Gladys, the Reaper Part 96

'She forgave you, and called you husband.'

'Because she--she loved me.'

There was another involuntary groan, and a brief silence.

'Where are her papers? Give them me, and go,' said Howel imperatively.

Rowland put a neatly-sealed packet on the table, on which was written, 'For my husband, Howel Jenkins;--to the care of my brother, Rowland Prothero. Janetta Jenkins.'

'This, too, she left for you,' said Rowland, putting the small Testament, originally her mother's, on the table. Again the stony lips trembled, the eyes softened. 'Howel, Howel, for her sake!' once more ventured Rowland.

There they lay--the letter, the packet, the Testament. All that was left to him of the once bright, loving, and lovely creature, who had been devoted to him all her life.

He turned the leaves of the Testament mechanically; touched the packet--shuddered; then leaning his head upon his folded arms on the table, burst into an uncontrollable agony of grief.

'She is--she was--where?' he said, after a short interval, rising from his seat, and beginning to pace the cell.

'Her soul is in heaven, I hope and believe; her body rests in Llanfach churchyard, under the large hawthorn bush near the vicarage gate.'

Often and often had Howel gathered Netta bunches of May from that very tree that now sheltered her remains.

'Tell me--tell me all,' he said, 'from the time I left her, till--how you found her--everything.'

'You must sit down, Howel, and hear me patiently if you can.'

Howel sat down on the bedstead, and again covering his face with both hands, listened; whilst Rowland took the seat he had left, and fulfilled his bidding.

He told him everything that had happened to Netta, from the period of her being left in the lodgings in his parish, until her death at the farm. He felt that the one hope of softening Howel, or doing him any good, was through his love for his wife; he therefore narrated simply what she had suffered and said; he told how that she had been hourly expecting him back, until his one short note; how she had listened for his footsteps, and refused to leave the place where he had left her, until he came. All that her friends had done for her, was introduced incidentally; Howel understood that she had been taken to her relations again, as the prodigal son to his father, but he was not told so.

Rowland did not spare him, however, as regarded Netta. He knew him to be utterly callous as to the follies and crimes of his life; he must, therefore, be made conscious of their weight, through their effects upon others; he knew that they had been the cause of Netta's death, and this would show him the enormity of sin if nothing else would.

As he detailed the wanderings of poor Netta's mind, and then her anxious inquiries of him of the way of salvation for Howel, as well as herself, he was visibly affected. Not even his determination that Rowland should not see his emotion could conceal it; but he did not speak a word. He listened to the end, and then, without uncovering his face, he said in a voice tremulous from emotion,--

'Thank you; now go; and come back to-morrow; I would be alone with her.'

'And to-morrow I must bring your mother,' said Rowland

'No, no, let me see you alone,' was the hasty reply.

'G.o.d bless you, Howel, and grant you His help,' said Rowland, pa.s.sing before the stooping figure.

There was no reply, so, with a heavy sigh and an inward prayer, Rowland left the cell.

CHAPTER LII.

THE PENITENT HUSBAND.

The following morning, Rowland again took Mrs Jenkins to her lodging and left her there. It was with very great difficulty that he persuaded Mrs Jenkins to remain behind, and only under a promise to prevail upon Howel to see her immediately after his interview with him.

As he expected, he found Howel almost as cold and impa.s.sive as on the previous day. But he fancied that this was an a.s.sumed manner, and that he could trace workings of more natural feelings underneath. He was at least civil to him, and instead of receiving him as before, said,--

'I thought you would never come; but I suppose prosperous people are never in a great hurry to visit the unfortunate. Ha! ha! Certainly my reception-rooms are not very inviting.'

'I came as soon as I could gain admittance. I wish you would believe, Howel, that I am very anxious to be of any use to you that I can. You know that you refused to see me before.'

'And it is no great compliment now; this confounded place will kill me.

I have been haunted by spectres all the night, five thousand times worse than a voyage to Australia. That will be amusing, ha! ha! But to have my father in one corner, and--and Netta in the other,--and that cursed money rolling about everywhere, just as it did--well, never mind that!

but hanging outright would have been better. Don't preach; it is no good; I am far beyond that, and I know you have your sermon ready; but your presence is some relief after such a night. I tell you what it is, Rowland, if you are a better and a happier man than I, it is because you had honest parents; it is no merit of yours, and no fault of mine.'

'Howel, I claim no merit; but we are all responsible for our own actions, G.o.d forgive those who set a bad example: they will have to answer for it.'

'Pshaw! Do you think I meant that? I mean that if my father hadn't heaped up all that gold--bah! the word makes me sick,--and denied me a sixpence whilst he lived; and if I hadn't seen my mother rob him whenever she could, and learnt from her to do the same, I shouldn't be here now! No, I should be a plodding shopkeeper, or at least a country lawyer, or doctor, and should have been living in a house with three steps to it, and a portico, by this time, with--don't suppose I regret such a house--but Netta! oh, G.o.d! Netta!'

Howel beat his forehead with his hand, and pointed to the corner of his cell.

'There she is! there she has been all the night. Pale as when I laid her on her bed that miserable day!'

'Howel! you loved Netta, I see, and believe it now,' said Rowland.

'You do! And why not before? Ah! I see. Because I have never done anything to prove it. But I did not know how I loved her until I knew how she loved me.'

'Would you prove it now, if you could?'

'Would I? Why do you mock me by such a question?'

'Because she, being dead, yet speaks. Her last wishes, thoughts, words, writing, were for you.'

'Do I not know it? Have I not read? All night have her words not haunted me?'

'And her prayers, Howel? Shall they be forgotten? And that Book in which she wrote last, will you not read it?'

'I don't know. I tried last night, and I could not. I have never read the book since I wrote Greek at school.'

'Netta begged you to read it.'

'What is that to you, Rowland Prothero? Who put you over me as judge and counsellor?'

'Netta. As spiritual counsellor, at least; and in her name, since you will not let me appeal to you in a Higher name, I command you to listen to me.'

Rowland saw that he had gained an advantage by appealing to Netta, and that Howel checked the irony that was on his tongue, out of reverence for her name. At once he spoke as an amba.s.sador in that Higher name he had feared to use before.

Rowland had had ten years' experience of men as bad and worse than Howel, and had learnt how to speak to them, and to seize the mood of the listener. He knew Howel well; and he, therefore, used the strong and powerful language of the Bible, as the priests, prophets, and apostles used it--as the word of G.o.d to man. Not diluted by their own reflections, but in its bare and grand simplicity. He had not made the Bible his study in vain. He knew how to bring it to the heart of men with a power that none 'could gainsay or resist,' Even Howel, sceptic, scoffer as he was, listened in spite of himself.