XXXVI
FORGIVENESS
The first wave of thankfulness for crowning blessings or vital escapeshas a softening quality against which the hearts of few are whollyproof. Old things, old hopes, old ties, old memories return on thatgentle flood tide to eyes and mind. The barriers raised by time, thefurrows of ancient wrong are levelled with the plain, and the generousbreast cries "_Non nobis!_ Not to us only be the benefit!"
Lady Lansdowne, with something of this kind in her thoughts and pityin her heart, sat eying Miss Sibson in a silence which disclosednothing, and which the schoolmistress found irksome. Miss Sibson couldbeard Sir Robert at need; but of the great of her own sex--and sheknew Lady Lansdowne for a very great lady, indeed--her sturdy naturewent a little in awe. Had her ladyship encroached indeed, Miss Sibsonwould have known how to put her in her place. But a Lady Lansdowneperfectly polite and wholly silent imposed on her. She rubbed her noseand was glad when the visitor spoke.
"Sir Robert has not seen her, then?"
Miss Sibson smoothed out the lap of her dress. "No, my lady, not sinceshe was brought into the house. Indeed, I can't say that he saw herbefore, for he never looked at her."
"Do you think that I could see her?"
The schoolmistress hesitated. "Well, my lady," she said, "I am afraidthat she will hardly live through the day."
"Then he must see her," Lady Lansdowne replied quickly. And MissSibson observed with surprise that there were tears in the greatlady's eyes. "He must see her. Is she conscious?"
"She's so-so," Miss Sibson answered more at her ease. After all, thegreat lady was human, it seemed. "She wanders, and thinks that she isin France, my lady; believes there's a revolution, and that they arecome to take her to prison. Her mind harps continually on things ofthat kind. And not much wonder either! But, then again she's herself.So that you don't know from one minute to another whether she'ssensible or not."
"Poor thing!" Lady Lansdowne murmured. "Poor woman!" Her lips movedwithout sound. Presently, "Her daughter is with her?" she asked.
"She has scarcely left her for a minute since she was carried in,"Miss Sibson answered warmly. And to her eyes, too, there rosesomething like a tear. "Only with difficulty have I made her take themost necessary rest. But if your ladyship pleases, I will ask whethershe will see you."
"Do so, if you please."
Miss Sibson retired for this purpose, and Lady Lansdowne, left toherself, rose and looked from the window. As soon as it had beenpossible to move her, the dying woman had been carried into thenearest house which had escaped the flames, and Lady Lansdowne, gazingout, looked on the scene of conflict, saw lines of ruins, still asmokein parts, and discerned between the scorched limbs of trees, fromwhich the last foliage had fallen, the blackened skeletons of houses.A gaping crowd was moving round the Square, under the eyes of specialconstables, who, distinguished by white bands on their arms, guardedthe various entrances. Hundreds, doubtless, who would fain have robbedwere there to stare; but for the most part the guilty shunned thescene, and the gazers consisted mainly of sightseers from the country,or from Bath, or of knots of merchants and traders and the like whoargued, some that this was what came of Reform, others that not Reformbut the refusal of Reform was to blame for it.
Presently she saw Sir Robert's stately figure threading its waythrough the crowd. He walked erect, but with effort; yet though herheart swelled with pity, it was not with pity for him. He would havehis daughter and in a few days, in a few weeks, in a few months atmost, the clouds would pass and leave him to enjoy the clear eveningof his days.
But for her whom he had taken to his house twenty years before in thebloom of her beauty, the envied, petted, spoiled child of fortune, whohad sinned so lightly and paid so dearly, and who now lay distraughtat the close of all, what evening remained? What gleam of light? Whatcomfort at the last?
In her behalf, the heart which Whig pride, and family prejudice, andthe cares of riches had failed to harden, swelled to bursting. "Hemust forgive her!" she ejaculated. "He shall forgive her!" And glidingto the door she stayed Mary, who was in the act of entering.
"I must see your father," she said. "He is mounting the stairs now. Goto your mother, my dear, and when I ring, do you come!"
What Mary read in her face, of feminine pity and generous purpose,need not be told. Whatever it was, the girl seized the woman's hand,kissed it with wet eyes, and fled. And when Sir Robert, usheredupstairs by Miss Sibson, entered the room and looked round for hisdaughter, he found in her stead the wife of his enemy.
