Penelope Brandling Part 4

"It is not a question whether you love me or not, Davies. You acknowledge that you were the spy of Mr. Hubert and his brothers. And if you were not spying for their benefit, why were you watching me as I came up the glen the day I was taken ill? Why did you go to the sea-wall to see in case I had left anything behind; and why did you treasure this handkerchief as a proof that I had been there?"

Mrs. Davies hesitated; but only, I believe, because she found it difficult to make her situation clear.

"Lady Brandling must try and understand," she answered. "I was not spying for Mr. Hubert. I have not spied for Mr. Hubert for a long while. I kept the handkerchief to show Lady Brandling that I knew what had made her faint that day. Also to show her that others did not know.

Lady Brandling is safe. She must know that they do not yet know. If they know what Lady Brandling perhaps shall have seen, Lady Brandling and her husband are dead people, like the people in the s.h.i.+p; dead like Sir Thomas."

Dead like Sir Thomas! I repeated to myself. But I still kept my eyes fixed on hers in the gla.s.s, where she stood behind me, brush in hand.

"Davies," I said, "you must explain if I am to understand. You tell me you love me now though you did not love me at first. You tell me you were placed to spy over me by Mr. Hubert, and you tell me that you were not spying for him when you went to see whether I had left anything on the sea-wall. You have been good and kind beyond words during my sickness, and I desire to believe in you. But I dare not. Why should I believe that you have really changed so completely? Why should I believe that you are with _me_, and against _them_?"

Mrs. Davies's face changed strangely. It seemed to me to express deep perplexity and almost agonised helplessness. She twisted her fingers and raised her shoulders. She was wrestling with my unbelief. Suddenly she leaned over the dressing table close to me.

"Listen," she said. "I have learned things since then. Hubert told me lies, but I learned. I am against _them_ because I know they tried to kill my son."

A look of incredulity must have pa.s.sed over my face, for she added,

"Aye; they only tried to kill one of my sons, Hugh, who I thought had gone overboard, whom they thought they had drowned, but who has come and told me. But--" and she fixed her eyes on mine, "they _did_ kill my other son; I know that now. My other son of the heart, not the belly.

And that son, my Lady, was your brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Brandling."

And then Davies made a strange imperious gesture, and I must needs listen to her talk. I have since pieced it together out of her odd enigmatic sentences. My late brother-in-law, after years of pa.s.sive connivance in _their_ doings, which paid for his debaucheries in foreign lands, became restive, or was suspected by his uncles, and condemned by them to death as a danger to their evil a.s.sociation. Sir Thomas was decoyed home, and, according to their habit in case of mutiny, taken out, a prisoner, to the deepest part of the channel, and drowned. The report was spread that he had been killed in a drunken brawl at Bristol, a show of legal proceedings was inst.i.tuted by his uncle in that city (naturally to no effect, there being no murderer there to discover), and a corpse brought back by them for solemn burial at St. Salvat's. But instead of being interred in the family vault, the body of the false Sir Thomas was destroyed by the burning of the Chapel during his wake. The suspicions of Mrs. Davies appeared to have been awakened by this fact, and by the additional one that she was not allowed to see the corpse of her beloved foster-son. Her own son Hugh, Sir Thomas's foster brother, disappeared about this time; and Hubert appears to have made the distracted mother believe that her own boy was the murderer of Sir Thomas, and had met with death at his hands; the whole unlikely story being further garnished for the poor credulous woman with a doubt that the murder of her foster-son had been, in some manner, the result of a conspiracy to bring about the succession of my husband. All this she seems to have believed at the time of our coming, and for this reason to have lent herself most willingly to spy upon my husband and me, in hopes of getting the proofs of his guilt. But her suspicions gradually changed, and her whole att.i.tude in the matter was utterly reversed when, a few days before the wreck of the great Indiaman and my adventure on the sea-wall, her son, whom she believed dead, had stolen back in disguise and told her of an expedition in which the uncles had carried a man to the high seas, gagged and bound, and drowned him: a man who was not one of their crew and whose stature and the colour of whose hair answered to those of the nominal master of St. Salvat's. Her son, in an altercation over some booty, had let out his suspicion to my uncles, and had escaped death only by timely flight masked under accidental drowning from a fis.h.i.+ng boat. Since this revelation Davies's devotion to the dead Sir Thomas had transferred itself to Eustace and me, and her one thought had become revenge against the men who had killed her darling.

