CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST.
CHRISTMAS
It was Christmas Eve; the light was just beginning to wane, and Monica’s work was done at last. She was free now until the arrival of her guests – the Pendrills and Lord Haddon – should give her new occupation in hospitable care for them.
Monica had been too busy for thoughts of self to intrude often upon her during these past days. She wished to be busy; she tried to occupy herself from morning to night, for she found that the aching hunger of her heart was more eased by loving deeds of mercy and kindness than in any other way – self more fully lost in ceaseless care for others. But when all was done, every single thing disposed of, nothing more left to think of or to accomplish; then the inevitable reaction set in, and with a heart aching to pain, almost to despair, Monica entered the music-room, and sat down to her organ.
She played with a sort of passionate appeal that was infinitely pathetic, had any one been there to hear; she threw all the yearning sadness of her soul into her organ, and it seemed to answer her back with a promise of strong sympathy and consolation. Insensibly she was soothed by the sweet sounds she evoked. She fell into a dreamy mood, playing softly in a minor key, so softly that through the door that stood ajar, she became aware of a slight subdued tumult in the hall without, to which she gave but a dreamy attention at first.
The bell had pealed sharply, steps had crossed the hall, the door had been opened, and then had followed the tumultuous sounds expressive of astonishment that roused Monica from her dreamy reverie. She supposed the party from St. Maws had arrived somewhat before the expected time, and rose, and had made a few steps forward when she suddenly stopped short and stood motionless – spell-bound – what was it she had heard? – only the sound of a voice – a man’s voice.
“Where is your mistress?”
The words were uttered in a clear, deep, ringing tone, that seemed to her to waken every echo in the castle into wild surging life. The very air throbbed and palpitated around her – her temples seemed as if they would burst. What was the meaning of that sound – that wild tumult of voices? Why did she stand as if carved in stone, growing white to the very lips, whilst thrill upon thrill ran through her frame, and her heart beat to suffocation? What did it all portend? Whose was the voice she had just heard – that voice from the dead? Who was it that stood in the hall without?
The door was flung open. A tall, dark figure stood in the dim light.
“Monica!”
Monica neither spoke nor moved. The cry of awe and of rapture that rose from her heart could not find voice in which to utter itself – but what matter? She was in her husband’s arms. Her head lay upon his breast. His lips were pressed to her cold face in the kisses she had never thought to feel again. Randolph had come back. She could not speak. She had no will to try and frame a single word. He held her in his arms; he strained her ever closer and closer. She felt the tumultuous beating of his heart as she lay in his arms, powerless to move or think. She heard his murmured words, broken and hoarse with the passionate feeling of that supreme moment.
“My wife! Monica! My wife!”
And then for a time she knew no more. Sight and hearing alike failed her; it seemed as if a slumber from heaven itself sealed her eyes and stole away her senses.
When she came to herself she was on a sofa in her own room, and Randolph was kneeling beside her. She did not start to see him there. For a moment it seemed as if he had never left her. She smiled her own sweet smile.
“Randolph! Have I been asleep – dreaming?”
He took her hands in his, and bent to kiss her lips.
“It has been a long dream, my Monica, and a dark one; but it is over at last. My darling, my darling! God grant I may not be dreaming now!”
She smiled like a tired child. She had a perception that something overpoweringly strange and sudden had happened, but she did not want to rouse herself just yet to think what it must all mean.
Two hours later, in the great drawing-room ablaze with light, Monica and Randolph stood together to welcome their guests. She had laid aside her mournful widow’s garb, and was arrayed in her shimmering bridal robes. Ah, how lovely she was in her husband’s eyes as she stood beside him now! Perhaps never in all her life had she looked more exquisitely fair. Happiness had lighted her beautiful eyes, and had brought the rose back to her pale cheeks: she was glorified – transfigured – a vision of radiant beauty.