On the instant he remembered the errand on which she had sought himsix months before, and he was quick to construe her presence by itslight, and to feel resentment. The wrong of years, the daily, hourlywrong, committed not against him only but against the innocent and thehelpless, this woman would have him forgive at a word; merely becausethe doer, who had had no ruth, no pity, no scruples, hung on the vergeof that step which all, just and unjust, must take! And some, he knew,standing where he stood, would forgive; would forgive with their lips,using words which meant nought to the sayer, though they soothed thehearers. But he was no hypocrite; he would not forgive. Forgive? GreatHeaven, that any should think that the wrongs of a lifetime could beforgiven in an hour! At a word! Beside a bed! As soon might thegrinding wear of years be erased from the heart, the wrinkles of carefrom the brow, the snows of age from the head! As easily might a wordgive back to the old the spring and flame and vigour of their youth!
Something of what he thought impressed itself on his face. LadyLansdowne marked the sullen drop of his eyebrows, and the firm set ofthe lower face; but she did not flinch. "I came upon your name," shesaid, "in the report of the dreadful doings here--in the 'Mercury,'this morning. I hope, Sir Robert, I shall be pardoned for intruding."
He murmured something, as much no as yes, and with a manner as frigidas his breeding permitted. And standing--she had reseated herself--hecontinued to look at her, his lips drawn down.
"I grieve," she continued, "to find the truth more sad than thereport."
"I do not know that you can help us," he said.
"No?"
"No."
"Because," she rejoined, looking at him softly, "you will not let mehelp you. Sir Robert----"
"Lady Lansdowne!" He broke in abruptly, using her name with emphasis,using it with intention. "Once before you came to me. Doubtless youremember. Now, let me say at once, that if your errand to-day be thesame, and I think it likely that it is the same----"
"It is not the same," she replied with emotion which she did not tryto hide. "It is not the same! For then there was time. And now thereis no time. Let a day, it may be an hour, pass, and at the cost of allyou possess you will not be able to buy that which you can still havefor nothing!"
"And what is that?" he asked, frowning.
"An easy heart." He had not looked for that answer, and he started."Sir Robert," she continued, rising from her seat, and speaking witheven deeper feeling, "forgive her! Forgive her, I implore you. Thewrong is past, is done, is over! Your daughter is restored----"
"But not by her!" he cried, taking her up quickly. "Not by her act!"he repeated sternly, "or with her will! And what has she done that Ishould forgive? I, whose life she blighted, whose pride she stabbed,whose hopes she crushed? Whom she left solitary, wifeless, childlessthrough the years of my strength, the years that she cannot, that noone can give back to me? Through the long summer days that were aweariness, and the dark winter days that were a torpor? Yet--yet Icould forgive her, Lady Lansdowne, I could forgive her, I do forgiveher that!"
"Sir Robert!"
"That, all that!" he continued, with a gesture and in a tone ofbitterness which harmonised but ill with the words he uttered. "Allthat she ever did amiss to me I forgive her. But--but the child'swrong, never! Had she relented indeed, at the last, had she of her ownmotion, of her own free will given me back my daughter, had sherepented and undone the wrong, then
--but no matter! she did not! Shedid not one," he repeated with agitation, "she did not any of thesethings. And I ask, what has she done that I should forgive her?"
She did not answer him at once, and when she did it was in a tone solow as to be barely audible.
"I cannot answer that," she said. "But is it the only question? Isthere not another question, Sir Robert--not what she has done, or leftundone, but what you--forgive me and bear with me--have left undone,or done amiss? Are you--you clear of all spot or trespass, innocentof all blame or erring? When she came to you a young girl, a youngbride--and, oh, I remember her, the sunshine was not brighter, she wasa child of air rather than of earth, so fair and heedless, socapricious, and yet so innocent!--did you in the first days never losepatience? Never fail to make allowance? Never preach when wisdom wouldhave smiled, never look grave when she longed for lightness, neverscold when it had been better to laugh? Did you never forget that shewas a score of years younger than you, and a hundred years morefrivolous? Or"--Lady Lansdowne's tone was a mere whisper now--"if youare clear of all offence against her, are you clear of all offenceagainst any, of all trespass? Have you no need to be forgiven, noneed, no----"
Her voice died away into silence. She left the appeal unfinished.
Sir Robert paced the room. And other scenes than those on which he hadtaught himself to brood, other days than those later days of wastedsummers and solitary winters, of dulness and decay, rose to hismemory. Sombre moods by which it had pleased him--at what a cost!--tomake his displeasure known. Sarcastic words, warrant for the facileretort that followed, curt judgments and ill-timed reproofs; andalways the sense of outraged dignity to freeze the manner and embitterthe tone.
So much, so much which he had forgotten came back to him as he walkedthe room with averted face! While Lady Lansdowne waited with her handon the bell. Minutes were passing, minutes; who knew how precious theymight be? And with them was passing his opportunity.
He spoke at last. "I will see her," he said huskily.
