Alec wasted no time. He grabbed Jenny’s bridle, yanked the mare, and mastering his own frightened horse led them both into a gallop. “Hold on tight, miss!” he cried. “We’ll go around by the bridge!” In a moment the tower was out of sight. Coquet ceased trembling, both horses slowed at once to a weary plod.
“What was it?” said Jenny breathlessly, rearranging her cloak and skirts.
She was more startled than alarmed. At that distance she could hardly have seen the woman’s face, and yet she had got an impression of terrible sadness.
“I dunno, miss,” said Alec. “And I don’t like it,” he whispered to himself, “there’s more trouble a-coming.” They went the long way around by the mill, and across the Earl’s Bridge up towards the front of Dilston, which obscured the tower. They drew up at Father Brown’s quarters in the gatehouse, and the priest came out at once.
“I give thanks to Saint Christopher for your safe return!” he cried. “Mr. Radcliffe’s been worried.”
“Oh, poor Papa.” Jenny dismounted and curtsied to the priest. “Where is he? I’ve got the paper with me.”
“Good, my child. Very good, though I fear other news is bad.”
“Not Papa, not to do with him?”
“No, no, he’s well enough. He’s in the chapel praying, we mustn’t disturb him just yet. Come in -- you too, Alec.”
Father Brown led them into his bare parlor, poured a glassful of madeira for each of them. “Mr. Errington was here today,” said the priest, sighing, “with a letter from Brussels -- it’s -- it’s tragic.” The priest shut his eyes and murmured a prayer.
“My Lady Derwentwater,” stated Alec with certainty.
The priest bowed his head. “She died on August thirtieth of virulent smallpox, and was buried immediately at Saint Monica’s, Louvain. Requiescat in pace” He made the sign of the cross. “Mr. Radcliffe is praying for her soul, as we all will. It must be at rest, so young as she was and has suffered so much in this life, purgatory for her can’t be long.”
Alec interrupted, unheeding. “It was on August thirtieth Mrs. Selby first saw the white woman in the tower holding a light!”
“I believe it was,” said the priest frowning. “A coincidence.”
“Miss Jenny saw her tonight!” said Alec hoarsely. “Waiting and watching as she always did for his lordship to come home. Oh, my poor, poor ladyship.” He uttered a broken sound and covered his face with his hands.
“Is this true, my child?” Father Brown asked of Jenny, who was staring with round-eyed sympathy at Alec, whom she had never thought possessed much feeling.
“I saw a lady, sir,” she said very low, “just as Alec describes. He couldn’t see it, yet the horses did.”
The priest sat down abruptly on his stool. His weary thoughts ran together in confusion. He believed this girl, where he had not believed Mrs. Selby, and then the date -- was it at the very moment of death the unquiet spirit had returned to the place of its greatest happiness, or was it for another reason? Ann had sent over to England with Charles a small silver box which she had asked him to put in the Earl’s coffin, as earnest of the day when her own mortal remains would come to Dilston to join those of her lord. The box contained a lock of her hair and a private prayer, Charles thought, though he hadn’t cared to ask. Anyway, it had meant a great deal to Ann, and she had seemed to regard it as a substitution for the martyred Earl’s miracle-working heart. The latter Father Brown himself had conveyed to France, where it was now cherished by the Augustinian canonesses in Paris. The Earl had so willed it, during the last desperate days in the Tower, having developed great reverence for this particular convent during his childhood at St. Germain.
And now, because of the tragic news from Brussels, the disposition of the silver box had become a dying request, and was the only mortal part of the poor lady which could ever be united with her husband. We shall have to open the coffin, thought the priest with revulsion. He had been combatting this morbid wish of Charles’s and had insisted that to place the box in the vault on the tomb was quite enough. It apparently was not. There might also have to be a form of exorcism. “Pater Noster, libera nos a malo” he murmured, turning his anxious eyes towards the crucifix.
Jenny spent that night in a little room next her father’s in the old part of the castle. From the moment she saw him -- pale and haggard, his eyes red-rimmed, a hastily made black band around his left arm -- she set herself to console him. And it was balm to her to see how well she succeeded, and how fervently he welcomed her. He called her his darling, and his pet. He praised her for having got the certificate, though he showed no interest in the actual events at Coquetdale; nor did she try to tell them.