Davies told me all this, as I said, in short, enigmatic sentences; and I scarcely know whether her tale seemed to me more inevitably true or more utterly false in its hideous complication of unlikely horrors. When she had done:

"Davies," I ask her solemnly, "you have been a spy, you have, by your saying, been the accomplice of the most horrid criminals that ever disgraced the world. Why should I believe one word of what you tell me?"

Davies hesitated as before, then looked me full in the face "If Lady Brandling cannot believe what it is needful that she should believe, let her ask her husband whether I am telling her a lie. Lady Brandling's husband knows, and he is afraid of telling _her_ because he is afraid of them." Davies had been kneeling by the dressing-table, as if to make herself heard to me without speaking above a whisper.

I mustered all my courage, for these last words touched me closer, filled me with a far more real and nearer horror than all her hideous tales.

"Davies," I said, "kindly finish brus.h.i.+ng my hair. When it is brushed I can do it up myself; and you may go and wash that handkerchief."

The old woman rose from her knees without a word, and finished brus.h.i.+ng my hair very carefully. Then she handed me the hairpins and combs ceremoniously. As she did so she murmured beneath her breath:

"Lady Brandling is a courageous lady. I love Lady Brandling for her courage." She curtsied and withdrew. When the door was well closed on her I felt I could bear the strain no more; I leaned my head on the dressing table and burst into a flood of silent tears.

At that moment Eustace came in. "Good G.o.d!" he said, "what is the matter?" taking my hand and trying to raise me up.

But I hid my face. "Oh, Eustace," I answered, "when I think of our child!"

But what I was saying, G.o.d help me, was not true.

_October_ 1, 1773.

What frightful suspicions are these which I have allowed to creep insidiously into my mind! Did he or did he not know? Does he know yet?

Every time we meet I feel my eyes seeking his face, scanning his features, and furtively trying to read their meaning, alas! alas! as if he were a stranger. And I spend my days piecing together bits of the past, and every day they make a different and more perplexing pattern. I remember his change of manner on receiving the news of his brother's death, and the gloom which hung over him during our journey and after our arrival here. I thought then that it was the unexpected return to the scenes of his unhappy childhood; and that his constraint and silence with me were due to his difficulty in dealing with the shocking state of things he found awaiting him. It seemed natural enough that Eustace, a thinker, a dreamer even, should feel hara.s.sed at his inability to clean out this den of iniquity. But why have remained here? Good G.o.d, is my husband a mere pensioner of all this hideousness, as his wretched brother seems to have been? And even for that miserable debauched creature the day came when he turned against his masters, and faced death, perhaps like a gentleman. Death.... How unjust I am grown to Eustace! I ought to try and put myself in his place, and see things as he would see them, not with the horrified eyes of a stranger. Like me, he may have believed at first that St. Salvat's was merely a nest of smugglers.... Or he may have had only vague fears of worse, haunting him like bad dreams of his childhood....

Besides, this frightful trade in drowned men and their goods has, from what Davies tells me, been for centuries the chief employment of this dreadful coast. Whole villages, and several of the first families of the country, practised it turn about with smuggling. Davies was ready with a string of names, she expressed no special horror and her conscience perhaps represents that of these people; an unlawful trade, but not without its side of peril, commending it to barbarous minds like highway robbery or the exploits of buccaneers, whom popular ballads treat as heroes.

