Chapter XVI
THIS extraordinary revival was going on when the doctor rushed in. Carson, who had been the principal person in all this scene, rushed at him and drew him back. She kept her hand on his arm, detained him, ran into voluble but trembling explanations. When he came forward the doctor gazed with a troubled face at the patient. A fainting fit brought on by great agitation; nobody could give any other account of it; he felt her pulse, and prescribed, and lingered, and looked at us all with mingled inquiry and suspicion. What had we been doing to her? Why had she not been removed to bed? A flash came from the awakening eyes. She made a motion of her hand, waving him away, then looked at me, and pointed vaguely but imperatively before her. When I did not obey immediately, she repeated the question, and at last spoke, with great evident pain, impatience, and imperiousness: “Bring him?” were those the words? She was so imperative, so fiercely determined, that I hastened out to call Luigi. I found him at the door watching, very pale, and in profound distress. He came in after me without saying a word; he went up to her without waiting for me, and knelt down at her feet, and took her hands in his own. “Mother! Mother!” cried the young man. If it did not go to her heart, it went to the heart of every other person present; and Aunt Milly, with a great cry of amazement and terror, repeated it after him, “Mother!” But who could think of any discovery then? The doctor stood listening, thunderstruck, behind the screen. I believe Sara Cresswell was in the room. But we who were round about this terrible figure could observe nothing else, except the dread inarticulate waves of passion that kept rising in her dead face. She thrust at her son with a wild motion of her bloodless hands as if to put him away. She questioned him with her eyes in such frantic impatience, because he could not understand her, that the sight was more than I could bear. I fell back from her trembling and like to faint. Then her will got the better of her weakness. She cried out aloud, with a voice that I am sure could have been heard all over the house;—it was not a living voice; it rang out wild, and loud, and hard, in separate words,—“Where is he?—he? dead! let him come. I know he is dead, let him come;—Count!” and here the terrible voice rose and broke in a wild horror of babbling cries. God help us! It was a dreadful scene. Aunt Milly stood supporting herself by a chair, unable to utter a word or even to move. I was afraid to stir, lest I should faint and fall on the floor. Carson only stood close by her mistress, supporting her head and gazing with wistful eyes at Luigi; the young man stumbled up from his knees in an agony of pity and horror. He held up his hands in wild appeal, whether to her, or to us, or only to God, I cannot tell. “It is my father!” he cried. “She thinks it was my father; and I am to blame!” Then he knelt down again humbly at her feet, and held up his clasped hands to her as if he were praying. I think he must have done it with an intention of drawing her attention by any means, and to prove to her that it was the truth he said.
“Mother,” he cried, looking up at those eyes which had returned, and were fixed upon him,—“mother, I am your son! My father is dead and undisturbed in his grave; he has sent me to his wife. It is I, it is no other. He is with the saints, where there are no names. It is I who am Sermoneta; mother! Oh, heaven, does she not hear me? will she not hear me? It was I, only I. It was Luigi, Countess! If I must not bear your name, I must bear my own. I say it was I, not my father, who can neither do evil nor endure it,—me, either Luigi Sermoneta or Lewis Mortimer, as you will,—your son!”
It is impossible to describe the effect this had upon us all. Aunt Milly burst forth into weeping, convulsive, and not to be restrained. Poor Carson’s bosom heaved with silent sobs. Luigi, who had risen up as he said these last words, stood erect in a passionate self-assertion and defence before his miserable mother. Even she changed under this sudden blaze of revelation. She sat up in her chair, and grew more human; her rigid head began to tremble, her dread-eyes to lose their horror. Now it was no longer that mad ghastly stare with which she regarded the young man before her. She looked at him, leaning forward, slowly recovering her powers. Some convulsive gasps or sobs in her throat alone interrupted this pause of terrible silence. She looked at him, from head to foot, with a slow, dismal scrutiny. Only once before in her life had she met him face to face; then she had been strong enough to send him away and disown him. Now, perforce, the mother looked at her son. The young man trembled under that steady gaze; he held out his hands, and cried out “Mother!” as if all the eloquence in the world lay in that word. She continued perusing him all over with that slow examination. Gradually she returned to be herself again. Not changed, not subdued! Out of that death and agony there came forth, not a repentant woman, but Sarah Mortimer, a creature who would not believe in everlasting truth and justice—not though one should rise from the dead.
