_ CHAPTER XLVII. A STRANGE EXPIATION
'When some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness faileth suddenly,
And silence against which you dare not cry
Aches round you like a strong disease and new,
What hope? what help?...
...Nay, none of these.
Speak, Thou availing Christ! and fill this pause.'
MRS. BROWNING.
Mrs. Ross soon discovered that Audrey wished to remain in town until the funeral was over, and she at once wrote off to her husband for the required permission.
Dr. Ross made no objection; he meant to be present himself at the funeral, and as he had some important business that would detain him another day or so in London, he suggested that they should accompany him back to Woodcote.
Audrey seemed satisfied when she had read her father's letter. He had sent her a message that touched her greatly.
'I hope our child will not grieve over-much,' he wrote. 'Tell her that her father sympathises with her most fully. By and by she will read the meaning of this painful lesson. As for poor Cyril, one can only long to change places with him. His was a short and fiery trial, but at least he was spared the burden and heat of the day. When one thinks of his blameless youth, and the manly endurance with which he met and faced his trouble, one can only be thankful that he has been taken out of a life that would have been only one long struggle and disappointment, and has entered so early into his rest.'
'Father is right,' murmured Audrey, as she read this. 'Every morning I wake I thank God that he has ceased to suffer.'
Audrey went every day to see Mollie, and to spend a few minutes by Cyril's coffin. She went with Michael to Highgate to choose his last resting-place, and no other hands but hers arranged the flowers that decked the chamber of death. Mrs. Blake remained in her own room, and refused to see anyone. Biddy's account of her mistress was very unsatisfactory.
'She does not sleep unless I give her the doctor's soothing stuff,' she confessed one day, when Audrey questioned her very closely, 'and sometimes I cannot coax her to take it. "I don't want to sleep, Biddy," that is all her cry. "If I sleep I must wake, and the waking is too terrible." Unless Blessed Mary and the saints help my mistress,' continued Biddy, wiping the tears from her withered cheeks, 'I think she will go out of her mind. She spends half the night in that room. Early this morning I missed her, and found her lying in a dead faint beside the coffin. She does not eat, and I never see her shed a tear. She sits rocking herself and moaning as though she were in pain, and then she starts up and walks the room till it turns one giddy to see her. I dare not leave her a moment. If she would only see a doctor! but, poor soul, she will do nothing now to please her old Biddy.'
'I must see her,' exclaimed Audrey, horrified at this description of wild, unchastened grief. 'Biddy, will you take this note to her?' and Biddy, nothing loath, carried off the slip of paper.
Audrey had only pencilled a few words:
'My poor friend, let me come to you; ours is the same sorrow. For Cyril's sake, do not refuse me.'
But Biddy came back the next moment shaking her head very sorrowfully.
'I can do nought with her,' she said hastily. 'She sends her love, Miss Ross, but she will see no one--no one. I have done the best I can for you, but I dare not anger her,' finished the old woman, moving sadly away. 'Why, she has not seen Master Kester, though he came to her door last night! We must leave her alone until she comes round to her right mind.'
'Do you think she will be at the funeral?' Michael asked more than once; but no one was able to answer this question.
But when the day came she was there, closely veiled, so that no one could see her face, and as she walked to the grave, between Kester and Mollie, her step seemed as firm as ever. Michael had written to Matthew O'Brien the particulars of his son's death, and had told him that a place would be reserved for him among the mourners; but to this there was no reply.
Just as the service began in the chapel, however, a tall man with a gray moustache slipped into the seat behind Kester. When the sad procession filed out into the cemetery, Audrey and Michael drew back to let him pass, but he made signs for them to precede him. But at the end, as they all crowded round the open grave to take their last look at the flower-decked coffin, Mat O'Brien stood for a moment by his wife's side. Audrey said afterwards that she was sure Mrs. Blake saw him; she started slightly, but took no further notice. The tears were streaming down Mat's face, and Mollie, with girlish sympathy, had slipped her hand through his arm; but the mother stood in stony impassiveness beside them, until Kester whispered something to her and led her away. The rest of the mourners had dispersed, but Audrey stood there still, looking thoughtfully down into the grave. Dr. Ross and his wife had followed the others, but Michael had kept his place beside Audrey.
'I think they are waiting for us, dear,' he said at last, as though to rouse her.