He had changed but slightly during his mysterious year of absence. There were a few lines upon his face that had not been there of old: he looked like a man who had been through some ordeal, whether mental or physical it would be less easy to tell; but the same joy and rapture that emanated, as it were, from Monica was reflected in his face likewise, and only a keen eye could read to-night the traces of pain or of sorrow in that strong, proud, manly countenance.
Monica looked at him suddenly, the flush deepening in her cheeks.
“Hush! They are coming!” she said, and waited breathlessly.
The door opened, admitting Mrs. Pendrill, Beatrice, and Tom. There was a pause – a brief, intense silence, during which the fall of a pin might have been heard, and then, with one long, low cry, half-sobbing, half-laughing, Beatrice rushed across the room, and flung herself upon Randolph.
Monica went straight up to Mrs. Pendrill, and put her arms about her neck.
“Aunt Elizabeth, he has come home,” she said, in a voice that shook a little with the tumult of her happiness. “He has just come home – this very day – Randolph – my husband. Help me to believe it. You must help me to bear this – as you helped me to bear the other.”
Tom had by this time grasped Randolph by the hand; but neither trusted his own voice. They were glad that Beatrice covered their silence by her incoherent exclamations of rapture, and by the flow of questions no one attempted to answer.
It was all too like a dream for anyone to recollect very clearly what happened. Raymond and Haddon came in almost at once, new greetings had to be gone through. How the dinner passed off that night no one afterwards remembered. There was a deep sense of thankfulness and joy in every heart; yet of words there were few. But when gathered round the fire later on in the evening, when they had grown used to the presence amongst them of one whom they had mourned as dead for more than a year, Randolph was called upon to tell his tale, which was listened to in breathless silence.
“I will tell you all I can about it; but there are points yet where my memory fails me, where I have but little idea what happened. I have a dim recollection of the night of the wreck, and of leaving the boat; but I must have received a heavy blow on the head, the doctors tell me, and I suppose I sank, and the men could not find me. But I was entangled, it seems, in the rigging of a floating spar, and must have been carried thus many miles; for I was picked up by an ocean steamer bound for Australia, which had been driven somewhat out of its course by the gale. It was not supposed that I could live after so many hours’ exposure. I was quite unconscious, and remained so for a very long time. There was nothing upon me by which I could be identified, and of course I could give no account of myself. On board the boat were a kind-hearted wealthy Australian couple, who had lately lost an only son, to whom they fancied I bore some slight resemblance. Perhaps for this cause, perhaps from true kindness of heart, they at once took me under their special care and protection. There was plenty of space on board the vessel, and they looked after me as if I had indeed been their son. They would not hear of my being left behind in hospital on the way out. They took me under their protection until I should be able to give an account of myself.
“Of course I knew nothing about all this. I was lying dangerously ill of brain fever all the while, not knowing where I was, or what was happening. When we reached Melbourne at last, and I was conveyed to their luxurious house on the outskirts of the town, I was still in the same state, relapse following relapse, every time till I gained a little ground, till for months my life was despaired of. I was either raving in delirium, or lying in a sort of unconscious stupor, and without all the skill and care lavished upon me, I suppose I must have died. But I did not die. Gradually, very gradually, the fever abated, and I began to come to myself: that is to say, I began to know the faces around me and to recognise my surroundings; but for myself, I knew no more who I was, nor whence I had come, than the infant just born into the world. My memory had gone, had been wiped clean away; I had no idea of my own identity, no recollection of the past. The very effort to remember brought on such pain and distress that I was imperatively commanded to relinquish the attempt. Gradually some things came back to my mind: I could read, write, understand the foreign tongues I had mastered, and the sciences I had studied in past days. As my health slowly improved this kind of knowledge came back spontaneously and without effort; but my personal history was as a blank wall, against which I flung myself in vain. It would yield to no efforts of mine. Distressed and confused, I was obliged to give up, and wait with what patience I might for the realisation of the hope held out cheerfully by the clever doctor who attended me. He maintained that if I would but have patience, some strong association of ideas would some day bring all back in a flash, and meantime all I had to do was to get strong and well, so as to be ready for action when that day should come. I was restless sometimes, but less so than one would fancy, for the blank was too complete to be distressing. My good friends and protectors were unspeakably kind and good, and did everything in their power to ensure my mental and physical well-being; I recovered my health rapidly, soon my memory was to come back too.”
