duplicity my fears have bred in my soul! Anything is better than this; I owe it to Eustace to tell him my suspicions, and Iwilltell him.
November2, 1773.
I have spoken. O marvellous, most unexpected reward of frankness and loyalty, however tardy! The nightmare has vanished, leaving paradise in my soul. For inconceivable as it seems, this day, on which I learned that we are prisoners, already condemned most likely, and at best doomed to die before very long, this day has been of unmixed, overflowing joy, such as I never knew or dreamed of.
Eustace, beloved, that ever I could have doubted you! And yet that very doubt, that sin against our love is what has brought me such blissful certainty. And even the shameful question, asked with burning cheeks, "Did you know all?" has been redeemed, transfigured, and will remain for ever in my soul like the initial bars of some ineffably tender and triumphant piece of music.
Let me go over it once more, our conversation, Love; feel it all over again, feel it for ever and ever.
When I had spoken those words, Eustace, you took my hand, and looked long into my face.
"My poor Penelope," you said, "what dreadful thoughts my cowardice and want of faith have brought upon you! Why did I not recognise that your soul was strong enough to bear the truth? You ought to have learned it from me, as soon as I myself felt certain of it, instead of my running the risk of your discovering it all alone, you poor, poor little child!"
Were ever those small words spoken so greatly? Has any man been such a man in his gentleness and humility? And then you went on, beloved, and I write down your words in order to feel them once more sinking into my heart.
"But Penelope," you said, "'twas not mere unmanly shirking, though there may have been some of that mixed with it. My fault lies chiefly in not having been able to do without you, dearest, not having left you safe with your mother while I came over to this accursed place; and in putting the suspicions I had behind me in order to bring you here. Nothing can wipe out that, and I am paying the just price of my weakness, and seeing you pay it!... But once here, Penelope, and once certain of the worst, it was impossible for me to tell you the truth. Impossible, because I knew that if you knew what I had learned, it would be far more difficult for me to get you away, to get you to leave me behind in this hideous place. Do you remember when I proposed sending you to Bath for our child's birth? It seemed the last chance of saving you, and you resisted and thought me cruel and unloving! How could I say 'Go! because your life may any day be forfeited like mine, and go alone! because—well—because I am a hostage, a man condemned to death if he stir, a prisoner as much as if I were chained to the walls of this house.' Had I said that, you would have refused to go, Penelope. But now, my dear...." And you bent down and kissed me very mournfully.
"But now, Eustace," I answered, and I heard that my voice was solemn, "but now I can stay with you, because I know as much as you do, and they will soon know that I do so, even if they do not know yet. I may stay with you, because I am a prisoner like you, and condemned like you. We can live, because we have to die—together."
Eustace, you folded me in your arms and I felt you sob. But I loosened your hands and kissed them one by one, and said, "Nay, Eustace, why should you grieve? Do we not love each other? Are we not together, quite together, and together for always?"
We are standing by the big window in my room, and as we clasped one another, our eyes, following each other's, rested on the sea above the tree tops. It was a silvery band under a misty silver sunset; very sweet and solemn. Our souls, methought, were sailing in its endless peacefulness. For the first time, I was aware of what love is; I seemed to understand what poetry is about and what music means; death, which hung over us, was shrunk to its true paltriness, and the eternity of life somehow revealed all in one moment. I have known happiness. I thank God, and beloved, I thank thee also.
Here ends the diary kept half a century ago by the woman of twenty-two, who was once myself. Those of whom it treats, my mother, my husband, poor faithful Davies and the wretched villains of St. Salvat's, have long since ceased to live, and those for whose benefit I gather together these memories—my sons and daughters, were not yet born at the time this diary deals with.
In order to complete my story I can, therefore, seek only in my own solitary memory; and, standing all alone, look into that far away past which only my own eyes and heart are left to descry.
