CHAPTER XXXIX.
Night's black sheet drawn off the other half of the world is thrownover us; the dark side of the lantern is turned towards us. Esther hasfallen asleep, with almost a happy smile upon her soft, parted lips.She is forgiven; and is there any sweetness like the sweetness of beingpardoned, having sinned? He no longer hates her! That was not hate thatlooked out of his quick, keen eyes to-day, as he leant over her whileshe sat, dizzy and faint, on that churchyard slab, or as he knelt instrong emotion at her knees. And now, though at her own telling, he isgoing away from her to-morrow--though, when next they meet, either theywill have put off mortality's tatters, God will have laid
"Death, like a kiss, across their lips;"
or else, to look and lean as he looked and leant to-day will be deadlysin--yet creeps there a sorrowful joy about her heart. He has given herback the past--the short, happy Felton past; no one can take it fromher again; not even Miss Blessington, who has taken all else--presentand future and all. She is dreaming of him now--dreaming that she issitting in the library at Felton, in the fragrant gloom made by thelowered Venetian blinds, by dark oak bookshelves, by plentiful sweetflowers, and so sitting hears the sound of his quick feet coming alongthe passage. He is at the door--he is opening it. But, ah! what isthis?--it will not open; it is stiff on its hinges. He is pushingit--pushing gently, pushing hard--but it will not move. What a stealthynoise it is he makes, as if he were afraid of some one hearing him! Shestarts up, broad awake; it is not all dream; there is some one pushingstealthily, yet audibly, against a door. For the first bewilderedmoment of sick fear she imagines that it is her own door on which thisattempt is being made; but a moment's listening undeceives her. Thesound comes from underneath her window, apparently. It is not ratsthis time; a rat, with all its ingenuity, would be puzzled to make anoise so distinctly human. Upon her mind there flashes suddenly therecollection of a door leading into the garden beneath her casement,but not so immediately beneath but that she can see it; a door thatstands wide open all the summer through, when people step from houseto garden, from garden to house, a hundred times a day, but which inwinter is rarely used. She sits up motionless, while round her utterdarkness surges. The noise is repeated: push--push! creak--creak! it isas if some one, with hand and knee, were attempting to obtain entrance.When light is withdrawn hearing becomes preternaturally sharpened; inan instant she has jumped out of bed, and run barefoot over the coldboards to the window. There, pulling aside the blind, she, tremblingall over, peeps out. Moon is there none, but the joint light ofcountless star-squadrons, faint though it be, is yet strong enough toenable her distinctly to make out the figure of a man pressing itselfagainst the door in question. With bodily eyes she at length looks uponthat burglar, whom, with the terrified eyes of imagination, she hadso often beheld. Whether he wear a crape mask or not it is too darkto discern. What _is_ she to do?--she, in all probability, the onlywakeful, conscious being in all that great house. For a minute shestands irresolute, while a rushing sound fills her ears, and her teethchatter dismally in the cold. Shall she alarm the servants? But how toreach them? She does not even know the way to their sleeping-places.They are miles away, in the other wing of the house, where she hasnever been. Shall she go to Miss Blessington? At least she knows theway thither, though it is some distance off. But of what avail wouldthat be? Of what use would two girls be, any more than one, againstthe onslaught of daring unscrupulous robbers? Shall she betake herselfto St. John, whose room is but two doors off? No sooner does this ideasuggest itself to her, than she puts it into practice. Hastily strikinga light, and wrapping her dressing-gown round her, she opens her door,and, flying down the passage, knocks loudly at Mr. Gerard's. ButGerard, having a not particularly bad conscience, and a particularlygood digestion, is a sound sleeper. She knocks again, more violently,almost to the flaying of her knuckles: "Mr. Gerard!--Mr. Gerard!"
"Hullo! who's there?" responds a sleepy voice.
"It's I! Esther!" she cries pantingly. "Open the door, please--thisminute--quick!"
"_Esther!--you!_" says the voice, perfectly awake this time. "What onearth is the matter?--wait one second!"
He hurries on his clothes, and then hastens to accede to her request ofopening the door.
"Are you ill?" he asks, anxiously, seeing her lean against thedoor-post, with death-white cheeks and terror-struck eyes.
"No--no!" she answers, hoarse and breathless, while St. John, candle,and door, all seem to be dancing a jig round her. "It is not I, butthere's a man--getting into the house--by the garden-door. I saw him!"
"The devil there is!" replies the young man, with animation. "Here,give me your candle, and I'll go and see what he wants."
"No--no!" she cries, with all a woman's unreason. "Don't go; you mustnot!" (though for what other purpose she had sought his assistance shewould have been puzzled to say). "I won't let you; you'll be killed!"and so, gasping, stretches out her white arms towards him, and, lettingdrop her candle, falls insensible, in the total darkness, into hisembrace.