And on that Lady Lansdowne performed a last act of kindness. She saidnothing, bestowed no thanks. But when Mary entered--pale, yet withthat composure which love teaches the least experienced--she was gone.Nor as she drove in all the pomp of her liveries and outriders throughBath, through Corsham, through Chippenham, did those who ran out towatch my lady's four greys go by, see her face as the face of anangel. But Lady Louisa, flying down the steps to meet her--four at atime and hoidenishly--was taken to her arms, unscolded; and knew byinstinct that this was the time to pet and be petted, to confess andbe forgiven, and to learn in the stillness of her mother's room thosethrilling lessons of life, which her governess had not imparted, norMrs. Fairchild approved.
_But more than wisdom sees, love knows. What eye has scanned the perfume of the rose? Has any grasped the low grey mist which stands Ghost-like at eve above the sheeted lands?_
Meanwhile Sir Robert paused on the threshold of the room--_her_ room,which he had first entered two-and-twenty years before. And as thethen and the now, the contrast between the past and the present,forced themselves upon him, what could he do but pause and bow hishead? In the room a voice, her voice, yet unlike her voice, high,weak, never ceasing, was talking as from a great distance, fromanother world; talking, talking, never ceasing. It filled the room.Yet it did not come from a world so distant as he at first fancied,hearing it; a world that was quite aloof. For when, after he hadlistened for a time in the shadow by the door, his daughter led himforward, Lady Sybil's eyes took note of their approach, though sherecognised neither of them. Her mind was still busy amid the scenes ofthe riot; twisting and weaving them, it seemed, into a piece with oldimpressions of the French Terror, made on her mind in childhood bytalk heard at her nurse's knee.
"They are coming! They are coming now," she muttered, her bright eyesfixed on his. "But they shall not take her. They shall not take her,"she repeated. "Hide behind me, Mary. Hide, child! Don't tremble! Theyshan't take you. One neck's enough and mine is growing thin. It usednot to be thin. But that's right. Hide, and they'll not see you, andwhen I am gone you'll escape. Hush! Here they are!" And then in alouder tone, "I am ready," she said, "I am quite ready."
Mary leant over her.
"Mother!" she cried, unable to bear the scene in silence. "Mother!Don't you know me?"
"Hush!" the dying woman answered, a look of terror crossing her face."Hush, child! Don't speak! I'm ready, gentlemen; I will go with you. Iam not afraid. My neck is small, and it will be but a squeeze." Andshe tried to raise herself in the bed.
Mary laid gentle hands on her, and restrained her. "Mother," she said."Mother! Don't you know me? I am Mary."
But Lady Sybil, heedless of her, looked beyond her, with fear andsuspicion in her eyes. "Yes," she said. "I know you. I know you. Iknow you. But who is--that? Who is that?"
"My father. It is my father. Don't you know him?"
But still, "Who is it? Who is it?" Lady Sybil continued to ask. "Whois it?"
Mary burst into tears.
"What does he want? What does he want? What does he want?" the dyingwoman asked in endless, unreasoning repetition.
Sir Robert had entered the room in the full belief that with the bestof wills it would be hard, it would be well-nigh impossible toforgive; to forgive his wife with more than the lips. But when heheard her, weak and helpless as she was, thinking of another; when heunderstood that she who had done so great a wrong to the child waswilling to give up her own life for the child; when he felt the suddendrag at his heart-strings of many an old and sacred recollection,shared only by her, and which that voice, that face, that form broughtback, he fell on his knees by the bed.
She shrank from him, terrified. "What does he want?" she repeated.
"Sybil," he said, in a husky voice, "I want your forgiveness, Sybil,wife! Do you hear me? Will you forgive me? Can you forgive me, late asit is?"
Strange to say, his voice pierced the confusion which filled the sickbrain. She looked at him steadily and long; and she sighed, but shedid not answer.
"Sybil," he repeated in a quavering voice. "Do you not know me? Don'tyou remember me? I am your husband."
"Yes, I know," she muttered.
"This is your daughter."
She smiled.
"Our daughter," he repeated. "Our daughter!"
"Mary?" she murmured. "Mary?"
"Yes, Mary."
She smiled faintly on him. Mary's head was touching his, but she didnot answer. She remained looking at them. They could not tell whethershe understood, or was slipping away again. He took her hand andpressed it gently. "Do you hear me?" he said. "If I was harsh to youin the old days, if I made mistakes, if I wronged you, I wantyou--wife, say that you forgive me."
"I--forgive you," she murmured. A faint gleam of mischief, oflaughter, of the old Lady Sybil, shone for an instant in her eyes, asif she knew that she had the upper hand. "I forgive you--everything,"she murmured. Yes, for certain now, she was slipping away.
Mary took her other hand. But she did not speak again. And before thewatch on the table beside her had ticked many times she had slippedaway for good, with that gleam of triumph in her eyes--forgiving.