CHAPTER XXIII--"In One who will do justice, and demands that it
shall be done to each thing He has made, by each who bears His
image"
'Twas in these days Sir Jeoffry came to his end, it being in such
way as had been often prophesied; and when this final hour came,
there was but one who could give him comfort, and this was the
daughter whose youth he had led with such careless evilness to harm.
If he had wondered at her when she had been my Lady Dunstanwolde, as
her Grace of Osmonde he regarded her with heavy awe. Never had she
been able to lead him to visit her at her house in town or at any
other which was her home. "'Tis all too grand for me, your Grace,"
he would say; "I am a country yokel, and have hunted and drank, and
lived too hard to look well among town gentlemen. I must be drunk
at dinner, and when I am in liquor I am no ornament to a duchess's
drawing-room. But what a woman you have grown," he would say,
staring at her and shaking his head. "Each time I clap eyes on you
'tis to marvel at you, remembering what a baggage you were, and how
you kept from slipping by the way. There was Jack Oxon, now," he
added one day--"after you married Dunstanwolde, I heard a pretty
tale of Jack--that he had made a wager among his friends in town--he
was a braggart devil, Jack--that he would have you, though you were
so scornful; and knowing him to be a liar, his fellows said that
unless he could bring back a raven lock six feet long to show them,
he had lost his bet, for they would believe no other proof. And
finely they scoffed at him when he came back saying that he had had
one, but had hid it away for safety when he was drunk, and could not
find it again. They so flouted and jeered at him that swords were
drawn, and blood as well. But though he was a beauty and a crafty
rake-hell fellow, you were too sharp for him. Had you not had so
shrewd a wit and strong a will, you would not have been the greatest
duchess in England, Clo, as well as the finest woman."
"Nay," she answered--"in those days--nay, let us not speak of them!
I would blot them out--out."
As time went by, and the years spent in drink and debauchery began
to tell even on the big, strong body which should have served any
other man bravely long past his threescore and ten, Sir Jeoffry
drank harder and lived more wildly, sometimes being driven desperate
by dulness, his coarse pleasures having lost their potency.
"Liquor is not as strong as it once was," he used to grumble, "and
there are fewer things to stir a man to frolic. Lord, what roaring
days and nights a man could have thirty years ago."
So in his efforts to emulate such nights and days, he plunged deeper
and deeper into new orgies; and one night, after a heavy day's
hunting, sitting at the head of his table with his old companions,
he suddenly leaned forward, staring with starting eyes at an empty
chair in a dark corner. His face grew purple, and he gasped and
gurgled.
"What is't, Jeoff?" old Eldershawe cried, touching his shoulder with
a shaking hand. "What's the man staring at, as if he had gone mad?"
"Jack," cried Sir Jeoffry, his eyes still farther starting from
their sockets. "Jack! what say you? I cannot hear."
The next instant he sprang up, shrieking, and thrusting with his
hands as if warding something off.
"Keep back!" he yelled. "There is green mould on thee. Where hast
thou been to grow mouldy? Keep back! Where hast thou been?"
His friends at table started up, staring at him and losing colour;
he shrieked so loud and strangely, he clutched his hair with his
hands, and fell into his chair, raving, clutching, and staring, or
dashing his head down upon the table to hide his face, and then
raising it as if he could not resist being drawn in his affright to
gaze again. There was no soothing him. He shouted, and struggled
with those who would have held him. 'Twas Jack Oxon who was there,
he swore--Jack, who kept stealing slowly nearer to him, his face and
his fine clothes damp and green, he beat at the air with mad hands,
and at last fell upon the floor, and rolled, foaming at the mouth.
They contrived, after great strugglings, to bear him to his chamber,
but it took the united strength of all who would stay near him to
keep him from making an end of himself. By the dawn of day his boon
companions stood by him with their garments torn to tatters, their
faces drenched with sweat, and their own eyes almost starting from
their sockets; the doctor who had been sent for, coming in no hurry,
but scowled and shook his head when he beheld him.
"He is a dead man," he said, "and the wonder is that this has not
come before. He is sodden with drink and rotten with ill-living,
besides being past all the strength of youth. He dies of the life
he has lived."
'Twas little to be expected that his boon companions could desert
their homes and pleasures and tend his horrors longer than a night.
Such a sight as he presented did not inspire them to cheerful
spirits.
"Lord," said Sir Chris Crowell, "to see him clutch his flesh and
shriek and mouth, is enough to make a man live sober for his
remaining days," and he shook his big shoulders with a shudder.
"Ugh!" he said, "God grant I may make a better end. He writhes as
in hell-fire."