Then she turned her face to him.
'I like being here,' she replied simply; 'and yet it is not pain to leave him lying there. Michael, I feel like Christian. Do you remember how his burden rolled off into an open grave? Somehow, mine has rolled off, too.'
'You mean that you are happy about him.'
'Yes. It is so sweet to think that he will never suffer any more. Oh, Michael, it has been such a burden! I never seemed to have a moment's peace or comfort. Every night I used to think, "How has he passed to-day? Has it been very bad with him?" And sometimes the thought of all he was bearing seemed to weigh me to the earth.'
'And you never spoke of this to anyone--you bore all this by yourself?'
'It was no use to speak. No one could help me. It was his pain, not mine. Now it will be different. He is safe and happy, and as for me, I must try to live now for other people.'
And then, with a smile that touched him to the heart, she stepped back from the grave and told him that she was ready.
Somehow, Michael felt comforted by those few words. His intuition and knowledge of Audrey's character gave him hope that after a time she would recover her old elasticity. 'Until now,' he said to himself, 'she has so fully identified herself with him, that she has simply had no life of her own. Her sympathetic nature has reflected only his thoughts and feelings. I doubt whether she has ever questioned herself as to her love for him; she has taken everything for granted. And now she has lost him, the thought of his happiness seems to swallow up all thought of her own grief. Such unselfishness will bring its own healing.' And in this way Michael comforted himself about her.
That evening Audrey received a message that surprised her greatly. Kester brought it. His mother would see her the next day; someone had told her that Audrey was going back to Woodcote, and she had at once expressed a wish that she should not leave without bidding her good-bye.
'Tell her that I can speak now, and that I have much to say to her.' And the strangeness of this message filled Audrey with perplexity.
Michael took her to Kensington the next day. He had to fetch Kester; the boy was going back to Brighton: there was no good in his lingering in London. His mother took no pleasure in his society; his overtures to his father had made a breach between them, and she had treated him with silent displeasure.
But he told Michael, as they drove to the station, that she had been kinder in her manner to him that morning than she had been for months.
'She kissed me more than once, and held my hand as though she did not like bidding me good bye. She looks awfully ill,' continued the boy, with a choke in his voice; 'and when I asked her to be good to Mollie, she said quite gently that she had been a bad mother to us both; that she had not considered us enough, and that God was punishing her for it. I begged her not to say it, but she repeated it again. "You and Mollie will be better without me," she went on. Oh, Captain Burnett! do you think she will die? I never saw anyone look quite so bad,' persisted Kester sadly.
Biddy took Audrey up at once to her mistress's room.
'You will find her better,' she said shortly; 'the dumb spirit is cast out of her. That is the blessed saints' doing. I knew my mistress would come to her senses--Heaven be praised for it!'
The room was somewhat dark, and it was not until Audrey was quite close to Mrs. Blake that she noticed the change in her that had so shocked Kester.
The blackness of the plain stuff gown, unrelieved by any whiteness, may have made the contrast of her pale face more striking; but Audrey noticed that her dark hair was now streaked with gray. She had drawn it back from her face and coiled it tightly behind, as though her own appearance had ceased to interest her, and the sunken eyes and a certain sharp look about the cheekbones made her seem at least ten years older.
With a pity amounting to tenderness, Audrey would have put her arms round her; but Mrs. Blake drew back, and only suffered her to kiss her cheek.
'Dear Mrs. Blake----'
But she interrupted her.
'Do not call me that again,' she said hastily. 'There has been enough of deception and lies; my name is Olive O'Brien. As long as I remain in the world I wish to be called by that name.'
Then Audrey gazed at her in speechless consternation. What could this strange speech portend?
'Will you sit down?' she continued, at the same time seating herself in a high-backed chair that stood beside her bed.
A crucifix lay on a little table beside her, with a framed photograph of Cyril that she always carried about with her. From time to time she looked at them as she spoke.
'Biddy told me that you were going back to Rutherford, and I could not let you go without bidding you good-bye.'
'It would have made me very unhappy if you had not allowed me to see you.'
'I cannot believe that; but of course you mean it for the truth: that is why my boy loved you, because you are so absolutely true.' Her voice sank into a whisper, and a gloomy light came into her eyes. 'That is why his mother disappointed him, why he lost all trust in her, because falsehood was easier to her than truth.'