“If you are Count Sermoneta,” she said, with all her old expression, pausing between the words to get strength, but speaking in her usual voice, “how do you dare come to me and offer what your father refused? Impostor! you shall never, never, never sit in my father’s place! I disown you. I—I have nothing to do with you. What! would you kill me again?”
Here I interposed; I could not help myself. My very soul sickened at her. I came forward, without knowing what I was doing. “Let her alone,” I cried out, “don’t say anything. She has died and come alive again, and is no better. Do you think you can move her? Oh, Aunt Milly, it is your part now. Take him away out of her sight, leave her alone in her wretchedness. Can you bear to see her smiling there?—smiling at us! She is dead, and it is a devil that has come into her frame!”
“Milly, hush, hush, you are mad,” cried Sara Cresswell, behind me; but Aunt Milly did not think I was mad. She came and put her arm into Luigi’s, her tears driven away by horror and indignation. “As sure as God sees us all,” cried Aunt Milly, “I will do you justice. Come away from her, as Milly, says. You make her wickeder and wickeder—Oh, wickeder than she really is! Oh, Sarah,” she cried out, turning suddenly round, “is it true?—is he your son?”
Miss Mortimer said nothing;—the very colour had returned to her face. Her head trembled excessively, but she had forced some frightful caricature of a smile upon her lip. She held out her hand and pointed at them in a kind of derision. “You were always a fool,” she said at last, with a gasp. Aunt Milly did not wait or hesitate any longer. She was possessed, like me, with a sudden impatience and intolerance of that inhuman hard-heartedness. She went away hastily out of the room, drawing Luigi with her. Miss Mortimer listened to the sound of their steps till it had quite died away. Then she turned round to Carson with some instinctive confession of weakness at last. Their eyes met; but even Carson could no longer receive this dreadful confidence. She stumbled back from her mistress with a cry. “I cannot, I cannot!” cried Carson, “anything but this. I held him in my arms a baby, and I’ll never disown him, if I was to die.” As her mistress turned round upon her, Carson retreated back till she came to the wall, and stood there, fixed and desperate, holding up her hands as if to keep off those pursuing eyes. “Whatever you please!” cried Carson, “but not to disown him as I dressed the first day he was in this world. No! not for no payment nor coaxing! I’ve served you faithful all times and seasons, but I’ll not do no more, not if I was to die!”
Miss Mortimer sat gazing at her rebellious maid. What no other appeal could do this did. She sank into the frail old woman she was, as she gazed at Carson, who had forsaken her. She broke forth into feeble, passionate tears. She could bear to send her son away from her, but she could not bear to lose her faithful companion and attendant of forty years. “Carson!” cried the broken voice, in a tone of absolute despair. Then Miss Mortimer rose up. I ran forward to her in terror, and so did Sara, but she waved us both away, steadied herself, cast a long look upon the woman who stood trembling against the wall, and slowly turned to make her way out of the room. She walked like some one upon whom sudden blindness had fallen, wavering, stopping to steady herself, putting out her hand to pilot the way, groping through the piercing daylight that penetrated every corner of the room. We followed her, trembling and terrified. As she went slowly through the long room, heavy sobs came from her poor breast, sobs of which she was not conscious; her muslin scarf had been torn and crushed in her dreadful faint, if it was a faint, and hung all dishevelled from her shoulders. One hand hung loosely down by her side, the other she groped with as she made her way. Now and then she moaned aloud. Oh, miserable forsaken creature! there had been still one link of life to hold her on to the living world.