"There is but one on earth who will do aught for him," said
Eldershawe. "'Tis handsome Clo, who is a duchess; but she will come
and tend him, I could swear. Even when she was a lawless devil of a
child she had a way of standing by her friends and fearing naught."
So after taking counsel together they sent for her, and in as many
hours as it took to drive from London, her coach stood before the
door. By this time all the household was panic-stricken and in
hopeless disorder, the women-servants scattered and shuddering in
far corners of the house; such men as could get out of the way
having found work to do afield or in the kennels, for none had nerve
to stay where they could hear the madman's shrieks and howls.
Her Grace, entering the house, went with her woman straight to her
chamber, and shortly emerged therefrom, stripped of her rich
apparel, and clad in a gown of strong blue linen, her hair wound
close, her white hands bare of any ornament, save the band of gold
which was her wedding-ring. A serving-woman might have been clad
so; but the plainness of her garb but made her height, and strength,
so reveal themselves, that the mere sight of her woke somewhat that
was like to awe in the eyes of the servants who beheld her as she
passed.
She needed not to be led, but straightway followed the awful sounds,
until she reached the chamber behind whose door they were shut.
Upon the huge disordered bed, Sir Jeoffry writhed, and tried to tear
himself, his great sinewy and hairy body almost stark. Two of the
stable men were striving to hold him.
The duchess went to his bedside and stood there, laying her strong
white hand upon his shuddering shoulder.
"Father," she said, in a voice so clear, and with such a ring of
steady command, as, the men said later, might have reached a dead
man's ear. "Father, 'tis Clo!"
Sir Jeoffry writhed his head round and glared at her, with starting
eyes and foaming mouth.
"Who says 'tis Clo?" he shouted. "'Tis a lie! She was ever a
bigger devil than any other, though she was but a handsome wench.
Jack himself could not manage her. She beat him, and would beat him
now. 'Tis a lie!"
All through that day and night the power of her Grace's white arm
was the thing which saved him from dashing out his brains. The two
men could not have held him, and at his greatest frenzy they
observed that now and then his blood-shot eye would glance aside at
the beauteous face above him. The sound of the word "Clo" had
struck upon his brain and wakened an echo.
She sent away the men to rest, calling for others in their places;
but leave the bedside herself she would not. 'Twas a strange thing
to see her strength and bravery, which could not be beaten down.
When the doctor came again he found her there, and changed his surly
and reluctant manner in the presence of a duchess, and one who in
her close linen gown wore such a mien.
"You should not have left him," she said to him unbendingly, "even
though I myself can see there is little help that can be given.
Thought you his Grace and I would brook that he should die alone if
we could not have reached him?"
Those words "his Grace and I" put a new face upon the matter, and
all was done that lay within the man's skill; but most was he
disturbed concerning the lady, who would not be sent to rest, and
whose noble consort would be justly angered if she were allowed to
injure her superb health.
"His Grace knew what I came to do and how I should do it," the
duchess said, unbending still. "But for affairs of State which held
him, he would have been here at my side."
She held her place throughout the second night, and that was worse
than the first--the paroxysms growing more and more awful; for Jack
was within a yard, and stretched out a green and mouldy hand, the
finger-bones showing through the flesh, the while he smiled awfully.
At last one pealing scream rang out after another, until after
making his shuddering body into an arc resting on heels and head,
the madman fell exhausted, his flesh all quaking before the eye.
Then the duchess waved the men who helped, away. She sat upon the
bed's edge close--close to her father's body, putting her two firm
hands on either of his shoulders, holding him so, and bent down,
looking into his wild face, as if she fixed upon his very soul all
the power of her wondrous will.
"Father," she said, "look at my face. Thou canst if thou wilt.
Look at my face. Then wilt thou see 'tis Clo--and she will stand by
thee."
She kept her gaze upon his very pupils; and though 'twas at first as
if his eyes strove to break away from her look, their effort was
controlled by her steadfastness, and they wandered back at last, and
her great orbs held them. He heaved a long breath, half a big,
broken sob, and lay still, staring up at her.
"Ay," he said, "'tis Clo! 'tis Clo!"
The sweat began to roll from his forehead, and the tears down his
cheeks. He broke forth, wailing like a child.
"Clo--Clo," he said, "I am in hell."
She put her hand on his breast, keeping will and eyes set on him.
"Nay," she answered; "thou art on earth, and in thine own bed, and I
am here, and will not leave thee."
She made another sign to the men who stood and stared aghast in
wonder at her, but feeling in the very air about her the spell to
which the madness had given way.