Randolph passed his hand across his eyes. No one spoke, every eye was fixed upon his face.
“It did so very strangely: it was one hot afternoon in November – our summer, you know” – he named the date and the hour, and Monica heard it with a sudden thrill. Allowing for the discrepancy of time, it was during the moments that she watched by Conrad Fitzgerald’s dying bed that her husband’s memory was given back to him.
“I was looking over some old English newspapers, idly, purposelessly, when I came upon a detailed account of the wreck, and of my own supposed death. As I read – I cannot describe what it was like – my memory came back to me in a great flood, like overwhelming waves. It seemed, Monica, as if my spirit were carried on wings to Trevlyn, as if I were hovering over you in some mysterious way impossible to describe. I called your name aloud. I knew that I was close to you, at Trevlyn – it is useless to attempt to define what I felt. When I came to myself they told me I had fainted; but that was not so. I had been on a journey, that is all, and had returned. My memory was restored from that hour, clearly and distinctly; the doctor thought there might be lapses, that I might never be the same man again as I had been once; but I have felt no ill effects since. Little more remains to be told. My first instinct was to telegraph; but not knowing what had happened in my absence, knowing I must long have been given up for lost, I was afraid to do so, lest hopeless confusion should result. Instead, I took the first home-bound steamer, and reached London late last night. I found out at the house there where Monica was, and came on here by the first train. I have come back home to spend my Christmas with you.”
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND.
THE LAST
“Monica, I could not tell you last night – it was all so sudden, so wonderful – but I think you know, without any words of mine, how glad, how thankful, I am.”
It was Haddon who spoke, spoke with a glad, frank, joyous sincerity, that beamed in his eye and sounded in every tone of his voice. Monica gave him both her hands, looking up into his face with her sweetest smile.
“I know, Haddon; I know. I am sure of it. Is he not almost a brother to you? – and are you not the best of brothers to me?”
“At least I will try to be,” he answered gladly. “I cannot tell you how happy this has made me.”
She was glad, too: glad to see him so happy, so heart-whole. He had loved her with the loyal love of a devoted chivalrous knight, had loved her for her sorrow and her loneliness; but she was comforted now, and he was able to rejoice with her. It was all very good – just as she would have it.
Ah! what a day of joy and thanksgiving it was! How Monica’s heart beat as she knelt by her husband’s side that glad Christmas morning in the little cliff church, when, in the pause just before the General Thanksgiving, the grey-headed clergyman, with a little quiver in his voice, announced that Randolph Trevlyn desired to return thanks to Almighty God for preservation from great perils, and for restoration to his home.
Her voice faltered in the familiar words, and many suppressed sobs were heard in the little building, but they were sobs of joy and gratitude, and tears of healing and of happiness stole down Monica’s cheeks. It was like some beautiful dream, and yet too sweet not to be true.
In the afternoon Monica and Randolph went out alone together; first into the whispering pine woods, and then out upon the breezy cliff, hard beneath their feet with the winter’s frost.
He let her lead him whither she would. He had no thought to spare for aught beside herself. They were together once again. What more could they need?
But Monica had an object in view; and as they walked, engrossed in each other, in sweet communion of soul and interchange of thought, or the almost sweeter silence of perfect peace and tranquillity, she led him once more towards the little cliff church; though only when she was unlatching the gate to enter the quiet grave-yard did he arouse to the sense of their surroundings.
“Why, Monica,” he said, “why have you brought me here? We are too late for service.”
“I know,” she answered; “but come. I want to show you something.”
Her face wore an expression he did not understand. He followed her in silence to a secluded corner, where, beneath a dark yew tree, stood a green mound, at the head of which a wooden cross had been temporarily erected.