For a month past or more, the dream that has pursued Gerard night andday--unchecked in sleep, in waking faintly repressed by considerationsof honour--is to hold that fair woman's form in his arms; and now heso holds her in reality. And yet, as the fulfilment of our wishesseldom affords us the gratification we had anticipated, so it is withhim. Now that he has got her, he does not quite know what to do withher. Shall he, encumbered by his beautiful burden, grope his way backinto his room, and lay her down there, while he goes and investigatesinto the cause of her terror and swoon? But the household, beingalarmed, may find her there; and, so finding, would not the reputationof her, most innocent, be endangered? Her head droops heavy in itsperfect lifelessness on his shoulder; her soft warm hair caresses hischeek in the blackness of the night. He looks down the passage. FromEsther's open door a flood of light streams; at all events there is acandle left burning there. In a moment he has borne her into her ownchamber, and has laid her most gently down upon the ginger-moreen bed.He has no time to try and revive her now. "Perhaps it was only herown imagination, poor child!--her own imagination, and those infernalrats!" is the hasty thought that has crossed his mind; but lookingthrough the window, as she had done, he sees, as she had seen, a man'sdim figure in the starlight. Without a moment's delay, without castinganother thought even to the fair swooned woman he leaves behind him,Gerard runs down the corridor, his blood pleasantly astir with thethought of a possible adventure--through interminable dark galleries,down the gleaming cold of white stone stairs, through hall, saloon,north drawing-room, and justicing-room--till he reaches a narrow shortpassage that leads to the garden door. As he and his light draw near,the noise suddenly ceases. He stands still for a moment, expecting tohear it repeated, but it is not. Setting down his candle, therefore,he advances towards the door and unfastens it--it is secured by anold-fashioned catch inside--opens it, and looks out into the night.At first he can discern nothing but the chill wintry garden, and themillion stars scattered broadcast over God's one great unenclosed fieldof the sky; but a second glance reveals to him a dim figure crouchingindistinct in the shadow of a projecting buttress.
"Who's there?" he cries, in a loud clear voice.
No answer.
"Who's there?" he repeats. "If you don't answer, I'll fire."
Firing, in this instance, must mean using the flat candlestick as aprojectile, for other weapon has Mr. Gerard none. Hardly have the wordsleft his mouth, however, before the figure springs forth from itshiding-place, and stands erect before him.
"Don't fire, sir, please; it's I."
Livery-buttons flash in the starlight: behold the culprit revealed!--ayoung and lighthearted footman, who has on one or two previousoccasions been suspected of a too great proclivity towards thenocturnal festivities of the "Chequers." A sense of infuriation at thebald tame end of the adventure gets possession of St. John.
"What the devil do you mean, sir, skulking here, alarming the wholehousehold, and frightening the yo
ung ladies out of their senses?" heasks, with a gruff asperity not unworthy of his papa.
"If you please, sir, I was only--only--taking a bit of a walk in thepark, sir."
"A likely tale!" cries St. John, angrily. "A walk in the park at thistime of night! Come, don't let us have any lies, my good fellow; thatis covering a small fault with a much greater one. You were at the'Chequers,' I suppose? Come, out with it!"
"If you please, sir," replies the man, hanging his head, and lookingvery sheepish, "there was a young woman, as come all the way fromShelford, and as she was a bit timid, I promised to send her home."
"A young woman!" repeats St. John, repressing an inclination to smile."Well, next time, you must be good enough to choose more seasonablehours for your meetings with young women."
"And when I come back, sir, I found all the house made up for thenight, and I could not get no one to hear me; and I thought as how,very like, I might find this 'ere door open, if so be as Betsy hadforgot to bolt it, as she mostly does, only it is so plaguy stiff onits 'inges----"
"And, for a wonder, Betsy had not forgotten to bolt it," interruptsGerard, drily. "Well, don't let us have anything of this kind again,or, I warn you, you'll be packed off without a character."
Relieved at being let off so easily, the young fellow slinks away, andGerard retraces his steps upstairs again. He cannot help laughing as hethinks of poor Esther's tragic fears, of her agonised pleadings: "You_must_ not go! I won't let you go! you'll be killed!"
"If I'm never in nearer peril of death than I was to-night," he thinks,"I have every chance of outliving Methuselah. Was ever mountaindelivered of so contemptible a mouse?" He laughs again. "'I won't letyou! you'll be killed!' Poor little thing! I wonder has she come toherself yet! I must let her know that this bloodthirsty villain hasnot slain me outright this time." Having reached her door, he pausesand listens. There is no sound within. He knocks gently--no answer:knocks again--still no reply. Half-hesitating, as one that standsdoubtful on the threshold of a church, he opens the door and enters.The light burns on the dressing-table, and she lies still prone, wherehe had laid her, on the bed, still completely insensible. This swoon ishorribly deathlike:
".............................But she lies Not in the embrace of loyal death, who keeps His bride for ever, but in treacherous arms Of sleep, that sated, will restore to grief Her snatch'd a sweet space from his cruel clutch."
