Egerton Castle

“ Sophia is in bed, it turns out; Rupert out a-riding, on important business, of course! all he does is desperately important. And there you are—alone in your room, moping. God, child, how pale you are! What ails you then?"
"Molly," cried Madeleine, ignoring Lady Landale's question and feverishly folding the written sheet which lay under her hand, "if you love me, if ever you loved me, will you have this letter conveyed by a safe messenger to Scarthey, and given to René—to none but René, at once? Oh, Molly, it will be a service to me, you little guess of what moment!" ”

“ Ay—Molly, and Molly—how shocked you are! Yes, I love him, I don't care who hears it. I love him—Adrian knows—he is not as virtuous as you, evidently, for Adrian pities me. He is doing all he can, though they say it is in vain, to get a reprieve for him—though I do love him! While you—you are too good, too immaculate even to soil your dainty foot upon the floor of his prison, that floor that I could kiss because his shoe has trod it. But it is impossible! no human being could be so hard, least of all you, whom I have seen turn sick at the sight of a dead worm—Madeleine——! ”

“ To find that I could not open my window and look into the wide, wide world over to the long, green hills in the distance, and know that I could wander or gallop up to them, as I did at Bunratty, and see for myself what lies beyond—surely that was a taste of heaven that day when Tanty Rose first allowed me to mount her old pony, and I flew over the turf with the wind whistling in my ears—to find that I could not go out when I pleased and hear new voices and see new faces, and men and women who live each their own life, and not the same life as mine. ”

“ My Lady is gone, gone to Pulwick. His honour need not disquiet himself; he can well imagine that I would not allow her to go alone—when I had been given a trust so precious. No, no, the old lady, Miss O'Donoghue, your honour's aunt and her ladyship's, she has heard of all these terrible doings, and came to Lancaster to be with My Lady. Ma foi, I know not if she be just the person one would have chosen, for she has scolded a great deal, and is as agitated—as agitated as a young rabbit. But, after all, she loves the poor young lady with all her heart, and I think she has roused her a little. ”

“ I mind me of the seagull on the island. 'Tis all in the most loving care in the world, of course, but oh! the oppression of it! I must hide my feelings as well as I can, for in my heart I would not grieve that good man, that excellent man, that pattern of kind gentleman—oh, oh, oh—it will out—that dreary man, that dull man, that most melancholy of all men! Who sighs more than he smiles, and, I warrant, of the two, his sighs are the more cheerful; who looks at his beautiful wife as if he saw a ghost, and kisses her as if he kissed a corpse!
There is a mate for Molly! ”

“ Hubert Cochrane was not to reach that kiss of acquiescence, that kiss from which it seemed that but so small a fraction of space and time divided him! Some one, who had stepped along in the shadow as silently as a cat coming upon a bird, clapped here a hand upon his shoulder.
"Who are you, sir, and what do you want?" exclaimed Captain Jack, wrenching himself free, falling back a pace and measuring the new-comer from head to foot with furious glances, while, with burning blushes Madeleine faltered:
"Rupert!"
Nothing awakens anger in hot blood sooner than an unsanctioned touch. ”

“ The past for all its sorrows had held sweetness: the present, the future, nothing but torment. And now, even the past, with its love and its sorrow was gone from him, merged in the greater love and sorrow of the present. How long could he bear it?—Useless clamour of the soul! He must bear it. Life must be accepted.
Sir Adrian rose and, standing, paused a moment to let his sight, wandering beyond the immense sands, seek repose for a moment in the blue haze marking the horizon of the hills. The day was pure, exquisite in its waning beauty; the breeze as light and soft as a caress. ”

“ And out of the travail of my mind around it, out of the changing shadows of restless speculation, gradually emerged, clear and alive, the being of Adrian Landale and his two loves.
Here then was a man, whose mind, moulded by nature for grace and contemplation, was cast by fate amid all the turmoils of Romance and action. Here was one of those whose warm heart and idealising enthusiasm must wreathe the beauty of love into all the beauties of the world; whose ideals are spent on one adored object; who, having lost it, seems to have lost the very sense of love ”

“ Now, I suppose I am the only one in the world, besides René, who knows this man as he is. And I am proud of it.
And it is for this constancy, which no vulgar soul of them can understand, that Rupert and his class have dubbed the gallant gentleman a madman. It fills me with scorn of them. I do not yet know what love is, therefore of course I cannot fathom its grief; but this much I know—that if I loved and yet could not reach as high as ever love may reach both in joy and sorrow, I should despise myself. I, too, would draw the utmost from life that life can give. ”