After the scene with which my diary closes, and when we could compare all that each of us knew of our strange situation, it appeared to my husband and me that we had everything to gain, and at all events nothing to lose (since we knew our lives in jeopardy) by a desperate attempt to escape from what was virtually our prison. Eustace had summed up our position when he had said that we were hostages in the hands of the uncles. For these villains, unconscious of any bonds of family honour, made sure that our escape would infallibly bring about the exposure of their infamous practices.
It appears that after the murder of my brother-in-law, whom the most violent of the gang had put to death on a mere threat of betrayal, the uncles had taken for granted that Eustace would accept some manner of pension as his brother had done, and like him, leave St. Salvat's in their undisputed possession. And they had been considerably nonplussed when my husband declared his intention of returning to Wales. The perception of the blunder they had committed in getting rid of my brother-in-law, made them follow the guidance of Hubert, who had opposed the murder of Sir Thomas, if not from humanity, at all events from prudence. It was Hubert's view that since Eustace refused to stay away, no difficulties should be put in the way of his coming, but on the contrary, that he be taken, so to speak, in a trap, and once at St. Salvat's, persuaded or compelled into becoming a passive, if not an active, accomplice. Hubert had therefore written so pressingly about the need of putting the property to rights, of making a new start at St. Salvat's, and of therefore bringing me and settling at once in the place, that Eustace had judged the rumours concerning the real trade of his kinsmen, and his own childish suspicions, to have been mere exaggeration, and imagined that the uncles, brought to order by so superior a man as Hubert, were perhaps even willing to abandon the dangerous business of smuggling which had been carried on almost avowedly during the lifetime of his father. Such was the trap laid by Hubert; and Eustace, partly from guilelessness and partly from a sense of duty to St. Salvat's, walked straight in, carrying me with him as an additional pledge to evil fortune. He was scarcely in, when the door, like the drawbridge which had risen after our entry into that frightful place, closed and showed him he was a prisoner. It was Hubert's plan to make use of our presence (which, moreover, put an end to his own isolation among those besotted villains) in order to remove whatever suspicions might exist in the outside world. The presence of a studious and gentlemanly owner, of a young wife and possible children, was to make people believe that a new leaf had been turned over at St. Salvat's, and that the old former pages of its history were not so shocking as evil reports had had it. So, during the first weeks after our arrival, and while the brothers were being coerced into an attempt at decent behaviour, Eustace was being importuned with every kind of plan which should draw him into further complicity, and compromise him along with the rest of the band. Hubert, being a clergyman, had since his elder brother's death, also been the chief magistrate of the district; and, shocking to relate, this wrecker and murderer had sat in judgment on poachers and footpads. Having made use of this position to silence any inclination to blab about St. Salvat's, he was apprehensive of this scandal getting to headquarters, and therefore desirous of putting in his place a man as clear of suspicion and as obviously just as Eustace, yet whom he imagined he could always coerce in all vital matters. But Eustace saw through this fine scheme at once, and resolutely refused to become a magistrate in Hubert's place. This was the first hint Hubert received that it was useless to seek an accomplice in his nephew; and this recognition speedily grew into a fear lest Eustace might become a positive danger, particularly if he ever learned for certain that Sir Thomas had not been murdered at Bristol, but at St. Salvat's. The situation was made more critical by the fact that on discovering what manner of place the castle really was, Eustace had declared with perfect simplicity, his intention of taking me back to my mother. It was then he had learned in as many words, that both he and I were prisoners, and that he, at all events, would never leave St. Salvat's alive. Thus the terrible months had been spent in gauging the depth of his miserable situation, in making and unmaking plans for my escape, for sending me away without letting me guess the real reason, all of which had been frustrated by my miscarriage and the long illness following upon it. And meanwhile, Eustace had had to endure the constant company of his gaoler Hubert, the wretch's occasional attempts to compromise him in the doings of the gang; and what was horridest of all, Hubert's very sincere pleasure in our presence and conversation, and his ceaseless attempts to strike up some kind of friendship.