'But not now, dear Mrs. Blake; nay, I must call you by the old name. And what does it matter between us two if you have sinned? If your wrong-doing seems a heavy burden, you can at least repent.'
'I have repented,' she said, in a voice so strange and thrilling that Audrey felt inwardly troubled. 'In the hours of darkness by my boy's coffin I have humbled myself before my Maker, I have craved to expiate my sin. Audrey, listen to me,' she continued; 'I have sent for you because you loved my Cyril, because for a few months you made him happy. He was my idol, and that is why he has been taken from me--because I forgot God and truth, and sinned for his sake.'
'Yes; but you are sorry now.'
'What does such sorrow avail, except for my own purging? In a little while the world--this cruel, hard, outer world--will know me no more. I am going back to Ireland with Mollie and Biddy, and when I have made my peace with the Church I shall enter a convent.'
'Good heavens! what can you mean?'
'I have always been at heart a Catholic,' she returned in a mechanical tone; 'but while my boy lived I was content that his Church should be mine. All my life I have had a leaning to the older faith; now in my desolation I mean to shelter in the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church. She receives all penitents; she will not refuse me.'
'But your children--Mollie: would you forsake Mollie?' pleaded Audrey, with tears in her eyes. 'Would you neglect your sacred responsibilities for duties no one would demand of a mother?'
'Am I fit to discharge my responsibilities?' she returned in a cold, hard voice. 'Has anyone but Cyril ever kept me straight? Do you think Mollie and I could go on living the same old life without him? Audrey, you do not know what you say; such an existence would rob me of my reason.'
'But what will become of Mollie?' asked Audrey, concealing her alarm at this wild speech. 'You must not only think of yourself.'
'Mollie will go with me,' she returned. 'I shall not forsake her. The convent that I propose to enter has a home attached to it, where they educate girls belonging to the upper classes. Mollie will have plenty of companions. The nuns are kind women, and they will not coerce her in any way, and there will be sufficient for her maintenance.'
'But when she grows up--when her education is finished: what will become of her then?'
But Mrs. Blake did not seem clear on this point. The convent had its boarders, she remarked; with the superior's permission, Mollie might still remain there, and lead a tolerably happy life.
'There will be other young ladies; she will not be dull,' she went on. 'The rule is a strict one--that is why I chose it--but I should be allowed to see her sometimes; perhaps she too may turn Catholic, and then all will be well.'
But Audrey's honest nature revolted against this merciless arrangement. She saw clearly that Mrs. Blake's weak, excitable nature had been under some strong influence, though it was not until later that she heard that during the last few months she had secretly attended a Roman Catholic chapel near them. Doubtless Biddy, who was a stanch Romanist, had connived at this.
And now she had planned this strange expiation for herself, and poor Mollie must be sacrificed. What would Cyril have thought of such an unnatural arrangement? For Cyril's sake, for Mollie's, Audrey felt she must combat this notion.
'Mrs. Blake,' she said very earnestly, 'it is not for me to question your actions with regard to yourself. If you are at heart a Roman Catholic--if all these years you have been an unprofessed member of that Church--it may be as well for you to acknowledge it openly. I do not believe myself that a convent life is free from its trials and temptations. Human nature is the same everywhere, and even sanctified human nature is liable to error. Wiser people than myself would tell you that peace of mind would be more surely attained by remaining in the path of duty. Dear Mrs. Blake, forgive me if I pain you, but would'--she hesitated a moment--'would not Cyril have disapproved of his mother taking such a step?'
'I think not,' was the response. 'My boy's eyes are purified now; he would judge differently. I shall devote the remainder of my life to praying for the repose of his soul, and in repentance for my miserable past; and it may be'--here she lifted her clasped hands, and a faint light came into her eyes--'that Heaven may release me from my misery before many years are over, and my purified soul may be allowed to find rest.'
'God grant you may find it, poor, misguided woman!' was Audrey's secret prayer; but she merely said aloud:
'We must live out our life as long as the Divine will ordains; but, Mrs. Blake, I must speak of Mollie. If you will sacrifice yourself, you have no right to sacrifice her. For Cyril's sake, let me have her!'
'You, Audrey!'
'Yes, I. Have we not been like sisters all these months? I think Cyril would love to know she was with me; he was so fond of Mollie. He liked to see us together. It will make me happier to have her; when Michael is away I have no companion.'