But why have I recourse to such explanations? Men, even men as n.o.ble as my husband, are marvellously swayed by all manner of notions of honour, false and barbarous, often causing them to commit crimes in order to screen those of their blood or of their cla.s.s. Some words of Hubert's keep recurring in my memory, to the effect that all the Brandlings were given up to what the villain called pilchard fis.h.i.+ng, and _none more devotedly than Eustace's own father_. I remember and now understand the tone in which he added "all of us Brandlings except this superfine gentleman here." Those words meant that however great his horror of it all, Eustace could not break loose from that complicity of silence. For to expose the matter would be condemning all his kinsmen to a shameful death, to the public gallows; it would be uncovering the dishonour of his dead brother, of his father, and all his race.... What right have I to ask my husband to do what no other man would do in his place?

But perhaps he does not know, or is not certain yet.... To what a size have I allowed my horrid suspicions to grow! Behold me finding excuses for an offence which very likely has never been committed; and while seemingly condoning, condemning my husband in my mind, without giving him a chance of self-defence! What a confusion of disloyalty and duplicity my fears have bred in my soul! Anything is better than this; I owe it to Eustace to tell him my suspicions, and I _will_ tell him.

_November_ 2, 1773.

I have spoken. O marvellous, most unexpected reward of frankness and loyalty, however tardy! The nightmare has vanished, leaving paradise in my soul. For inconceivable as it seems, this day, on which I learned that we are prisoners, already condemned most likely, and at best doomed to die before very long, this day has been of unmixed, overflowing joy, such as I never knew or dreamed of.

Eustace, beloved, that ever I could have doubted you! And yet that very doubt, that sin against our love is what has brought me such blissful certainty. And even the shameful question, asked with burning cheeks, "Did you know all?" has been redeemed, transfigured, and will remain for ever in my soul like the initial bars of some ineffably tender and triumphant piece of music.

Let me go over it once more, our conversation, Love; feel it all over again, feel it for ever and ever.

When I had spoken those words, Eustace, you took my hand, and looked long into my face.

"My poor Penelope," you said, "what dreadful thoughts my cowardice and want of faith have brought upon you! Why did I not recognise that your soul was strong enough to bear the truth? You ought to have learned it from me, as soon as I myself felt certain of it, instead of my running the risk of your discovering it all alone, you poor, poor little child!"

Were ever those small words spoken so greatly? Has any man been such a man in his gentleness and humility? And then you went on, beloved, and I write down your words in order to feel them once more sinking into my heart.

"But Penelope," you said, "'twas not mere unmanly s.h.i.+rking, though there may have been some of that mixed with it. My fault lies chiefly in not having been able to do without you, dearest, not having left you safe with your mother while I came over to this accursed place; and in putting the suspicions I had behind me in order to bring you here.

Nothing can wipe out that, and I am paying the just price of my weakness, and seeing you pay it!... But once here, Penelope, and once certain of the worst, it was impossible for me to tell you the truth.

Impossible, because I knew that if you knew what I had learned, it would be far more difficult for me to get you away, to get you to leave me behind in this hideous place. Do you remember when I proposed sending you to Bath for our child's birth? It seemed the last chance of saving you, and you resisted and thought me cruel and unloving! How could I say 'Go! because your life may any day be forfeited like mine, and go alone!

because--well--because I am a hostage, a man condemned to death if he stir, a prisoner as much as if I were chained to the walls of this house.' Had I said that, you would have refused to go, Penelope. But now, my dear...." And you bent down and kissed me very mournfully.

"But now, Eustace," I answered, and I heard that my voice was solemn, "but now I can stay with you, because I know as much as you do, and they will soon know that I do so, even if they do not know yet. I may stay with you, because I am a prisoner like you, and condemned like you. We can live, because we have to die--together."

Eustace, you folded me in your arms and I felt you sob. But I loosened your hands and kissed them one by one, and said, "Nay, Eustace, why should you grieve? Do we not love each other? Are we not together, quite together, and together for always?"

We are standing by the big window in my room, and as we clasped one another, our eyes, following each other's, rested on the sea above the tree tops. It was a silvery band under a misty silver sunset; very sweet and solemn. Our souls, methought, were sailing in its endless peacefulness. For the first time, I was aware of what love is; I seemed to understand what poetry is about and what music means; death, which hung over us, was shrunk to its true paltriness, and the eternity of life somehow revealed all in one moment. I have known happiness. I thank G.o.d, and beloved, I thank thee also.