Now, the discovery that I was aware of the frightful mysteries of the place, had entirely altered our position: first, because it was probable that the uncles now considered me as much of a danger as my husband, and therefore as an equally indispensable hostage; and secondly, because it was evident that I could no longer be induced to leave St. Salvat's by myself. Our only remaining hope was flight. But how elude the vigilance of our gaolers and overcome the obstacles they had built up around us? Day after day, and night after night, Eustace and I went over and over our possibilities; but they seemed to diminish, and difficulties to increase, the more we discussed them. The house and grounds were guarded, and our actions spied upon. We were cut off from the outer world, for we had long since understood that our letters, even when despatched, were intercepted and read by Hubert. But the worst difficulty almost was the lack of money. For some months past, Hubert had taken to doling it out only in trifling sums and on our asking for it, and he supplied our needs and even fancies with such lavishness, forestalling them in many instances, that a request for any considerable sum would have been tantamount to an intimation of our intended flight. Such were the external obstacles; I found, moreover, that there were other ones in the character and circumstances of my poor fellow prisoner. My husband's natural incapacity for planning active measures and taking sudden decisions, was not at all diminished, but the reverse, by his fear for my safety. And his indecision was aggravated by all manner of scruples; for he considered it cowardly to leave St. Salvat's in the undisputed possession of the villains who usurped it; and he wavered between a wish to punish the murder of his brother and that prejudice (which I had rightly divined) against exposing his kinsmen and his dead father to public infamy, however well earned by them.
This miserable state of doubt and fear was brought to a sudden close, as I vaguely expected it would, by a new move on the part of our adversaries. It was in the spring of 1774, and we had been at St. Salvat's about eighteen months, which felt much more like as many years. One evening after supper, as I sat in my room idly listening to the sound, now so terrible to me, of the sea on the rocks, I was suddenly aroused by the sound, no less frightful to my ears, of the brawling of the uncles below. I rose in alarm, for my apartments were completely isolated from the part of the house which they occupied, and for months past all the intermediate doors had been kept carefully closed by the tacit consent of both parties. The noise became greater; I could distinguish the drunken voices of Simon and Richard, and a sharp altercation between the other ones, and just as I had stepped, beyond my own door, I heard a horrid yell of curses, a scuffle, and the door opposite, which closed the main staircase, flew open, and what was my astonishment when my husband appeared, pushed forward, or rather hurled along by Hubert. The latter shouted to me to go back, and having thrust Eustace into my room, he disappeared as suddenly as he had come, slamming the doors after him. As he did so I heard the key click; he had locked us in.
My husband was in a shocking condition, his clothes torn half off him, his hair in disorder, and the blood dripping from his arm.
"Do not be frightened," he cried, "'tis merely a comedy of those filthy villains," and he showed me that his wound was merely a long scratch. "They want to frighten us," he added, "the drunken brutes wanted to force me through some beastly form of initiation into their gang. Faugh!" and he looked at his arm, which I was washing; "they did it with a broken bottle, the hogs! And as to Hubert, and his fine saving me from their clutches, that, I take it, was mere play-acting too, the most sickening part of the business, and meant only to give you a scare."
Eustace had thrown himself gloomily into a chair, and I had never seen him before with such a look of disgust and indignation. I was by no means as certain as he that no serious mischief had been intended, or that Hubert had not saved him from real danger. But that new look in him awoke a sudden hope in me, and I determined to strike while the iron was hot. "Eustace," I said very gravely as I bound a handkerchief round his arm, "if your impression is correct, this is almost the worst of our misery. Certainly no child of mine shall ever be born into such ignominy as this. It is high time we went. Better to die like decent folk than allow ourselves to be hacked about by these drunken brutes and pushed through doors by a theatrical villain like Hubert."
"You are right, Penelope," he answered, burying his face in his chair. "I have been a miserable coward." And, to my horror, I heard him sob like a child who has been struck for the first time.
That decided me. But what to do? A desperate resolution came to me. As Davies was brushing my hair that night, I looked at her once more in the mirror, and, assuming the most matter-of-fact tone I could muster, "Davies," I said, "Sir Eustace and I have decided on leaving St. Salvat's, and we are taking you with us on our travels; unless you should prefer to betray us to Mr. Hubert, which is the best thing you can do for yourself."