“ Sir Adrian read a good deal, or at least appeared so to do; but René, who kept him more than ever under his glances of wistful sympathy, noted that far from being absorbed, as of old, in the pages of his book, the recluse's eyes wandered much off its edges into space; that when writing, or at least intent on writing, his pen would linger long in the bottle and hover listlessly over the paper; that he was more abstracted, even than his wont, when looking out of the eastern window; and that on the platform of the beacon it was the landward view which most drew his gaze. ”

“ She closed her eyes again and the colour slowly ebbed away. Molly stood, her black brows drawn, gazing down upon her in silence.—Did she love him after all? Who can fathom the mystery of another's heart?
"I will tell him," she answered at last. "Good-bye, Madeleine—I shall never see you or speak to you again as long as I live."
She left the room with a slow, heavy step.
Madeleine shivered, and with both hands clasped the silver crucifix that hung around her neck; two great tears escaped from her black lashes and rolled down her cheeks. Miss Sophia moaned. ”

“ Adrian the solitary, the pessimist, the I-don't-know-what superior man, in love! Neither more nor less! In love, like an every-day inhabitant of these realms, and with that black-eyed sister of mine that is to be! My word, it's too perfect! Adrian my brother-in-law—for if I gauge that fine creature properly—splendid old lady—she won't let him slide back this time. No, my dear Adrian, you are hooked for matrimony and a return to the living world. That black-eyed jade too, that Molly sister of my Madeleine, will wake up and lead you a life, by George!... ”

“ You've the luck, Adrian; more luck than you deserve."
"It is I who have more luck than I deserve," answered Madame de Savenaye, smiling upon her young knight as, taking heart of grace, he stooped to seal the treaty upon her hand. "To say the truth, I had hoped for this, yet hardly dared to allow myself to count upon it. And really, uncle, you give your own son to my cause?—and you, cousin, you are willing to work for me? I am indeed strengthened at the outset of my undertaking. I shall pray that you may never have cause to regret your chivalrous goodness." ”

“ Oh, why did we leave it, Molly, why did we leave it!" She broke down, and the tears gushed from her eyes.
Lady Landale had listened in silence.
"Well—is that all?" she said impatiently, when her sister ceased speaking, while in the background Tanty groaned out a protest, and bewailed that she was alive to see the day. "What does it matter what you do afterwards—you can go to the convent—go where you will then; but what has that to say to your visit to him now?"
"I have done with all human love," said Madeleine solemnly, crossing her hands on her breast, and looking upward with inspired eyes. ”

“ A man can feel the suddenly revealed charm of things that have ceased to be, without regretting them.
With the dear young head that he loved, with a love already as old as her very years, pressing his cheek; with that slender hand in his grasp, the same, for his love was all miracle, that he had held in the hot-pulsed days of old—he yet felt his mind wander back to his nest of dreams. He thought with gratitude of René, the single-minded, faithful familiar; of old Margery, the nurse who had tended Cécile's children, as well as her young master ”

“ The cutter, struck obliquely amidships, was thrown straightway on her beam ends: the Peregrine, with every sail spread and swollen, held her as the preying bird with outstretched wings holds its quarry, and pressed her down until she began to fill and settle. It was with wide-open eyes, with eager, throbbing heart that Molly watched it all.
"Lights, my lads," cried Captain Jack, with a shout of exultation, when the anxious instant had passed. "Take in every man you can save but handspike is the word for the first who shows fight! Curwen, do you get her clear again." ”

“ There was a breathless pause. Tanty, leaning forward across the table, crimson, agitated, yet triumphant; Adrian's white face blasted with astonishment. "Marry her," he echoed at length once more, in a whisper this time. Then with a groan: "This is madness!"
Miss O'Donoghue caught him up briskly. "Madness? My good fellow, not a bit of it; on the contrary, sanity, happiness, prosperity.—Adrian, don't stand staring at me like a stuck pig! Why, in the name of conscience, should not you marry? ”

“ I called out, 'Stretchers, lads; they want to take your captain?' My lads gathered round me at once. But there was silence; not another creature to be seen or heard. They set to work to get that last blessed bit of cargo, the cause of all the misery, on board with the rest; while I stood in the growing dawn, looking down at the motionless figure and at the blood trickling into the sand, trying to think, to settle what to do, and only conscious of one thing: the intense wish that I could change places with my victim. Can you wonder, Adrian, that my brain was reeling? ”