"'Twas not mere human woman who sat there," they said afterwards in
the stables among their fellows. "'Twas somewhat more. Had such a
will been in an evil thing a man's hair would have risen on his
skull at the seeing of it."
"Go now," she said to them, "and send women to set the place in
order."
She had seen delirium and death enough in the doings of her deeds of
mercy, to know that his strength had gone and death was coming. His
bed and room were made orderly, and at last he lay in clean linen,
with all made straight. Soon his eyes seemed to sink into his head
and stare from hollows, and his skin grew grey, but ever he stared
only at his daughter's face.
"Clo," he said at last, "stay by me! Clo, go not away!"
"I shall not go," she answered.
She drew a seat close to his bed and took his hand. It lay knotted
and gnarled and swollen-veined upon her smooth palm, and with her
other hand she stroked it. His breath came weak and quick, and fear
grew in his eyes.
"What is it, Clo?" he said. "What is't?"
"'Tis weakness," replied she, soothing him. "Soon you will sleep."
"Ay," he said, with a breath like a sob. "'Tis over."
His big body seemed to collapse, he shrank so in the bed-clothes.
"What day o' the year is it?" he asked.
"The tenth of August," was her answer.
"Sixty-nine years from this day was I born," he said, "and now 'tis
done."
"Nay," said she--"nay--God grant--"
"Ay," he said, "done. Would there were nine and sixty more. What a
man I was at twenty. I want not to die, Clo. I want to live--to
live--live, and be young," gulping, "with strong muscle and moist
flesh. Sixty-nine years--and they are gone!"
He clung to her hand, and stared at her with awful eyes. Through
all his life he had been but a great, strong, human carcass; and he
was now but the same carcass worn out, and at death's door. Of not
one human thing but of himself had he ever thought, not one creature
but himself had he ever loved--and now he lay at the end, harking
back only to the wicked years gone by.
"None can bring them back," he shuddered. "Not even thou, Clo, who
art so strong. None--none! Canst pray, Clo?" with the gasp of a
craven.
"Not as chaplains do," she answered. "I believe not in a God who
clamours but for praise."
"What dost believe in, then?"
"In One who will do justice, and demands that it shall be done to
each thing He has made, by each who bears His image--ay, and mercy
too--but justice always, for justice is mercy's highest self."
Who knows the mysteries of the human soul--who knows the workings of
the human brain? The God who is just alone. In this man's mind,
which was so near a simple beast's in all its movings, some remote,
unborn consciousness was surely reached and vaguely set astir by the
clear words thus spoken.
"Clo, Clo!" he cried, "Clo, Clo!" in terror, clutching her the
closer, "what dost thou mean? In all my nine and sixty years--" and
rolled his head in agony.
In all his nine and sixty years he had shown justice to no man,
mercy to no woman, since he had thought of none but Jeoffry
Wildairs; and this truth somehow dimly reached his long-dulled brain
and wakened there.
"Down on thy knees, Clo!" he gasped--"down on thy knees!"
It was so horrible, the look struggling in his dying face, that she
went down upon her knees that moment, and so knelt, folding his
shaking hands within her own against her breast.
"Thou who didst make him as he was born into Thy world," she said,
"deal with that to which Thou didst give life--and death. Show him
in this hour, which Thou mad'st also, that Thou art not Man who
would have vengeance, but that justice which is God."
"Then--then," he gasped--"then will He damn me!"
"He will weigh thee," she said; "and that which His own hand created
will He separate from that which was thine own wilful wrong--and
this, sure, He will teach thee how to expiate."
"Clo," he cried again -"thy mother--she was but a girl, and died
alone--I did no justice to her!--Daphne! Daphne!" And he shook
beneath the bed-clothes, shuddering to his feet, his face growing
more grey and pinched.
"She loved thee once," Clorinda said. "She was a gentle soul, and
would not forget. She will show thee mercy."
"Birth she went through," he muttered, "and death--alone. Birth and
death! Daphne, my girl--" And his voice trailed off to
nothingness, and he lay staring at space, and panting.
The duchess sat by him and held his hand. She moved not, though at
last he seemed to fall asleep. Two hours later he began to stir.
He turned his head slowly upon his pillows until his gaze rested
upon her, as she sat fronting him. 'Twas as though he had awakened
to look at her.
"Clo!" he cried, and though his voice was but a whisper, there was
both wonder and wild question in it--"Clo!"
But she moved not, her great eyes meeting his with steady gaze; and
even as they so looked at each other his body stretched itself, his
lids fell--and he was a dead man.