What made me say those last words? Was it a desire to threaten, a stupid, taunting spirit, or the reckless frankness of one who thought herself doomed? Would it might have been the latter. But of all the things which I would give some of my life to cancel, those words are the foremost; and remorse and shame seize me as I write them.
But instead of answering these, the faithful creature threw herself on her knees and covered my hand with kisses. "All is ready," she said after a moment, "and Lady Brandling will start on Saturday."
She had been watching and planning for weeks, and had already thought out and prepared every detail of our flight with extraordinary ingenuity. She placed the savings of her whole lifetime at our service, a considerable sum, and far beyond our need; and she had contrived to communicate with her son, the one who had every good reason to bear a grudge to the villains of St. Salvat's. My husband and I were to walk on foot, and separately, out of the grounds; horses were to meet us at a given point of the road, and take us, not to Swansea or Bristol, as would be expected, but to Milford, there to embark for Ireland, a country where all trace of us would easily be lost, and whence we could easily re-enter England or take ship for the Continent, as circumstances should dictate at the moment.
The next Saturday had been fixed upon for our flight, because Davies knew that the uncles would be away on an important smuggling expedition in a distant part of the coast. The maids, very few in number, and any of the servants left behind, Davies had undertaken to intoxicate or drug into harmlessness. Only one evil chance remained, and that we none of us dared to mention: what if Hubert, as is sometimes the case, should stay behind?
I do not know how I contrived to live through the three days which separated us from Saturday; there are, apparently, moments in our lives so strangely unlike all others, so unnatural to our whole being, that the memory refuses to register them or even bear their trace. All I know is that Eustace spent all his time in his laboratory, constructing various appliances, an occupation which I explained as imposed upon himself in order to deaden any doubts or scruples, such as were natural to his character, for the only opposition he had made to our plan of escape was on the score that it meant leaving St. Salvat's in the hands of the uncles.
At last came Friday night. Friday, June 26, 1774, Davies had brought us word that the uncles had gone down to the boats, taking all the available men with them, save an old broken-down ship's carpenter, who lived with the keeper in the gate tower, and the husband of one of the sluttish women, who lay sick of the quinsy in the outhouse containing the offices. Only, only, Hubert remained! Had his suspicion been awakened? Was he detained on business? Was he ailing? Methought it was the first of these possibilities. For on Friday morning he came to my apartments, which was not his wont, early in the day and offered to pay me a visit. But Davies had the presence of mind to answer that I was sick, and lest he should doubt it, to force me to bed at once, and borrow certain medicines from him. After this he sought for Eustace, and finding him busy among his chemical instruments, his suspicions, if he had any, were quieted; and, having dined, he went down to his own small boat, a very fast sailer, and which he managed alone, often outstripping the heavier boats of his brothers and nephew. The ground was now clear. My husband remained, I believe, in his laboratory; Davies went down to supper with the maids, whom she had undertaken to drug; we were to meet again in my room at daybreak. I cannot say for sure, but I believe I spent that night trying to pray and waiting for daylight.
