3. VI. THE WELL-BELOVED IS--WHERE?
Mrs. Pierston passed a restless night, but this she let nobody know;
nor, what was painfully evident to herself, that her prostration was
increased by anxiety and suspense about the wedding on which she had
too much set her heart.
During the very brief space in which she dozed Avice came into her
room. As it was not infrequent for her daughter to look in upon her
thus she took little notice, merely saying to assure the girl: 'I am
better, dear. Don't come in again. Get to sleep yourself.'
The mother, however, went thinking anew. She had no apprehensions
about this marriage. She felt perfectly sure that it was the best
thing she could do for her girl. Not a young woman on the island but
was envying Avice at that moment; for Jocelyn was absurdly young for
three score, a good-looking man, one whose history was generally known
here; as also were the exact figures of the fortune he had inherited
from his father, and the social standing he could claim--a standing,
however, which that fortune would not have been large enough to procure
unassisted by his reputation in his art.
But Avice had been weak enough, as her mother knew, to indulge in
fancies for local youths from time to time, and Mrs. Pierston could not
help congratulating herself that her daughter had been so docile in the
circumstances. Yet to every one except, perhaps, Avice herself,
Jocelyn was the most romantic of lovers. Indeed was there ever such a
romance as that man embodied in his relations to her house? Rejecting
the first Avice, the second had rejected him, and to rally to the third
with final achievement was an artistic and tender finish to which it
was ungrateful in anybody to be blind.
The widow thought that the second Avice might probably not have
rejected Pierston on that occasion in the London studio so many years
ago if destiny had not arranged that she should have been secretly
united to another when the proposing moment came.
But what had come was best. 'My God,' she said at times that night,
'to think my aim in writing to him should be fulfilling itself like
this!'
When all was right and done, what a success upon the whole her life
would have been. She who had begun her career as a cottage-girl, a
small quarry-owner's daughter, had sunk so low as to the position of
laundress, had engaged in various menial occupations, had made an
unhappy marriage for love which had, however, in the long run, thanks
to Jocelyn's management, much improved her position, was at last to see
her daughter secure what she herself had just missed securing, and
established in a home of affluence and refinement.
Thus the sick woman excited herself as the hours went on. At last, in
her tenseness it seemed to her that the time had already come at which
the household was stirring, and she fancied she heard conversation in
her daughter's room. But she found that it was only five o'clock, and
not yet daylight. Her state was such that she could see the hangings
of the bed tremble with her tremors. She had declared overnight that
she did not require any one to sit up with her, but she now rang a
little handbell, and in a few minutes a nurse appeared; Ruth Stockwool,
an island woman and neighbour, whom Mrs. Pierston knew well, and who
knew all Mrs. Pierston's history.
'I am so nervous that I can't stay by myself,' said the widow. 'And I
thought I heard Becky dressing Miss Avice in her wedding things.'
'O no--not yet, ma'am. There's nobody up. But I'll get you
something.'
When Mrs. Pierston had taken a little nourishment she went on: 'I
can't help frightening myself with thoughts that she won't marry him.
You see he is older than Avice.'
'Yes, he is,' said her neighbour. 'But I don't see how anything can
hender the wedden now.'
'Avice, you know, had fancies; at least one fancy for another man; a
young fellow of five-and-twenty. And she's been very secret and odd
about it. I wish she had raved and cried and had it out; but she's
been quite the other way. I know she's fond of him still.'
'What--that young Frenchman, Mr. Leverre o' Sandbourne? I've heard a
little of it. But I should say there wadden much between 'em.'
'I don't think there was. But I've a sort of conviction that she saw
him last night. I believe it was only to bid him good-bye, and return
him some books he had given her; but I wish she had never known him; he
is rather an excitable, impulsive young man, and he might make
mischief. He isn't a Frenchman, though he has lived in France. His
father was a Jersey gentleman, and on his becoming a widower he married
as his second wife a native of this very island. That's mainly why the
young man is so at home in these parts.'
'Ah--now I follow 'ee. She was a Bencomb, his stepmother: I heard
something about her years ago.'
'Yes; her father had the biggest stone-trade on the island at one time;
but the name is forgotten here now. He retired years before I was
born. However, mother used to tell me that she was a handsome young
woman, who tried to catch Mr. Pierston when he was a young man, and
scandalized herself a bit with him. She went off abroad with her
father, who had made a fortune here; but when he got over there he lost
it nearly all in some way. Years after she married this Jerseyman, Mr.
Leverre, who had been fond of her as a girl, and she brought up his
child as her own.'
