East Lynne Part 129

"Who is to keep me out?" demanded Miss Carlyle, after a pause of surprise, her tone of quiet power. "Move away, girl. Joyce, I think your brain must be softening. What will you try at next?"

Joyce was powerless, both in right and strength, and she knew it. She knew there was no help--that Miss Carlyle would and must enter. She stood aside, s.h.i.+vering, and pa.s.sed out of the room as soon as Miss Carlyle was within it.

Ah! there could no longer be concealment now! There she was, her pale face lying against the pillow, free from its disguising trappings. The band of gray velvet, the spectacles, the wraps for the throat and chin, the huge cap, all were gone. It was the face of Lady Isabel; changed, certainly, very, very much; but still hers. The silvered hair fell on either side of her face, like the silky curls had once fallen; the sweet, sad eyes were the eyes of yore.

"Mercy be good to us!" uttered Miss Carlyle.

They remained gazing at each other, both panting with emotion; yes, even Miss Carlyle. Though a wild suspicion had once crossed her brain that Madame Vine might be Lady Isabel, it had died away again, from the sheer improbability of the thing, as much as from the convincing proofs offered by Lord Mount Severn. Not but what Miss Carlyle had borne in mind the suspicion, and had been fond of tracing the likeness in Madame Vine's face.

"How could you dare come back here!" she abruptly asked, her tone of sad, soft wailing, not one of reproach.

Lady Isabel humbly crossed her attenuated hands upon her chest. "My children," she whispered. "How could I stay away from them? Have pity, Miss Carlyle! Don't reproach me. I am on my way to G.o.d, to answer for all my sins and sorrows."

"I do not reproach you," said Miss Carlyle.

"I am so glad to go," she continued to murmur, her eyes full of tears.

"Jesus did not come, you know, to save the good like you; He came for the sake of us poor sinners. I tried to take up my cross, as He bade us, and bear it bravely for His sake; but its weight has killed me."

The good like you! Humbly, meekly, deferentially was it expressed, in all good faith and trust, as though Miss Corny was a sort of upper angel. Somehow the words grated on Miss Corny's ear: grated fiercely on her conscience. It came into her mind, then, as she stood there, that the harsh religion that she had through life professed, was not the religion that would best bring peace to her dying bed.

"Child," said she, drawing near to and leaning over Lady Isabel, "had I anything to do with sending you from East Lynne?"

Lady Isabel shook her head and cast down her gaze, as she whispered: "You did not send me; you did not help to send me. I was not very happy with you, but that was not the cause--of my going away. Forgive me, Miss Carlyle, forgive me!"

"Thank G.o.d!" inwardly breathed Miss Carlyle. "Forgive me," she said, aloud and in agitation, touching her hand. "I could have made your home happier, and I wish I had done it. I have wished it ever since you left it."

Lady Isabel drew the hand in hers. "I want to see Archibald," she whispered, going back, in thought, to the old time and the old name. "I have prayed Joyce to bring him to me, and she will not. Only for a minute! Just to hear him say that he forgives me! What can it matter, now that I am as one lost to the world? I should die easier."

Upon what impulse or grounds Miss Carlyle saw fit to accede to the request, cannot be told. Probably she did not choose to refuse a death- bed prayer; possibly she reasoned, as did Lady Isabel--what could it matter? She went to the door. Joyce was in the corridor, leaning against the wall, her ap.r.o.n up to her eyes. Miss Carlyle beckoned to her.

"How long have you known of this?"

"Since that night in the spring, when there was an alarm of fire. I saw her then, with nothing on her face, and knew her; though, at the first moment, I thought it was her ghost. Ma'am, I have just gone about since, like a ghost myself from fear."

"Go and request your master to come up to me."

"Oh, ma'am! Will it be well to tell him?" remonstrated Joyce. "Well that he should see her?"

"Go and request your master to come to me," unequivocally repeated Miss Carlyle. "Are you mistress, Joyce, or am I?"

Joyce went down and brought Mr. Carlyle up from the dinner-table.

"Is Madame Vine worse, Cornelia? Will she see me?"