Randolph read the letters it bore:
“C. F.,” followed by a date, and beneath, the simple, familiar words —
“Requiescat in pace.”
Strange, perhaps, that Monica should have cared for this lonely grave, in which was laid to rest one who had, as she believed, robbed her life of all its brightness and joy. Strange that she, in the absence of friend or kinsman, should have charged herself with keeping it, and of erecting there some monument to mark who lay there low. Strange – yet so it was.
Her husband looked at her questioningly.
“Conrad’s grave – yes,” she answered quietly. “Randolph, look at the date.”
He did so, and started a little.
“He died at dawn that day, Randolph. You know what was happening then at the other side of the world?”
There was a strange look of awe upon her face as she spoke, which was reflected in his also. She came and stood close beside him.
“Randolph, do you know that he was there – that night? – that he tried to kill you?”
He had taken off his hat as he stood beside the grave, with the instinctive reverence for the dead – even though it be a dead foe – characteristic of a noble mind. Now he passed his hand across his brow and through his thick dark hair.
“I thought that was a delusion of fever – a sort of hideous vision founded on no reality. Monica, was it so?”
“It was.”
“How do you know?”
“I had it from his own lips.”
He gazed at her without speaking; something in her face awed and silenced him.
“Randolph, listen,” she said. “I must tell you all. Six weeks ago, the evening before that day, he was brought, shattered and dying, to Trevlyn; he had fallen from the cliffs, no skill could serve to prolong his life. I knew nothing then – he was profoundly unconscious, yet as the night wore away some strange intuition came upon me that he wanted me, that he was beseeching me to come to him. I went – he was still unconscious. I sent Wilberforce away and watched by him myself. Randolph, at dawn he awoke to consciousness – he told me all his awful tale – he said he had murdered you – I believed it was true. He was dying – dying in darkness and in dread, and he prayed for my forgiveness as if his salvation hung upon it. Randolph, Randolph, how can I tell you? – I cannot, no I cannot – no one could understand,” for a moment she pressed her hand upon her eyes, looking up again in a few seconds with a calm glance that was like a smile. “He was dying, Randolph, and I forgave him – I forgave him freely and fully – and he died in peace. Stop, that is not all. Randolph, as I knelt beside his bed, praying for the sin-stained spirit then taking its flight, I felt that you were with me; I had never before felt the strange overshadowing presence that I did then – you were there, your own self. I heard your voice far away, yet absolutely clear, like a call from some distant, snow-clad mountain-top, infinitely far – ‘Monica! Monica! My wife!’ I think Conrad heard it too, for he died with a smile on his lips. Randolph, I am sure that you were with me in that strange, awful hour. I knew it then – I know it better now. Randolph, I think that love is stronger than all else – time, space, death itself. Nothing touched our love. I think it is like eternity.”
A deep look of awe had stamped itself upon Randolph’s face. He put his arm round Monica, and for a very long while they stood thus, neither attempting to speak or to move.
At last he woke from his reverie, and looked down at her with a strange light shining in his eyes.
“And you forgave him, Monica?”
She looked up and met his gaze unfalteringly.
“I forgave him, Randolph; was I wrong?”
He stooped and kissed her.
“My wife, I thank God that you did forgive him. His life was full of sin and sorrow – but at least its end was peace. May God pardon him as you did – as I do.”
There was a strange sweet smile in her eyes as she lifted them to his.
“Ah, Randolph!” she said softly, “I knew you would understand. Oh, my husband, my husband!”
He held her in his arms, and she looked up at him with a sweet, tender smile. Then her eyes wandered dreamily out over the wide sea beneath them.
“There is nothing sad there now, Randolph. It will never separate us again.”
He looked down at her with a world of love in his eyes; yet as they turned away his glance rested for one moment upon the lonely grave he had been brought to see, and lifting his hat once more, he murmured beneath his breath – “Requiescat in pace.”
Then drawing his wife’s hand within his arm, he led her homewards to Trevlyn, whilst the sun set in a blaze of golden glory over the boundless shining sea.