Mrs. Pierston paused, but as Ruth did not ask any question she
presently resumed her self-relieving murmur:
'How Miss Avice got to know the young man was in this way. When Mrs.
Leverre's husband died she came from Jersey to live at Sandbourne; and
made it her business one day to cross over to this place to make
inquiries about Mr. Jocelyn Pierston. As my name was Pierston she
called upon me with her son, and so Avice and he got acquainted. When
Avice went back to Sandbourne to the finishing school they kept up the
acquaintance in secret. He taught French somewhere there, and does
still, I believe.'
'Well, I hope she'll forget en. He idden good enough.'
'I hope so--I hope so. . . . Now I'll try to get a little nap.'
Ruth Stockwool went back to her room, where, finding it would not be
necessary to get up for another hour, she lay down again and soon
slept. Her bed was close to the staircase, from which it was divided
by a lath partition only, and her consciousness either was or seemed to
be aroused by light brushing touches on the outside of the partition,
as of fingers feeling the way downstairs in the dark. The slight noise
passed, and in a few seconds she dreamt or fancied she could hear the
unfastening of the back door.
She had nearly sunk into another sound sleep when precisely the same
phenomena were repeated; fingers brushing along the wall close to her
head, down, downward, the soft opening of the door, its close, and
silence again.
She now became clearly awake. The repetition of the process had made
the whole matter a singular one. Early as it was the first sounds
might have been those of the housemaid descending, though why she
should have come down so stealthily and in the dark did not make itself
clear. But the second performance was inexplicable. Ruth got out of
bed and lifted her blind. The dawn was hardly yet pink, and the light
from the sandbank was not yet extinguished. But the bushes of euonymus
against the white palings of the front garden could be seen, also the
light surface of the road winding away like a riband to the north
entrance of Sylvania Castle, thence round to the village, the cliffs,
and the Cove behind. Upon the road two dark figures could just be
discerned, one a little way behind the other, but overtaking and
joining the foremost as Ruth looked. After all they might be quarriers
or lighthouse-keepers from the south of the island, or fishermen just
landed from a night's work. There being nothing to connect them with
the noises she had heard indoors she dismissed the whole subject, and
went to bed again.
* * *
Jocelyn had promised to pay an early visit to ascertain the state of
Mrs. Pierston's health after her night's rest, her precarious condition
being more obvious to him than to Avice, and making him a little
anxious. Subsequent events caused him to remember that while he was
dressing he casually observed two or three boatmen standing near the
cliff beyond the village, and apparently watching with deep interest
what seemed to be a boat far away towards the opposite shore of South
Wessex. At half-past eight he came from the door of the inn and went
straight to Mrs. Pierston's. On approaching he discovered that a
strange expression which seemed to hang about the house-front that
morning was more than a fancy, the gate, door, and two windows being
open, though the blinds of other windows were not drawn up, the whole
lending a vacant, dazed look to the domicile, as of a person gaping in
sudden stultification. Nobody answered his knock, and walking into the
dining-room he found that no breakfast had been laid. His flashing
thought was, 'Mrs. Pierston is dead.'
While standing in the room somebody came downstairs, and Jocelyn
encountered Ruth Stockwool, an open letter fluttering in her hand.
'O Mr. Pierston, Mr. Pierston! The Lord-a-Lord!'
'What? Mrs. Pierston--'
'No, no! Miss Avice! She is gone!--yes--gone! Read ye this, sir. It
was left in her bedroom, and we be fairly gallied out of our senses!'
He took the letter and confusedly beheld that it was in two
handwritings, the first section being in Avice's:
'MY DEAR MOTHER,--How ever will you forgive me for what I have done!
So deceitful as it seems. And yet till this night I had no idea of
deceiving either you or Mr. Pierston.
'Last night at ten o'clock I went out, as you may have guessed, to see
Mr. Leverre for the last time, and to give him back his books, letters,
and little presents to me. I went only a few steps--to Bow-and-Arrow
Castle, where we met as we had agreed to do, since he could not call.
When I reached the place I found him there waiting, but quite ill. He
had been unwell at his mother's house for some days, and had been
obliged to stay in bed, but he had got up on purpose to come and bid me
good-bye. The over-exertion of the journey upset him, and though we
stayed and stayed till twelve o'clock he felt quite unable to go back
home--unable, indeed, to move more than a few yards. I had tried so
hard not to love him any longer, but I loved him so now that I could
not desert him and leave him out there to catch his death. So I helped
him--nearly carrying him--on and on to our door, and then round to the
back. Here he got a little better, and as he could not stay there, and
everybody was now asleep, I helped him upstairs into the room we had
prepared for Mr. Pierston if he should have wanted one. I got him into
bed, and then fetched some brandy and a little of your tonic. Did you
see me come into your room for it, or were you asleep?