"She wishes to see you."

Miss Carlyle opened the door as she spoke. He motioned her to pa.s.s in first. "No," she said, "you had better see her alone."

He was going in when Joyce caught his arm. "Master! Master! You ought to be prepared. Ma'am, won't you tell him?"

He looked at them, thinking they must be moonstruck, for their conduct seemed inexplicable. Both were in evident agitation, an emotion Miss Carlyle was not given to. Her face and lips were twitching, but she kept a studied silence. Mr. Carlyle knit his brow and went into the chamber.

They shut him in.

He walked gently at once to the bed, in his straightforward manner.

"I am grieved, Madame Vine----"

The words faltered on his tongue. He was a man as little given to show emotion as man can well be. Did he think, as Joyce had once done, that it was a ghost he saw? Certain it is that his face and lips turned the hue of death, and he backed a few steps from the bed. The falling hair, the sweet, mournful eyes, the hectic which his presence brought to her cheeks, told too plainly of the Lady Isabel.

"Archibald!"

She put out her trembling hand. She caught him ere he had drawn quite beyond her reach. He looked at her, he looked round the room, as does one awaking from a dream.

"I could not die without your forgiveness," she murmured, her eyes falling before him as she thought of her past. "Do you turn from me?

Bear with me a little minute! Only say you forgive me, and I shall die in peace!"

"Isabel?" he spoke, not knowing in the least what he said. "Are you--are you--were you Madame Vine?"

"Oh, forgive--forgive me! I did not die. I got well from the accident, but it changed me dreadfully. n.o.body knew me, and I came here as Madame Vine. I could not stay away, Archibald, forgive me!"

His mind was in a whirl, his ideas had gone wool-gathering. The first clear thought that came thumping through his brain was, that he must be a man of two wives. She noticed his perplexed silence.

"I could not stay away from you and my children. The longing for you was killing me," she reiterated, wildly, like one talking in a fever. "I never knew a moment's peace after the mad act I was guilty of, in quitting you. Not an hour had I departed when my repentance set in; and even then I would have retraced and come back, but I did not know how.

See what it has done for me!" tossing up her gray hair, holding out her attenuated wrists. "Oh, forgive--forgive me! My sin was great, but my punishment was greater. It has been as one long scene of mortal agony."

"Why did you go?" asked Mr. Carlyle.

"Did you not know?"

"No. It has always been a mystery to me."

"I went out of love for you."

A shade of disdain crossed his lips. She was equivocating to him on her death-bed.

"Do not look in that way," she panted. "My strength is nearly gone--you must perceive that it is--and I do not, perhaps, express myself clearly.

I loved you dearly, and I grew suspicious of you. I thought you were false and deceitful to me; that your love was all given to another; and in my sore jealousy, I listened to the temptings of that bad man, who whispered to me of revenge. It was not so, was it?"

Mr. Carlyle had regained his calmness, outwardly, at any rate. He stood by the side of the bed, looking down upon her, his arms crossed upon his chest, and his n.o.ble form raised to its full height.

"Was it so?" she feverishly repeated.

"Can you ask it, knowing me as you did then, as you must have known me since? I never was false to you in thought, in word, or in deed."

"Oh, Archibald, I was mad--I was mad! I could not have done it in anything but madness. Surely you will forget and forgive!"

"I cannot forget. I have already forgiven!"

"Try and forget the dreadful time that has pa.s.sed since that night!" she continued, the tears falling on her cheeks, as she held up to him one of her poor hot hands. "Let your thoughts go back to the days when you first knew me; when I was here, Isabel Vane, a happy girl with my father. At times I have lost myself in a moment's happiness in thinking of it. Do you remember how you grew to love me, though you thought you might not tell it to me--and how gentle you were with me, when papa died--and the hundred pound note? Do you remember coming to Castle Marling?--and my promise to be your wife--and the first kiss you left upon my lips? And, oh, Archibald! Do you remember the loving days after I was your wife--how happy we were with each other? Do you remember when Lucy was born, we thought I should have died; and your joy, your thankfulness that G.o.d restored me? Do you remember all this?"