“ Molly had turned round to watch. Up to this she had felt no regret for his disillusion, only an irritable heat of temper that he should waste so much love upon so poor an object. But now all her heart went to him as she saw the sudden greyness that fell on his face from the reading of the very first line; there was no indignation, no blood-stirring emotion; it was as if a cold pall had fallen upon his generous spirit. The very room looked darker when the fire within the brave soul was thus all of a sudden extinguished. ”

“ Such was the end of Adrian Landale, aged twenty—the end that should have been—The pity that it was not permitted!
After the pangs of unwelcome death, the misery of unwelcome return to life. Oh, René, René, too faithful follower; thou and the other true men who, heedless of danger, hanging on the flanks of the victorious enemy, never ceased to watch your lady from afar. You would have saved her, could courage and faithfulness and cunning have availed! But, since she was dead, René, would thou hadst left us to drift on to the endless sea! ”

“ Bah! you never loved him. You don't even understand what it is to love.... But what could one expect from you, who abandoned him in the moment of danger. You are afraid; afraid of the painful scene, the discomfort, the sight of the prison, of his beautiful face worn and changed—afraid of the discredit. Oh! I know you, I know you. But mind you, Madeleine de Savenaye, he wishes to see you, and I swore you would go to him, and you shall go, if I have to drag you with these hands of mine. ”

“ Is this life, I am so eager for, but horror and misery after all? Would it be better to leave the book unopened? They said so at the convent. But what can they know of life at a convent?
He bent his kind face towards mine in the thickening gloom, as though to read my thoughts, and his lips moved, but he did not speak aloud. Then, above the song of the waves as they gathered, rolled in, and fell upon the shingle all around, there came the beat of oars.
"Hark," said Sir Adrian, "our good René!" ”

“ Yet I hold her in my power, I could write to Tanty, put Rupert on the track.... Nay, I have not fallen so low as to become Rupert's accomplice yet!
And so the days go on. Between my husband's increasing melancholy, my own mad regrets, Rupert's watchfulness, Madeleine's absorption and Sophia's twaddle, my brain reels. I feel sometimes as if I could scream aloud, as we all sit round the table, and I know that this is the life that I am doomed to, and that the days may go on, go on thus, till I am old. Poor Murthering Moll the second! ”

“ And when I went away, your honour, and left him hammering there—faith, I thought that the coffin was like to be seasoned by another kind of salt water too."
His face twitched and the ready tears sprang to his own eyes which, unashamed, he now wiped with his sleeve after his custom. But Sir Adrian's mind was still drifting in distant ghastly companionship.
"How the wind blows!" he said, and shuddered a little. "How the poor body must sway in the wind, and the chains creak."
"If it can make any difference to the poor captain he will lie in peace to-night, please God," said René. ”

“ What is it, why don't you tell me?"
"Madeleine," said Molly, suddenly, after a lengthy pause, "I am simply haunted by that light over yonder, the Light of Scarthey. There is a mystery about those ruins, on which I keep meditating all day long. I want to know more. It draws me. I would give anything to be able, now, to set sail and land there all unknown to any one, and see what manner of life is led where that light is burning." ”

“ Good man, he weeps and cannot speak the sacred words he would. Why weep? We must all die! How blue the sky is: he will look once more before drawing down the cap upon his eyes. His hands are free, for he is to die as like a gentleman as may be. Just the old blue that used to smile down at him upon his merry Peregrine, and up at him from the dancing waves. He had always thought he would have liked to die upon the sea, in the cool fresh water ... a clean, brave death.
It is hard to die in a crowd. Even the very beasts would creep into cave or bush to die decently—unwatched. ”

“ Had not Sir Adrian intuitively known well-nigh every act of the drama which had already been so fatal to his house, Molly's frenzied utterances would have told him all. Every secret incident of that storm of passion which had desolated her life was laid bare to his sorrowing heart:—her aspirations for an ideal, centred suddenly upon one man; her love rapture cruelly baulked at every step; the consuming of that love fire, resisting all frustration of hope, all efforts of conscience, of honour ”

“ Well, well, I must make up my mind, I suppose, that my eldest son is a lunatic in love with a savage."
Adrian remained silent for a while, toying with his glass, his young brow contracted under a painful frown. At length, checking a sigh, he answered with deliberation:
"Since it is so palpable to others, I suppose it must be love, as you say. I had thought hitherto that love of which people talk so much was a feeling of sweetness. What I feel in this lady's presence is much more kin to anguish; for all that, as you have noticed, I appear to live only when she is nigh." ”