'I sat by him all night. He improved slowly, and we talked over what
we had better do. I felt that, though I had intended to give him up, I
could not now becomingly marry any other man, and that I ought to marry
him. We decided to do it at once, before anybody could hinder us. So
we came down before it was light, and have gone away to get the
ceremony solemnized.
'Tell Mr. Pierston it was not premeditated, but the result of an
accident. I am sincerely sorry to have treated him with what he will
think unfairness, but though I did not love him I meant to obey you and
marry him. But God sent this necessity of my having to give shelter to
my Love, to prevent, I think, my doing what I am now convinced would
have been wrong--Ever your loving daughter,
AVICE.'
The second was in a man's hand:
'DEAR MOTHER (as you will soon be to me),--Avice has clearly explained
above how it happened that I have not been able to give her up to Mr.
Pierston. I think I should have died if I had not accepted the
hospitality of a room in your house this night, and your daughter's
tender nursing through the dark dreary hours. We love each other
beyond expression, and it is obvious that, if we are human, we cannot
resist marrying now, in spite of friends' wishes. Will you please send
the note lying beside this to my mother. It is merely to explain what
I have done--Yours with warmest regard, HENRI LEVERRE.'
Jocelyn turned away and looked out of the window.
'Mrs. Pierston thought she heard some talking in the night, but of
course she put it down to fancy. And she remembers Miss Avice coming
into her room at one o'clock in the morning, and going to the table
where the medicine was standing. A sly girl--all the time her young
man within a yard or two, in the very room, and a using the very clean
sheets that you, sir, were to have used! They are our best linen ones,
got up beautiful, and a kept wi' rosemary. Really, sir, one would say
you stayed out o' your chammer o' purpose to oblige the young man with
a bed!'
'Don't blame them, don't blame them!' said Jocelyn in an even and
characterless voice. 'Don't blame her, particularly. She didn't make
the circumstances. I did. . . . It was how I served her grandmother.
. . . Well, she's gone! You needn't make a mystery of it. Tell it to
all the island: say that a man came to marry a wife, and didn't find
her at home. Tell everybody that she's run away. It must be known
sooner or later.'
One of the servants said, after waiting a few moments: 'We shan't do
that, sir.'
'Oh--Why won't you?'
'We liked her too well, with all her faults.'
'Ah--did you,' said he; and he sighed. He perceived that the younger
maids were secretly on Avice's side.
'How does her mother bear it?' Jocelyn asked. 'Is she awake?'
Mrs. Pierston had hardly slept, and, having learnt the tidings
inadvertently, became so distracted and incoherent as to be like a
person in a delirium; till, a few moments before he arrived, all her
excitement ceased, and she lay in a weak, quiet silence.
'Let me go up,' Pierston said. 'And send for the doctor.'
Passing Avice's chamber he perceived that the little bed had not been
slept on. At the door of the spare room he looked in. In one corner
stood a walking-stick--his own.
'Where did that come from?'
'We found it there, sir.'
'Ah yes--I gave it to him. 'Tis like me to play another's game!'
It was the last spurt of bitterness that Jocelyn let escape him. He
went on towards Mrs. Pierston's room, preceded by the servant.
'Mr. Pierston has come, ma'am,' he heard her say to the invalid. But
as the latter took no notice the woman rushed forward to the bed.
'What has happened to her, Mr. Pierston? O what do it mean?'
Avice the Second was lying placidly in the position in which the nurse
had left her; but no breath came from her lips, and a rigidity of
feature was accompanied by the precise expression which had
characterized her face when Pierston had her as a girl in his studio.
He saw that it was death, though she appeared to have breathed her last
only a few moments before.
Ruth Stockwool's composure deserted her. ''Tis the shock of finding
Miss Avice gone that has done it!' she cried. 'She has killed her
mother!'
'Don't say such a terrible thing!' exclaimed Jocelyn.
'But she ought to have obeyed her mother--a good mother as she was!
How she had set her heart upon the wedding, poor soul; and we couldn't
help her knowing what had happened! O how ungrateful young folk be!
That girl will rue this morning's work!'
'We must get the doctor,' said Pierston, mechanically, hastening from
the room.
When the local practitioner came he merely confirmed their own verdict,
and thought her death had undoubtedly been hastened by the shock of the
ill news upon a feeble heart, following a long strain of anxiety about
the wedding. He did not consider that an inquest would be necessary.