Charles, always volatile, and weary of sadness, reacted from the shock of Ann’s death, and set himself to entertain his daughter and forget the dismal rites Father Brown had ordained for tomorrow. Charles did not know of what Jenny had seen on her ride home. She found herself exceedingly reluctant to mention it, partly because she knew he would chide her for being fanciful, partly because she hardly believed it herself.
When Mrs. Busby, the steward’s wife, showed her to her room, Jenny made an excuse and ran up in the tower. There was nothing there at all except a small empty stone platform open to the night wind and mist.
Charles and Jenny had a gay little supper by the fireside. It was served by Mrs. Busby, who brought them brandy and a rare old claret from the cellar, then left them alone. Charles told amusing stories of his travels abroad; he even told her in a light and prankish way about some of his more respectable love affairs. Jenny listened fascinated, and was flattered that this evening he lost all paternal manner and treated her as an equal and a grown lady. He encouraged her to drink with him, he toasted her in gallant phrases, he sang the old French folk song “Auprès de Ma Blonde” and was highly amused when she admitted to understanding the words.
“Ah, sweetheart,” he said, being half tipsy and much exhilarated, “what merry times we’ll have together on the Continent! What pleasure ‘twill be for me to dress you in the latest Parisian gowns, and to show you off to all the beau monde!”
“Am I going to the Continent?” asked Jenny, startled and excited. “But I thought we were poor!”
“Ah, well,” said Charles airily, snapping his fingers. “We won’t be when I marry -- then everything’ll be quite quite all right!”
“Marry?” she repeated, her jaw dropping.
“Of course, darling! Why’d you think I wanted the certificate so badly? Come, come, don’t look like that! Silly one. Twon’t change a thing between us! ‘Twill only mean that you may ‘sit on a cushion and gloriously dream, and feast all day long upon strawberries and cream’!”
Jenny frowned, trying to adjust to the thought of his marriage, though aware that she had been childish not to guess it before.
He leaned across the table and gently tickled the corners of her mouth. “Smile!” he commanded, giving her one of his most brilliantly tender mocking looks.
She resisted a moment, then burst out laughing. “Oh Papa! Anyway it isn’t ‘sit on a cushion and gloriously dream’ -- it’s ‘sew a fine seam’ instead.”
“Is it indeed?” said Charles, raising his eyebrows. “Yet I’ve noted in you a certain resistance to such labor, so you shall have a maid to do it for you -- two, three maids, a whole gaggle of maids to serve my poppet!”
“Don’t you think,” said Jenny, “that I might get rather fat, just sitting on that cushion and feasting?”
“God forbid!” Charles cried. He cocked his head to one side, and examined her first critically, then admiringly. “I don’t think you would, not the way you’re made -- like a willow wand -- but I’ll see to it you do a lot of dancing and riding just in case.”
“Won’t I have to go to school any more?” asked Jenny, dazzled.
“A pish to school!” said Charles. “I’ll finish your education myself, and we’ll travel, see the world -- there’s a lot of it outside this damna
bly dreary little island!”
Charles began to tell her about Venice, the shining water streets, the gondolas, the sunlit pink palaces where mandolins and romance eternally dwelt. He became so charmed with his visions and Jenny’s rapturous reception of them that he totally forgot Lady Newburgh, or any of the other stringent realities of which his actual life was composed. His voice dropped to its most caressing note, he spoke to Jenny as though he were luring a desired woman to an assignation, as he passed from recounting the seductive pleasures of Venice to those of Paris and Rome. And when at last Jenny, being flushed with wine and very sleepy, said reluctantly that she had better retire, Charles burst out irrepressibly, “ ‘Auprès de ma blonde, qu’il fait bon . . . fait bon dormer!’ “
“Oui, Papa,” said Jenny sweetly, a trifle puzzled. “It will be nice for us to sleep near each other tonight. It must have been lonely for you here by yourself.”
Charles stiffened, his drunkenness cleared, an immense sorrowing awareness deluged him as with icy water. “Yes, child,” he said slowly. “Go to bed, you must be very tired. I’ll stay up and finish the bottle. And Jenny, I fear I’ve talked a lot of twaddle.”