'Do you really mean it?' asked Mrs. Blake, in an astonished voice. 'You are very good, Audrey, but you are not your own mistress. Dr. Ross would never consent to such an arrangement.'
'I have my own money. No one would be put to any expense for Mollie, unless you wished to provide for her yourself.'
'I should certainly wish that.'
'Then in that case there will be no difficulty at all. I know my father too well to fear a refusal from him. I will go back to South Audley Street and speak to him and my mother, and to-morrow you shall know their answer; but you must promise me one thing before I go--that, if they consent, you will let me have Mollie.'
'She will be happier with you than in the convent,' replied Mrs. Blake, in a musing tone. 'After all, it would have been a dull existence for her, poor child!' There was a touch of motherliness in her voice as she spoke. 'Yes, you shall have her. I think my boy would have wished it.'
And Audrey's grateful kiss sealed the compact.
'But there is something else I must say,' continued Mrs. Blake, when they had talked a little more about Mollie--at least, Audrey had talked. 'I want you to give Mat a message from me.'
'Mr. O'Brien!'
'Yes, my husband. Have I not told you that I have humbled myself to the dust? Before I leave the world I would make my peace even with him. Will you give him my message?'
'Assuredly I will.'
'Tell him that I have repented at last, and that I would fain have his forgiveness--that I know now that I had no right to rob him of his children. If the time came over again--but no; how can I tell whether things would have been different? Mat would always have been Mat, and I could not alter my own nature. Oh, if I had only been good like you, Audrey!' she sighed bitterly.
'You must not talk any more,' observed Audrey, alarmed by the look of utter exhaustion on the wan face. 'Shall I leave you now to rest a little?'
'Rest?' Audrey never forgot the tone in which the unhappy woman uttered the word. 'How can one rest on such a pillow of thorns? No; the time is too short. I must be up and about my work. Will you bid me good-bye, now? After to-day we shall not meet again. You shall write to me about Mollie; but this interview has exhausted me, and I must husband my strength.'
'If I could only comfort you!'
The sad yearning in Audrey's voice seemed to touch Mrs. Blake, and as the girl clung to her she pressed her to her bosom.
'God bless you for all your goodness to him and to me! Every day I live I shall pray for you.' Her voice broke; with a sudden impulse she kissed her again and again, then pushed her gently from her. 'Go, go!' she said faintly, 'and send Biddy to me.' And Audrey dared not linger.
But she looked quite white and shaken when she rejoined Michael; she could scarcely speak to Mollie, and she seemed relieved when her cousin told her that his hansom was at the door. The soft autumnal breeze seemed to refresh her, and after a little while she was able to tell Michael all that had passed between her and Mrs. Blake. Michael took it very coolly; he seemed to have fully expected something of the kind.
'Poor soul! she will always be true to herself,' he observed. 'It is singular how these unbalanced, pleasure-loving natures lean towards asceticism--how rapidly they pass from one extreme to another. Even her repentance is not free from selfishness. She would free herself from her maternal responsibilities, as she freed herself from her marriage vows, under the mistaken notion of expiating a sinful past; and she will labour under the delusion that such an ill-conceived sacrifice will be pleasing to the Almighty.'
'Yes; it is a great mistake,' she returned.
'A very great mistake. The longer I live, Audrey, the more I marvel at the way people deceive themselves. The name of religion cloaks hidden selfishness to an extent you could hardly credit; the majority are too much engrossed in trying to save their own souls to care what becomes of other people. One would think it was "Save yourself, and the devil take the hindmost!" when one sees so-called Christians scurrying along the narrow way, as they call it, without a thought to the brother or sister who has fallen beside them.'
'It is very grievous,' returned Audrey sadly. 'What would my poor Cyril have said to such an expiation? Michael, this interview with his mother has tried me more than anything. I think the hardest thing in life is when we see those we love turn down a wrong path, and when no entreaty will induce them to retrace their steps.'
'It is a sight one sees every day,' was Michael's reply; and then, as he saw how jaded and weary she was, he began to tell her about Kester, and after that they talked of Mollie. And when Audrey found that Michael approved of her plan, and was as anxious as she was herself that Mollie should accompany them to Woodcote, she began to discuss the subject with her old animation, and by the time the drive was over the harassed look had passed away from her face. _