* * *
The two shadowy figures seen through the grey gauzes of the morning by
Ruth, five hours before this time, had gone on to the open place by the
north entrance of Sylvania Castle, where the lane to the ruins of the
old castle branched off. A listener would not have gathered that a
single word passed between them. The man walked with difficulty,
supported by the woman. At this spot they stopped and kissed each
other a long while.
'We ought to walk all the way to Budmouth, if we wish not to be
discovered,' he said sadly. 'And I can't even get across the island,
even by your help, darling. It is two miles to the foot of the hill.'
She, who was trembling, tried to speak consolingly:
'If you could walk we should have to go down the Street of Wells, where
perhaps somebody would know me? Now if we get below here to the Cove,
can't we push off one of the little boats I saw there last night, and
paddle along close to the shore till we get to the north side? Then we
can walk across to the station very well. It is quite calm, and as the
tide sets in that direction, it will take us along of itself, without
much rowing. I've often got round in a boat that way.'
This seemed to be the only plan that offered, and abandoning the
straight road they wound down the defile spanned further on by the old
castle arch, and forming the original fosse of the fortress.
The stroke of their own footsteps, lightly as these fell, was flapped
back to them with impertinent gratuitousness by the vertical faces of
the rock, so still was everything around. A little further, and they
emerged upon the open ledge of the lower tier of cliffs, to the right
being the sloping pathway leading down to the secluded creek at their
base--the single practicable spot of exit from or entrance to the isle
on this side by a seagoing craft; once an active wharf, whence many a
fine public building had sailed--including Saint Paul's Cathedral.
The timorous shadowy shapes descended the footway, one at least of them
knowing the place so well that she found it scarcely necessary to guide
herself down by touching the natural wall of stone on her right hand,
as her companion did. Thus, with quick suspensive breathings they
arrived at the bottom, and trod the few yards of shingle which, on the
forbidding shore hereabout, could be found at this spot alone. It was
so solitary as to be unvisited often for four-and-twenty hours by a
living soul. Upon the confined beach were drawn up two or three
fishing-lerrets, and a couple of smaller ones, beside them being a
rough slipway for launching, and a boathouse of tarred boards. The two
lovers united their strength to push the smallest of the boats down the
slope, and floating it they scrambled in.
The girl broke the silence by asking, 'Where are the oars?'
He felt about the boat, but could find none. 'I forgot to look for the
oars!' he said.
'They are locked in the boathouse, I suppose. Now we can only steer
and trust to the current!'
The currents here were of a complicated kind. It was true, as the girl
had said, that the tide ran round to the north, but at a special moment
in every flood there set in along the shore a narrow reflux contrary to
the general outer flow, called 'The Southern' by the local sailors. It
was produced by the peculiar curves of coast lying east and west of the
Beal; these bent southward in two back streams the up-Channel flow on
each side of the peninsula, which two streams united outside the Beal,
and there met the direct tidal flow, the confluence of the three
currents making the surface of the sea at this point to boil like a
pot, even in calmest weather. The disturbed area, as is well known, is
called the Race.
Thus although the outer sea was now running northward to the roadstead
and the mainland of Wessex 'The Southern' ran in full force towards the
Beal and the Race beyond. It caught the lovers' hapless boat in a few
moments, and, unable to row across it--mere river's width that it was--
they beheld the grey rocks near them, and the grim wrinkled forehead of
the isle above, sliding away northwards.
They gazed helplessly at each other, though, in the long-living faith
of youth, without distinct fear. The undulations increased in
magnitude, and swung them higher and lower. The boat rocked, received
a smart slap of the waves now and then, and wheeled round, so that the
lightship which stolidly winked at them from the quicksand, the single
object which told them of their bearings, was sometimes on their right
hand and sometimes on their left. Nevertheless they could always
discern from it that their course, whether stemwards or sternwards, was
steadily south.
A bright idea occurred to the young man. He pulled out his
handkerchief and, striking a light, set it on fire. She gave him hers,
and he made that flare up also. The only available fuel left was the
small umbrella the girl had brought; this was also kindled in an opened
state, and he held it up by the stem till it was consumed.
The lightship had loomed quite large by this time, and a few minutes
after they had burnt the handkerchiefs and umbrella a coloured flame
replied to them from the vessel. They flung their arms round each
other.
'I knew we shouldn't be drowned!' said Avice hysterically.
'I thought we shouldn't too,' said he.
With the appearance of day a boat put off to their assistance, and they
were towed towards the heavy red hulk with the large white letters on
its side.