“Oh, I loved it, Papa,” she said earnestly. “It was like going to the playhouse with Lady Betty, only better because I was partly in the play myself!”
She made him a smiling curtsey, went to her own little room and shut the door, Charles sank back in his chair, and stared into the dying fire.
While Jenny and Charles were supping, Father Brown and Busby were performing a mournful duty, informing the village of Lady Derwentwater’s death, and that there would be a Requiem Mass for her tomorrow morning.
The news was received with varying degrees of lamentation, and in some cases downright apathy, while Abraham Bunting, the weaver, actually shrugged and said, “Good riddance, her ladyship wor a wicked fule.”
“How dare you say that!” cried the priest. “She was good to you, and everyone at Dilston.”
“She wor a Southron,” said Bunting stubbornly. “Anyways she wor a false fulish woman, like i’ the song Mrs. Selby sings.”
The priest repressed his irritation. Mrs. Selby again! A mass of blind prejudices, fancies, and monomaniac hero-worship for the martyred Earl. Still -- he thought, constrained by justice -- some of her fancies, like the apparition in the tower, seemed to have foundation, and since she was a devout Catholic and also a leader in the village she had been helpful to him.
He crossed the village green and made for the blacksmith shop. Selby was still banging away at his forge; he greeted the priest respectfully and said his ould wife was i’ the kitchen.
Father Brown knocked and walked in. Mrs. Selby was knitting. She was a little stick of a woman, with wispy hair, and a faraway glaze in her watery blue eyes. She jumped up as the priest came in, nearly falling over Jackie, her idiot son, who lolled on the floor playing with the ball of yarn. “Good even, sir,” she cried. “Wot a honor!”
The priest replied suitably, inquired after Jackie, who gobbled something and dropped the ball of yarn, then he said, “Mrs. Selby, since I’ve come back here, I’ve heard often of a song you sing about Lord Derwentwater, will you sing it to me?”
“Ah,” she said flushing importantly. “ ‘The Lament.’ It come ter me in a dream, it did, like he was telling it to me, hisself.” She gestured towards a picture on the wall, which the priest had never noticed. He got up and examined it. It was a crude daub, painted on wood and barely recognizable as a man, yet the Radcliffe coat of arms, and the golden crucifix the Earl had often worn, identified it. A candle burned below the portrait.
Father Brown returned to his seat without comment. “What is ‘The Lament’?” he said.
Mrs. Selby put down her knitting, clasped her scrawny hands, and, looking worshipfully at the portrait, began to sing in a reedy voice that yet had a true folk quality of feeling and pathos.
“Fareweel to bonny Dilston Hall
My father’s ancient seat,
None o’ my own s’all bide there now
Which gars my heart to greet.
Fareweel each loving well-known face
I always held so dear, My people now mun thole it alone
‘Tis more than I can bear.
“No more along the banks of Tyne
I’ll rove in autumn gray;
No more I’ll hear at early dawn
The lavrocks wake the day.
Wi’ me the Radeliffe’s name s’all end
An’ seek the silent tomb,
An’ many a kinsman, many a friend
Wi’ me has met their doom.
“And fare thou weel, my lady wife,
Ill, ill thou counselest me!
I wish my ears had been stricken deaf
Ere I heeded thy false folly.
So when the head that wears the crown
S’all be laid low like mine
Some honest hearts may then lament
Darntwatter’s fallen line.”
Mrs. Selby’s voice quavered off, she wiped her eyes on a corner of her apron, and said, “Niver a day goes by I divven’t sing it fur him, it gi’es me comfort.”
The priest grunted. “It wouldn’t give him comfort, Mrs. Selby. It’s a very touching ballad, but I must request you never to sing it again.”
“Whyiver not?” she snapped, disgruntled by this unexpected response. She was accustomed to praise from the village, praise and tears; indeed, her ballad was known and admired as far away as Hexham. .
“Because it is partly untrue,” said Father Brown sternly. “ ‘Tis most unfair to Lady Derwentwater, who was not responsible for urging his lordship to go out in the ‘Fifteen. Also, you have no right to suggest that little John, the present Earl, will not come here to his own someday.”