We went after her, silent, hushing our very steps lest she should turn upon us, and watching with a perfect awe of wonder how she steered herself through the room; she stumbled on the stair, but still rejected any assistance. All the way up she went forlorn, accepting no support. When we reached her door, I rushed forward not to let her shut me out. “Let me be your maid to-night,” I cried out, laying my hand upon hers. Her hand made me shiver; it was cold, as if it had actually been dead. She pushed me back, not looking at me, and shut the door. What she did, or how she sustained herself in that vacant room, we could see no longer. Sara and I, arrested at the door, turned and looked into each other’s faces. Sara broke out into the passionate tears of excitement and agitation which could be restrained no longer. “She will kill herself!” cried Sara. “Oh, godmamma, let me in, let me in. I will never cross you or trouble you. I will wait upon you night and day, godmamma!” No answer came. We tried to open the door, but she had fastened it. We could do nothing but leave her alone in this dreadful solitude. For a little while a rustling sound of motion was in the room, and still those pathetic, unconscious moans breaking at intervals into the silence. But after a while all became still. She had not fainted or fallen, for we should have heard her. She made no answer to our entreaties—dead silence reigned in the room where that living spirit, with all its dread forces and passions, palpitated within its veil of worn-out flesh. I could imagine her taking possession of that dreadful solitude, losing at a blow far more than reputation or fair-fame, all that made her life tolerable to her, entering upon a new, unthought of, murderous purgatory. We could not make up our minds to leave that closed door. Sara was still crying, and almost hysterical with her long strain of excitement. I made her go into the neighbouring room, where Lizzie was with my boy, while I ran downstairs for Aunt Milly. Oh, what a contrast it was! I snatched little Harry into my arms to kiss him, and went away again, with a pity, I cannot describe, past the door where that dreadful forsaken woman lay alone in the silence. I could not bear it. God alone knew how she had sinned; but to leave her thus deserted in her misery was not in the heart of man.
I ran downstairs very hastily without waiting to think—at the foot of the stairs Carson stood crying. She gasped out an inquiry at me which was not audible at first. “Is she alone? alone? alone? Will nobody stay with her?” cried Carson. “Oh, ma’am, my missis will never let me near her again! I know it’s no use trying; but, for the love of mercy, let somebody get into the room! There’s poisons and all sorts there. God forgive me! couldn’t I have held my tongue?” cried the poor woman, in an agony of terror. I was angry with her in the impatience of my thoughts. I did not consider for how many long years Carson had endured all.
“But why can’t you go up now? try if she will let you in; she is fond of you, Carson,” said I. “Oh, go, go, and try.”
“She’ll never look at me more,” said Carson with mournful certainty; “but I’ll go, I’ll try. If it was at the end of the world, I’d go; but she’ll never see me again.” The poor woman went upstairs saying this over to herself, and dreadful as it was to think so, I was certain she was right.
And I went on to the library where Aunt Milly was. She had forgotten her sister. She was listening, with a glowing face, with tears, and outcries, and lamentations, to the tale Luigi told her. Some papers were lying before them, and a miniature, which caught my eye even at such a moment—a picture of a lovely fair woman, imperious and splendid. I cannot say that it bore any resemblance to the wretched, solitary creature upstairs; but I knew it was Sarah Mortimer,—Sarah Mortimer, unkind, untrue, a woman making no account of love or tenderness; but not the Sarah Mortimer who had delivered herself to the devil, and turned her back upon nature. I pointed at it unconsciously in my excitement. It was easier than naming her name.
“Do you know she is alone upstairs, by herself?” cried I, “perhaps dying, and nobody with her! Aunt Milly, you are her sister. She will neither let us in, nor answer us. You have a right to go to her. There are all kinds of dangerous things in the room—she might die!”
“But Carson—Carson is there,” cried Aunt Milly, grasping my hand, to bring me to myself. “My dear, Carson is a better companion than either you or me.”