Her head is thrown back, and her round chin slightly raised. Over thetossed pillow wander the tangled riches of her swart hair; nerveless onthe counterpane lie the white, carven hands and blue-veined wrists, onwhich the faint fine lines make a tender network. Half-shadowed by herdressing-gown, half-emerging from it gleam bare feet,
"That make the blown foam neither swift nor white."
He leans over her, gazing with passionate admiration at the heavy shutlids and upward curling lashes--with passionate admiration mixed withsharp pain; for he can see, plainlier now in this long quiet look thanin the hasty, stolen glances he has hitherto given her, the purplestains under closed eyes, the little depressions in the rounded cheek,the droop of the sweet sorrowful mouth. Iachimo's words recur tohim--Iachimo's, as he gazed in his treachery upon the sleeping beautyof Imogen:
"..........................Cytherea! How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily! And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch! But kiss--one kiss! Bubies unparagon'd, How dearly they do't!--'Tis her breathing that Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o' the taper Bows towards her, and would underpeep her lids To see the enclosed lights now canopied Under those windows......................"
But looking at a person with ever such warm approbation will notrecover them from a swoon. What is he to do? He is horribly puzzled, soseldom before has he seen a fainted fellow-Christian. Vague ideas ofhaving heard of burnt feathers held under nostrils recur to his mind.But whence to obtain feathers, unless he takes a pair of scissors andsnips a hole in the feather-bed? There is nothing in all the great roommore feathery than the stumpy end of an old quill pen, with which MissCraven is wont to indite her small accounts. Another specific flashesbefore his mental eye. Smelling-salts! He walks to the dressing-table,and carefully overlooks its slender load: brushes and combs, a Bible,and a fat pincushion--neither essence, unguent, nor scent of any kind.Esther's toilette apparatus is but meagre. Shall he throw cold waterover her? What! and deluge all the ginger moreen bed, thereby makingit an even more undesirable resting-place than it is at present? Quiteat a loss what to do, he returns to the bedside, and begins to chafeher cold hands between his two warm ones. Then he stoops over her,trying to discover any smallest sign of returning consciousness. Whenhis lips are so close to hers, how can he help laying them yet closer?Men seldom do resist any temptation, unless it is very weak, and theobjections to it very overwhelming. This temptation is not weak, andthere are absolutely no objections to it. No one will ever know of thistheft--not even the person upon whom it is committed: it will do herno harm, and to kiss her even thus unknowing, unreturning, gives him abitter joy. But, having once kissed her, he refrains himself, nor layshis lips a second time upon hers. Something of shame comes over him,as one that has taken advantage of another's helplessness--one that,for an instant, has let the brute within him get the upper hand of theman. Only he caresses gently her two cold hands, and his eyes dwell onher face, watching longingly for the first small symptom of back-cominglife. His patience is rewarded, after a time; after a time therecomes a quivering about the eyelids, a tremor about the mouth--then adeep-drawn sighing respiration. Always with a sigh does the soul comeback to its dark cottage, having journeyed away from it for awhile. Thecurtain-lids sweep back from the spirit's windows; and, pale and clear,her eyes' dark glories shine upon him, conscious yet bewildered. Thena little stealing red, like the tint that dwelt in a sea-shell's lips,flows into each pure cheek; then comes full consciousness, and withit recollected terrors. "Where is he?" she asks, in a low frightenedvoice. "Is he gone?--did he get in?--did he hurt you?"
"He was not a very formidable burglar, after all," Gerard answers,with a reassuring smile: "it was only Thomas, who had been seeing hissweetheart home, and was trying to get into the house without beingheard."
"Oh, I'm so glad! But" (her eyes straying confusedly round the room)"how did I get here? When last I remember any thing I was in thepassage."
"I carried you here."
"And then went and found out about this man?"
"Yes."
"And then came back here?"
"Yes. I hope you don't think me very impertinent," he says,apologetically; "but I could not bear the idea of your lying here,insensible, without any one making an attempt to bring you round."
Recollecting what his own method of bringing her round had been, hisconscience gives him a compunctious stab. She blushes furiously, and,raising herself into a sitting posture, begins to twist up her hairwith both hands.
"You are better now," he says, tenderly, but with perfect respect; "Iwill go."
He moves towards the door, but, before he can reach it, it fliesopen hastily, and Constance, dishevelled, dressing-gowned, flurriedout of all likeness to herself, bursts in. "Oh, Miss Craven! I'm sofrightened! I heard people talking outside----_St. John!!_"
Mrs. Siddons might have been defied to crowd more solemnly tragicemphasis into one word than does Miss Blessington into the innocentdissyllable, "St. John!"