“I knaw he won’t, then!” said Mrs. Selby, with spirit. “I ha’ the sight, an’ my dreams are niver wrong. As for her ladyship, I knaw how she wheedled an’ cozzened him to -- ”
“You know nothing of the sort!” cried the priest, and clamped his mouth shut on anger. This was the way legends started, founded on half truths, twisted interpretations, and witless obstinacy. Yet there was no more use in scolding Mrs. Selby than there would be in scolding Jackie.
“Lady Derwentwater is dead,” he said starkly. “I trust you may find some pity for her now.”
The woman drew back and crossed herself, a momentary expression of shock gave way to triumph. “ ‘Tis what I thought.“ she said nodding. “I tould ye sir, I saw a presence i’ the tower, an’ ye wouldna -- ”
Father Brown held up his hand decisively. “We’ll not discuss that. It is sufficient that you join us tomorrow morning at the Mass for the repose of her soul. Good night.”
The priest went back to the gatehouse, heavyhearted. He dreaded the coming day, he dreaded the future and the increasing difficulties of guiding all the souls who were under his care, beginning with Charles Radcliffe. He spent most of the night in prayer.
It was nine o’clock of the following evening before Father Brown thought it safe for Jenny and Charles to come over to the chapel. By that time the villagers -- having been given a holiday and two casks of ale by Busby -- had drunk themselves into slumber.
Jenny had spent a dismal day wandering about the great deserted Hall, forbidden to go out lest someone see her. Charles had not awakened until noon, and then he had a splitting headache and no wish for company -- even Jenny’s. He had, however, told her what was planned for the evening, and that he insisted upon her presence. Jenny felt a thrill of horror when she understood what her father meant. They were going to open Lord Derwentwater’s coffin. “Do I have to be there, Papa?” she pleaded. “I’ve never seen anyone dead.”
“I’m sorry, my dear,” he said inflexibly. “But you are a Radcliffe, and I can see no better way to impress on you the sacrifice one of us has made for the True Faith, and the True Cause, in neither of which you have apparently any belief.”
This was Charles at his
grimmest, and Jenny dared not protest. She escaped to sit on the window seat of the empty drawing room and watch rain leak through the rattling panes. In her heart there was a spark of mutiny all but smothered under apprehension. I’ll not look at the horrid thing, Jenny thought. They can’t make me open my eyes, and no dead body could convince me of anything. Nevertheless, she could not stop picturing what the corpse would be like, and by the time they gathered in the locked chapel she was much afraid.
“Sit down,” said Charles, indicating a hassock. She obeyed. The altar candles were lit, they cast flickering shadows over the three men gathered in the chapel --her father, the priest, and Alec. The latter had a crowbar, and other tools in a basket. The priest murmured something to the altar, then turning, said to Alec, “Are you certain we’re safe?”
“Aye, sir. Busby’s keeping an eye on the village, yet they’re all muzzy, an’ wouldn’t come near here at night anyhow.” Alec spoke confidently though he was uneasy, not only from the gruesome task which awaited them, but from wonder whether anyone suspected the story he had told them to explain his appearance at Dilston. He said he’d left Mr. Radcliffe’s employ, not being able to stick life in foreign parts, and had a fancy to see his homeland. After the first surprise, nobody had questioned him very much, except Bunting, the weaver, who had shown a stubborn hostile curiosity and disbelief.
“Well, we’d best begin,” said Father Brown in a low voice. He stood aside while Charles and Alec began to prize up the flat stones which covered the Radcliffe vault. Jenny sat petrified on her hassock, while sweat beaded her forehead. The priest suddenly became aware of her fear and put his hand on her shoulder. “ ‘Tis hard, my child,” he said softly. “Many a thing in life is hard . . .” His voice trailed off as he watched the two men, who worked in silence. The chapel floor gradually opened. Then the priest took a candle and peered down into the vault. “ ‘Tis that one,” he said in a hushed tone to Charles, “between your father and grandfather. I’ll help you raise it.”
The three men hoisted the coffin up and laid it on the altar step. “Holy Blessed Virgin,” whispered the priest. “It looks as fresh as the day I saw it lowered in here near eight years ago.”