IV

Here ends the diary kept half a century ago by the woman of twenty-two, who was once myself. Those of whom it treats, my mother, my husband, poor faithful Davies and the wretched villains of St. Salvat's, have long since ceased to live, and those for whose benefit I gather together these memories--my sons and daughters, were not yet born at the time this diary deals with.

In order to complete my story I can, therefore, seek only in my own solitary memory; and, standing all alone, look into that far away past which only my own eyes and heart are left to descry.

After the scene with which my diary closes, and when we could compare all that each of us knew of our strange situation, it appeared to my husband and me that we had everything to gain, and at all events nothing to lose (since we knew our lives in jeopardy) by a desperate attempt to escape from what was virtually our prison. Eustace had summed up our position when he had said that we were hostages in the hands of the uncles. For these villains, unconscious of any bonds of family honour, made sure that our escape would infallibly bring about the exposure of their infamous practices.

It appears that after the murder of my brother-in-law, whom the most violent of the gang had put to death on a mere threat of betrayal, the uncles had taken for granted that Eustace would accept some manner of pension as his brother had done, and like him, leave St. Salvat's in their undisputed possession. And they had been considerably nonplussed when my husband declared his intention of returning to Wales. The perception of the blunder they had committed in getting rid of my brother-in-law, made them follow the guidance of Hubert, who had opposed the murder of Sir Thomas, if not from humanity, at all events from prudence. It was Hubert's view that since Eustace refused to stay away, no difficulties should be put in the way of his coming, but on the contrary, that he be taken, so to speak, in a trap, and once at St.

Salvat's, persuaded or compelled into becoming a pa.s.sive, if not an active, accomplice. Hubert had therefore written so pressingly about the need of putting the property to rights, of making a new start at St.

Salvat's, and of therefore bringing me and settling at once in the place, that Eustace had judged the rumours concerning the real trade of his kinsmen, and his own childish suspicions, to have been mere exaggeration, and imagined that the uncles, brought to order by so superior a man as Hubert, were perhaps even willing to abandon the dangerous business of smuggling which had been carried on almost avowedly during the lifetime of his father. Such was the trap laid by Hubert; and Eustace, partly from guilelessness and partly from a sense of duty to St. Salvat's, walked straight in, carrying me with him as an additional pledge to evil fortune. He was scarcely in, when the door, like the drawbridge which had risen after our entry into that frightful place, closed and showed him he was a prisoner. It was Hubert's plan to make use of our presence (which, moreover, put an end to his own isolation among those besotted villains) in order to remove whatever suspicions might exist in the outside world. The presence of a studious and gentlemanly owner, of a young wife and possible children, was to make people believe that a new leaf had been turned over at St.

Salvat's, and that the old former pages of its history were not so shocking as evil reports had had it. So, during the first weeks after our arrival, and while the brothers were being coerced into an attempt at decent behaviour, Eustace was being importuned with every kind of plan which should draw him into further complicity, and compromise him along with the rest of the band. Hubert, being a clergyman, had since his elder brother's death, also been the chief magistrate of the district; and, shocking to relate, this wrecker and murderer had sat in judgment on poachers and footpads. Having made use of this position to silence any inclination to blab about St. Salvat's, he was apprehensive of this scandal getting to headquarters, and therefore desirous of putting in his place a man as clear of suspicion and as obviously just as Eustace, yet whom he imagined he could always coerce in all vital matters. But Eustace saw through this fine scheme at once, and resolutely refused to become a magistrate in Hubert's place. This was the first hint Hubert received that it was useless to seek an accomplice in his nephew; and this recognition speedily grew into a fear lest Eustace might become a positive danger, particularly if he ever learned for certain that Sir Thomas had not been murdered at Bristol, but at St.

Salvat's. The situation was made more critical by the fact that on discovering what manner of place the castle really was, Eustace had declared with perfect simplicity, his intention of taking me back to my mother. It was then he had learned in as many words, that both he and I were prisoners, and that he, at all events, would never leave St.