The month was June and day came early;... a dull day, thin rain streamed down continuously, hushing everything, even the sea on the rocks becoming inaudible; only, I remember, a bird sang below my window, and the notes he sang long ran in my ears and tormented me. I had sewn some diamonds and some pieces of gold into my clothes, and those of my husband and of Davies. I stuffed a few valuables, very childishly chosen, for I took my diary, some of Eustace's love-letters, and the little cap I had knitted for the baby who was never born, into my pockets. And I waited. Presently Eustace came; he had a serviceable sword, a large knife, and a pair of pistols in his great coat; he handed me a smaller pistol, showed me that it was primed, and gave me at the same time a little folded white paper. "You are a brave woman, Penelope," he said, kissing me, "and I know there is no likelihood of your using either of these things rashly or in a moment of panic. But our enterprise is uncertain; we may possibly be parted, and I have no right to let you fall alive into the hands of those villains." Then, he sat down at my work-table and began drawing on a sheet of paper, while I looked out of the window and listened to the unvarying song of that bird. Davies did not come, and it was broad daylight. But neither of us ventured to remark on this fact or to speak our fears. Then, after about half an hour's fruitless waiting Eustace declared that we must have misunderstood Davies's instructions, and insisted, much against my wishes, upon going down to see whether she was not waiting for us below. A secret fear had seized my husband that the old woman, whom I had now got to trust quite absolutely, might after all have remained from first to last a spy of Hubert's. As Eustace left he turned round and said, "Remember what you have in your pocket, Penelope; and if I do not return within ten minutes, come down the main staircase and sing the first bars of 'Phyllis plus avare que tendre' I shall be on the watch for it."
I hated his foolish obstinacy: far better, I thought, have awaited Davies in the appointed place, and together.
I thought so all the more when, after some ten minutes had elapsed, a light rap came on the wainscot door near my bed, the door leading to the back staircase, and opposite to the one by which Eustace had taken his departure.
"Come in, Davies," I said joyfully.
"It is not Davies, dear Lady Brandling," said a voice which made me feel suddenly sick; and in came Hubert, bowing. He was dressed with uncommon neatness, not in his fisherman's clothes, but as a clergyman, and, what was by no means constantly the case with him, he was fresh shaven. In a flash I understood that he had returned overnight, or perhaps not gone away at all.
"It is not Davies," he repeated, "but I have come with her excuses to your ladyship; a sudden ailment, and one from which it is not usual to recover at her, or indeed, any age, prevents her waiting on you. I have been giving her some of the consolations of religion, and hearing her confession, a practice I by no means reject as Popish," and the villain smiled suavely. "And now, as she can no longer benefit by my presence, I thought I would come and make her excuses, and offer myself, though unskilful, to pack your ladyship's portmanteau in her place."
"You have killed Davies!" I exclaimed, springing up from the sofa on which I was seated. Hubert made a deprecatory gesture and forcing me down again seated himself insolently close to me. "Fie, fie!" he said, "those are not words for a pretty young lady to use to her old uncle. Have you not learned your Catechism, my dear? It is said there, 'Thou shalt not kill,' meaning thereby, kill anything save vermin. And, by the way," continues the villain, taking my arm and preventing my rising, "that's just what I want to talk about. I have a prejudice against killing members of my own family, a prejudice not shared by my brothers, worse luck to the sots, or else you would not be Lady Brandling as yet, and that poor, silly coxcomb of a Thomas would still be enjoying his glass and his lass. I hate a scandal, and intend to avoid one; also, I am genuinely attached to you and to your husband, for though a milksop, he is a man of parts and education, and I relish his conversation. Yes, my dear. I know what you are going to ask! The precious Eustace is quite safe, without a scratch in any part of his gentlemanly white body; and no harm shall come to him—on one condition: That you, my pretty vixen, for you are avirago, a warlike lady, my dear niece, that you swear very solemnly that neither you nor he will ever again attempt to leave St. Salvat's."
He had taken my hand and was looking in my eyes with a villainous expression.
"What do you say to that?" he went on. "I know you to be a woman of spirit and of honour, bound by an oath, and capable of making your husband respect it. You have nothing to gain by refusing. You are alone with me in this house. Your faithful Davies is as dead as a door-nail. Your virtuous spouse is quite safe downstairs, for I have taken the precaution to relieve him of all those dangerous swords and pistols of his, which a learned man might hurt himself with. I give you five minutes to make up your mind. If you accept my terms, you and Sir Eustace Brandling shall live honoured and happy at St. Salvat's among your obliged kinsmen. If you refuse, I shall, very reluctantly, hand over your husband to my brothers' tender mercies when they return home presently; and, as they do not know how to behave to a lady, I shall myself make it a point to act as a man of refinement and a tender heart should act towards a very pretty little shrew," and the creature dared to touch me with his lips upon my neck.