“But Carson has gone,” I cried, “Carson will never be with her any more. Hush! was that a sound upstairs? Come, I entreat you! She is all alone, quite alone, not a creature with her. It is heartrending to think what she is doing there—come! come!”
Aunt Milly stood perplexed. She could not comprehend Carson’s absence, and I might have had a long account of the whole matter to go through had not Luigi come to my assistance. He took her hand hurriedly, and pressed it in his own.
“My aunt, I can wait,” said Luigi, “and I will till there is time for me; but my mother, my mother is–”
Aunt Milly started, and understood all in a moment. His mother, the unfortunate wretched woman who had disowned and rejected him—no need for over-much explaining, or setting-forth of all the darker shades of the picture to show her wretchedness. Nature and she had parted company, and there was nothing too dreadful that might not befall her in the fatal silence of that secluded room.
Chapter XVII
ALL the remainder of that dreadful afternoon we spent in vain endeavours to get admission. No answer came to us from those closed doors—silence, dead and unbroken, was within those concealing walls, which it seemed wonderful to me did not beat and throb with the torturing life within them. The whole house was disturbed, as was to be supposed. While we stood in an anxious, troubled group round Miss Mortimer’s door, Carson, with her melancholy and ashamed face, stood anxious and terrified at a little distance—the maids below came to take furtive peeps upon the stairs—and Ellis himself stood listening in the hall, catching at every sound. The whole house was conscious of some dreadful crisis, which had occurred, or was occurring; and even in the frightful anxiety which possessed us, Aunt Milly began to feel that extraordinary infraction of all the decorums of such a house. She whispered to Sara to leave us, and go downstairs to restore the equilibrium of the household a little, and sent Carson into Lizzie’s room, where the poor creature sank, overpowered and almost fainting, upon the bed. Then Aunt Milly went away to her own apartment, and came back with a huge bunch of keys. With these in her hand she motioned me to follow her round about into the little corridor to which Miss Mortimer’s dressing-room opened. “Milly, stand by me,” she cried, with a sob. “I’d rather face so many lions than go in upon her against her will—but it must be—I cannot help myself. After what we saw to-day, I should be guilty, I should be a criminal—don’t you think so, Milly?—if I left her alone to-night.”
It was getting dusk, and the light was pale and ghastly in that little corridor which was close upon the backstairs, and very bare and chill. The door opened without the assistance of the keys. We went into the little luxurious room where the fire burned brightly, warm though the weather was, and which bore all the marks of being lived in and cherished. An easy-chair and footstool were placed at the side of the fire, and close by stood a little table with a raised ornamental rim, like a tray, in which some books and some of Miss Mortimer’s materials for work were placed. At the other end of the room was a window, where stood a plain rush-bottomed chair and a large round basket of work; there was Carson’s place; and the union of the two in this their joint retirement and dwelling-place—the junction of the lady’s luxuries and the servant’s labours in this habitation common to them both—struck me with a pathetic force, now that this old, long, immemorial connection was brought to a close so hurriedly. Aunt Milly did not linger in this room; she went straight to the door leading into the bedchamber which was fastened. “Sarah,” she called softly, “Sarah!” there was no answer. We listened, and the silence round was dreadful; the silence and the gathering twilight, and the terrible mystery of life or death that lay in that closed-up room. Then she tried the keys with her trembling hands. Still not a word from the solitary within, not even of remonstrance or indignation. After what seemed to us a dreadful tedious interval, in which the night appeared visibly to darken round us, the lock at length yielded. The key that had been in it fell, with a dull, heavy sound, inside, making our hearts beat. Then Aunt Milly opened the door. I shall never forget the sensation with which I entered that dark room. What we were to find there, a ghastly corpse or a miserable living creature, nobody could tell; treading on the soft carpets that made our footsteps noiseless, brushing past those soft-drawn curtains which shut out every draught, coming into this atmosphere of care, and comfort, and luxury, the contrast was almost too dreadful to bear. I remember trying to listen for her breath, but could not for the terrified beating of my own heart. The darkness made everything more dreadful still, for the blinds were drawn down, and the little light there was fell so faintly through them that we could scarcely find our way through the room. Aunt Milly was before me; she made a terrified plunge forward, and gave a cry as we came past the head of the bed, which was towards the dressing-room door. Something lay in a heap on the floor by the side of the bed. She threw herself down on the floor beside that heap. I don’t think she was conscious, even when she touched it, what it was; but as I rushed to help her, as I thought, I was suddenly arrested by a gleam of eyes from the bed. “I am not dead,” said Miss Mortimer. I could not help nor command myself. Some scream or shriek came from me in the extremity of my awe and terror. I could hear it answered by a sudden stir and commotion outside the door. “They’re killing my mistress,” was Lizzie’s voice; and with the wildest alarm lest some violent attack on the door should follow, I rushed to it, opened it, and asked for lights.