"Well!" replies St. John, tartly, vexed past speaking at beingdiscovered in such an utterly false position.
"I suppose I may be allowed to ask what brings _you_ here?" she says,drawing herself up to her stately height.
"You certainly may," he answers, endeavouring to recover hisself-possession; "and I have not the slightest objection to tellingyou. What brought me here was the endeavour to recover Miss Craven froma faint into which she fell on coming to tell me--as the only personwithin her reach--that a man was, as she imagined, endeavouring tobreak into the hou
se."
Even to his own ears this tale, as he tells it, sounds wofullyimprobable.
"And you took no steps to prevent him?" cries Constance, quickly; herfears for her personal safety, for the moment, outweighing the claimsof outraged virtue.
"Pardon me! I did; but having discovered that it was only one of thefootmen, who had been accidentally locked out, I came back to tellMiss Craven so, if she were recovered! and, if not, to give her thatassistance which anyone human being may render to another without beingcalled to account for it."
Having spoken, he folds his arms, and confronts her, calm and statelyas herself.
"I should hardly have imagined it was _your_ business," she replies,with scarce-concealed incredulity. "May I ask why you could not ringfor the servants?"
"Because, as you are well aware," he answers, trying to quell hisrising anger, "if I were to ring from now till doomsday, not a soulwould hear me; all the bells ring downstairs, and the servants'bedrooms are at least a quarter of a mile distant up-stairs."
"Why could not you have come to me, then?"
"The impropriety would, in that case, have been at least equal," heanswers, sarcastically; "and, to tell you the truth, such a coursenever occurred to me."
Something in his tone irritates her. "It is, of course, no concern ofmine," she says, with icy coldness. "If Miss Craven chooses to receivethe visits of gentlemen, HERE, at two o'clock in the morning, it does_me_ no harm!"
She moves towards the door, but he places himself between her and it;and, grasping her wrist with unconscious roughness, speaks in a voicelow and hoarse with anger, while his roused wrath glances upon her fromout of his grey eyes--the eyes that hitherto have looked upon her onlywith indifference.
"Constance! what do you mean by these insults? How dare you giveutterance to them? Is your own mind so impure that you cannot believein the purity of others?"
"You must allow that it is at least an equivocal position," sheanswers, half-frightened by his stern looks, but keeping resolutely toher text.
"It is," he answers, remorsefully; "I allow it--I bitterly feel it.And yet, if it were only myself that were concerned, I should scornto descend to any more explanation than that I have already givenyou; but for the sake of this most innocent girl, whom by my folly Ihave compromised, I swear to you, Constance--I solemnly take God towitness!--that it is exactly and simply as I have told you. Miss Cravenhad not recovered from her insensibility more than two minutes beforeyou came into the room; I was in the act of leaving it as you entered.This is the whole plain truth: do you believe it?"
She does not answer.
"Do you believe it?" he repeats, earnestly.
The mulish look comes into her face--the look he has begun to know sowell.
"It cannot be of much consequence to you whether I believe it or not,"she answers, still with that freezing calm of voice and face. "Youhave, at all events, adopted the best method of obtaining your releasefrom that engagement, which you so broadly hinted, only yesterdayafternoon, that you wished to be free from. You have your wish--you arefree!"
"As you will," he answers, gloomily. "God knows there never was muchlove in our connection; an iller-mated pair never came together; itwas a mere matter of business on both sides. But, as to saying thatthe pure accident which has brought Miss Craven and me into slight andtransient collision to-night can have any influence upon the conclusionor continuance of our engagement--it is tantamount to telling me thatwhat I have sworn to you, upon my honour as a gentleman, to be true, isfalse!" he says, his face growing white and fierce.
"Is it?" she says, with a quietly enraging smile; having thatconfidence in the shield of womanhood, which makes so many a womangall a man to the uttermost, and expect him to stand by, serene,polite, and smiling. "Unfortunately," she continues, "I am behind thespirit of the age; I am shackled with obsolete old notions of proprietyand decency; and therefore--as you have no longer any smallest controlover my actions--will you be so good as to allow me to go?"
He drops her hand instantly, and, opening the door for her, bows hishead haughtily, saying, "Go! I have neither the wish nor the power todetain you;" and as he so speaks she passes out.
Meanwhile Esther, having slidden from her bed, stands with tremblinglimbs, grasping the back of a chair, and gazing from speaker to speakerwith a world of surprise and horror in her great innocent eyes. As MissBlessington leaves the room, St. John turns to her:
"My darling!" he says, with an accent of passionate remorse, "how willyou ever forgive me for having exposed you to this!"
She turns away from him, and covers her burning face with her hands."Go!" she says, faintly--"go, this minute! Don't say another word!Don't give her any more reason for her wicked slanders! Go!"
And he goes.