I shrank back upon the sofa half paralysed, and with not strength enough to grow hot and crimson. Hubert rose, locked the doors, and, to my relief, sat down to the harpsichord, on which he began to pick out a tune. It was that very "Phyllis plus avare que tendre," which I had sung to my husband and him some days before. Was it a coincidence; or had he overheard us appoint it as a signal, and was he mocking and torturing Eustace as well as me?
"An elegant little air, egad," he says, "I wish I could remember the second part. Don't let my strumming disturb you. You have still four minutes to think over your answer, dear Lady Brandling." The familiar notes aroused me from my stupor. I got up and walked slowly to the harpsichord, at which Hubert was lolling and strumming.
"Well, my dear?" he asks insolently, and the notes seemed to ooze out from under his fingers, "have I got the tune right? Is that it?"
"The tune," I answered, "is this: Mr. Hubert Brandling, in the name of God Almighty, whose ministry you have defiled, and whose law you have placed yourself outside, I take it upon myself to judge and put you to death as a wrecker and a murderer." I drew Eustace's pistol from my pocket, aimed steadily and fired. I was half stunned by the report; but through the smoke of my own weapon, I saw Hubert reel and fall across the harpsichord, whose jangling mingled with his short, sharp cry. Even after fifty years, I quite understand how I didthat, and when I recall it all, I feel that, old as I am, I would do it over again. What I cannot explain is what I did afterwards, nor the amazing coolness and clearness of head which I enjoyed at that moment. For without losing a minute I went to the harpsichord, and despite the horrid, hot trickle all over my hands, I turned out his pockets and took his keys. Then I left the room, locked it from the outside, and went downstairs singing that French shepherd's song at the top of my voice. The fearful stillness was beginning to frighten me, when, just as I felt my throat grow dry and my voice faint, the same tune answered me in a low whistle, from out of Hubert's study. I knew my husband's whistle, and yet the fact of Hubert's room, the fact that Hubert had been strumming that tune, filled me, for the first time, with horror. But I found the key on the bunch, and unlocked the door. Eustace was seated in an arm chair, unbound, but his clothes torn as after a scuffle.
"Eustace," I said, "I—I have killed Hubert." But to my astonishment he barely gave me time to utter the words; and starting from the chair:
"Quick, quick!" he cries, "there is not a moment to lose. Another ten minutes and we also are dead!" and seizing my arm he drags me away, down the remaining stairs, out by the main door and then at a run across the yard and up into the dripping shrubbery.
"Eustace, Eustace!" I cried breathless, "this is not the way; we shall be seen from the stables."
"No matter," he answered hoarsely, and dragging, almost carrying, me along, "run, Penelope, for our lives."
After about five minutes of desperate and, it seemed to me, random and mad climbing up through the wet bushes, he suddenly stopped and drew forth his watch.
"Where is Davies? At the turn of the road? Not in the house, at least, there is no one in the house? No one except—except that dead man?"
I thought that fear had made him lose his wits, and I dared not tell him that besides that dead man, the house held also a dead woman, our poor, faithful Davies.
"She is out of danger," I answered. We had, by some miracle, found our way to a place where the wall, which fortified St. Salvat's, was partly broken at the top, and overgrown by bushes. With a decision I should never have expected from him, and an extraordinary degree of strength and agility, my husband climbed on to the wall, pulled me up, let himself drop into the dry ditch beyond, and received me in his arms. Then, seizing me again by the hand, we started off once more at a mad run through the wood, stumbling and tearing ourselves against the branches.
"Up the knoll!" he repeated. "I must see! I must see!" And he seemed to me quite mad.
Once at the top of the knoll, he stopped. It was wooded all the way up, but just here was an open space of grass burrowed by rabbits and set with stunted junipers. It was full in sight of St. Salvat's, and if ever there could be a dangerous place to stop in, it was this. But Eustace pointed to the wet grass, "Sit down," he said, and sat down himself, after looking at his watch again. "There are five minutes more," he repeated, remaining, despite my entreaties, seated on the soft ground among the rabbit holes, his face turned to St. Salvat's.