Outside were half the household grouped at various distances. No precautions could stifle that eager curiosity which knew by instinct that some wonderful mystery was here. They all dispersed when they saw me, frightened and ashamed of themselves. Only Lizzie kept her ground. She seized hold of my sleeve and detained me. “You’re no to stay there!” cried Lizzie. “Oh, no you, no you! You’ll gang and let them kill you, and the bairn’ll perish, and the Captain never come hame! Let me in! I’ll get the drinks and keep up the fire, and never close an e’e; but it’s no you that’s to watch, and you the light o’ folks e’en. It’s no to be you! If I was to gang to my bed and sleep, what would the Captain say to me?” cried poor Lizzie, with a trembling burst of excitement and anxiety, standing close up by me, holding my sleeve, pressing to enter the room. Somehow it comforted me, though it was a piece of folly. I told her again to get the lights, and went back into the dark, solemn room. These sounds of the outside world had not entered there. Miss Mortimer lay on the bed with her eyes wide-awake and gleaming, gathering into them all the little light in the room. Aunt Milly stood beside her, asking how she was; herself scarcely recovered from the shock that had been given her by that heap of clothes upon the floor, trembling, not knowing very well what she said, her great yearning anxiety and curiosity to get at her sister’s heart, overflowing in uneasy questions. Did she feel ill? Would she have anything? How was she? Miss Mortimer took no notice of her questions. She repeated once “I am not dead,” with a strange spitefulness and defiance, and for the rest lay silent, looking at me as I moved about the room, a dark undecipherable figure, and at poor Aunt Milly standing beside me. She took no other notice. It seemed to please her to lie there silent, defying all our curiosity. But she did not complain or find fault with our presence. I believe in my heart she was glad to have her dreadful solitude thus broken, and that it was a comfort to her desolation to see living creatures moving in the darkness. I cannot help thinking so; but after that one expression, twice repeated, not all the anxious questions of her sister could bring a syllable to her lips.
When the candles came she closed her eyes; then, after a little interval, made a wrench at the curtains and gave an impatient sigh. The sigh was for Carson, who doubtless knew exactly what she liked and what she did not like. The fire was laid already in the grate, and I lighted it, and began to put away those things which lay on the floor. Wherever I moved, when it was within her sight, she followed me with her eyes from within the crimson shadow of the curtain. She was perfectly composed and self-possessed. She was even well as it appeared. The ghastly colour had disappeared from her face. She lay there self-absorbed, as she sat over her knitting. All the dread incidents of this day had passed over, and left Sarah Mortimer unchanged. Such a woman could deny, defy, live through any thing. I watched her with indescribable awe and–. Well! I had pitied her while she was alone; but do you suppose I could love such a woman, lying there unmoved and unrepentant, in her dread self-occupation? It was not possible I hated her, loathed her, turned away with sickening and disgust from her dreadful looks. It was hard, even, to pity her now.