"You are sure Davies is safe?" he asked, again drawing out his watch.
"Davies is dead," I answered, counting on the effect it would have on him, "Hubert had murdered her ... before ... I...."
Eustace's eye kindled strangely. "Ah! is it so?" he cried, "Then poor Davies will have a splendid funeral! All I regret is that that villain should share in the honour." So saying, he started up on to his feet, and pulling out his watch, looked from it to the towers and battlements nestled in the trees of the hollow beneath us.
"Half past seven less a minute, less half a minute, less ... Now!" he cried.
As if he had shouted a word of command, an enormous sheet of flame leapt up into the air, like the flash at a cannon's mouth; the hill shook and the air bellowed, and we fell back half stunned. When I could see once more, my husband was standing at the brink of the knoll, his arms folded, and looking calmly before him.
The outline of towers and battlements had entirely disappeared; and only the skeletons of the great trees, black and branchless, stood out like the broken masts of wrecked vessels against the distant pale and misty sea.
"I have burnt out their nest. My house shall be polluted no more," said my husband very quietly. And then, kissing me as we stood on the brink of the green sward, with the rain falling gently upon us, "Come, Penelope," he added taking my hands, "we are outlaws and felons; but we have saved our liberty and our honour."
And, hand in hand, we walked swiftly but quietly towards the high road to Milford.
The foregoing pages are sufficient record for those of my children and grandchildren who have heard the tale from my lips, and sufficient explanation for the remoter posterity of Eustace Brandling and myself, of the mystery which overhung their family in the latter part of the eighteenth century. I have only a few legal details to add.
By the explosion which my husband's skill in chemistry and mechanics had enabled him to procure and to time, all the main buildings of St. Salvat's Castle had been utterly destroyed; hiding in their ruins the fate alike of the faithful Davies and of the atrocious Hubert; and hiding, for anything, that was known to the contrary, two other presumable victims—my husband and myself. The gang of villains, deprived of its headquarters, and deprived of its master spirit, speedily fell to pieces. Richard and Gwyn appear to have come to a violent end in quarrelling over the booty of the last wicked expedition; Simon and Evan, and some of their followers ended in prison, on a charge of pillaging the ruins and digging for treasure while the property, in the absence of it master, was still in the hands of the law; but it is probable that this condemnation was intended to save them from a worse punishment, as the authorities gradually got wind of the real trade which had been carried on in the castle.
From the villains of St. Salvat's Eustace and I were now safe. But we had taken the law into our own hands; and the justice which had been unable to defend us while innocent, was bound to punish our acts towards the guilty. My husband's words had been true: he and I were outlaws and felons. Our case was privily placed before the King and his ministers, when we had left England and had rejoined my mother in her country. In consideration of the unusual circumstances it was decided that the baronetcy should not lapse, nor the lands be forfeited to the Crown, but be held over for our possible heirs, while ourselves should be accounted as mysteriously disappeared, and forbidden to enter the kingdom. So we wandered for many years in the new world and the old; and it was far from St. Salvat's that our children were successively born. And it was only on the death of my dear husband, which occurred in 1802, that a Brandling, our eldest son, reappeared and claimed his title and inheritance. It was the wish of my son Piers that I should accompany him and his wife to England, and help to rebuild the home which I had helped to destroy. But the recollection of the place had only grown in terror, and I have ever adhered to my resolution not to set eyes on it again. I have spent the years of my widowhood at Grandfey, my dear dead mother's little property in Switzerland, where Eustace and I had been so happy before he succeeded to St. Salvat's. And it is at Grandfey, among the meadows again white with hemlock and the lime avenues again in blossom, that I await, amid the sound of cowbells and of mountain streams, Death, who had held me in his clutches fifty years ago in that castle hidden among the trees above the white wailing Northern sea.