Collected works of j s f.., p.33
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 33
Villefranche at last, in the early morning sunlight. How far away was Fontrenelle? Fontrenelle was three leagues. Did monsieur desire to go there with his friend? Ah, then, monsieur must hire a conveyance, of which they had the most noble at the “Rayon d’Or” in the square, with the most reasonable of charges and attentive of drivers. So we proceeded to the posting establishment and hired a carriage, and were quickly bowling along the highway, bloused and sabotted peasants peeping over the hedges at us as we sped along. And at last the driver cried to me to behold; and I looked, and saw a little white-walled village nestling in the valley beneath us. Ten minutes more, and we were in its midst. Yes, here was the “Three Swans,” and that must be Madame Pierrot standing in the old-fashioned doorway. The driver would have stopped here, but Tom told him to drive onward; and he whipped up his horses, and drove us to the outer gate of the Convent of Our Lady of Mercy. It was a plain, gray-walled building, shut in by trees and shrubs, and with the little village church peeping through a grove of trees on the further side. A peaceful place to any one, but especially so to us, who still heard the great world’s noise ringing in our ears.
An old woman, clothed in a rough brown habit, came to the outer gate, and looked through a little wicket at us. I told her that we wished to see Sister Gudule or the Reverend Mother, on hearing which she hobbled away, and left us waiting outside. There we stood for five minutes, watching the carriage go slowly down the road to the inn, and being stared at by a group of tiny peasant children who had gathered round to examine us. Then came steps across the flagged courtyard inside — firmer, more decisive steps — not those of the old woman who had peered at us through the wicket. There is a jingling of keys, a drawing of bolts; the door opens, and a buxom, pleasant - faced woman motions us to enter, and points us to a door across the courtyard, where stands a figure in the black garments of a nun. This is Sister Gudule. She is tall, and of intelligent countenance, and there are traces of tears on her pale face. She comes a step forward to meet us, and we raise our hats to her.
“I am Leonard Tempest, madame.”
“Welcome, monsieur, and a thousand thanks for your so-speedy answer to my letter. Come this way; indeed, I am glad to see you.”
She led us along a little corridor, and into a small reception-room where there were two or three chairs, and some religious pictures, and a crucifix, and one or two books. She motions us to be seated, and closes the door.
“Madame, we are very anxious, very anxious indeed. We have travelled day and night to get here.”
“You are the brothers of madame, then, monsieur?”
“We have been more than brothers, madame. This gentleman was to have married her — once. The man who deceived her was his friend.”
The nun turned her soft eyes on Tom Christmas with compassionate interest. She saw the trouble in his face.
“Tell me how she is,” he said. “Tell me everything.”
“Monsieur, we must all die. Our patient is with God.”
“Dead?”
“She died yesterday, monsieur. It was at noon.”
He just covered his face with his hands for an instant, and then he sat down. I went and stood by him, and took his hand in mine, and said nothing; but I knew he would understand.
“It was at noon,” said Sister Gudule. “We knew it was coming, for Dr. Cherbuliez had told us that she could not live. She was conscious before the end came, and I told her that I had written to you, Monsieur Tempest. She smiled and said that you would come, she knew you would; and if she was dead, I was to tell you that she asked every one to forgive her, and that she hoped you would all forget her, and be as happy as in the old days. And she asked me, monsieur, to tell you that she had been justly punished for her wicked treatment of a good man, whose forgiveness she implored. And soon after that, monsieur, she kissed me, and thanked me for the little I had been privileged to do for her, and said she would go to sleep. And when I next looked at her, monsieur, she was dead.”
The good Sister was weeping as she concluded, and more than one tear had fallen from my own eyes while she spoke. But Tom Christmas sat dry-eyed, with that terrible expression still on his face.
“You must be fatigued and weary,” said Sister Gudule presently. “Let me offer you some refreshment, gentlemen.”
“We are very tired,” I replied; “but I do not think we could eat just now. Can we not see her, madame?”
I knew that Tom would like to see the poor dead girl again. And as all power of speech seemed to have left him, I was obliged to speak for him. He pressed my hand when I spoke, and looked eagerly at the nun.
“But certainly,” said Sister Gudule. “Shall it be now, monsieur? Then this way.”
We followed her along the corridor. She unlocked a door at the extreme end, and laid her hand on a heavy curtain which hung inside. But before she could draw it aside and enter, Tom Christmas spoke:
“Stay,” he said. “Only myself at first. I must be alone.”
She held the curtain back and let him enter, looking at him the while with compassionate eyes. Then she softly closed the door and retired to a little recess along the corridor where she stood with clasped hands, praying, no doubt, as women will, for the man who seemed so sorely stricken. It seemed an age to me, the half-hour that Tom spent in that little room. I paced up and down the corridor and wondered if he would never come. I could hear no sound, though I listened anxiously at the door. My own nerves had become so excited that I could almost fancy the scene inside.
At last he came. The Sister and I looked at him, though it cost us both an effort to do so, for his grief seemed almost sacred. But when I saw his face, I saw that the bitterness of his sorrow was over. His eyes were still dry and bright, and there was that fixed look of determination upon his face which had made me so uneasy. But in spite of that he looked better, and his voice had got back some of its old ring when he spoke.
“Go in, Len,” he said, “go in, and say goodbye to Maggie. You have never seen her look so beautiful as she does now.”
I went in, Sister Gudule following me. I had never been in a death-chamber before, and I was filled with many conflicting thoughts as I lifted the heavy curtain aside and passed into the mysterious presence.
I raised my head. Yes, there she lay, still, motionless, without a breath. But was this death? Nay, she had fallen in a quiet sleep, and would presently wake, and the sweet smile which even now lingered on her lips would deepen as she saw us watching her. Oh, not death, not death — for death is terrible, and this had nothing terrible in it!
No, she had never seemed so beautiful as now. All care and trouble had gone from the dead face, and only peace remained. It seemed as if some vision of peace had dawned on her before the end came, and left its impress on the calm forehead and smiling lips. Her beautiful brown hair fell curling over her shoulders; her hands were clasped across the still bosom. There were flowers everywhere, flowers which had not yet blossomed in our cold England, but were smiling in every garden of this sunny France.
And some kind hand had laid at her feet a bunch of golden primroses.
As I stood there and looked at her, and noted the simple contents of the little room, the snowy linen, the old-fashioned furniture, the crucifix and pictures hanging above the bed, my mind went back to the days when we had first known her. We had always loved her, she was so sweet, and gentle, and kind. I thought of the days when we all used to walk into the City together, she pleased to hear Tom Christmas talk, and looking at him with love beaming from her brown eyes. I thought of the quiet evenings when she used to sing to us. In days to come we should think of them and long, how ardently and unavailingly, for their return. Yes, nothing could be again that had been. She was dead.
“Is she not beautiful, monsieur? Somehow, I cannot think her dead. I have stolen in here so often to-day to look at her. Ah, what a great sorrow for him outside there!”
I bent my head; speak I could not in that little room. It seemed to me as if we were, for the moment, in another world.
We went out again and joined Tom Christmas, and I pressed his hand in mine, and in that handclasp we once more strengthened a friendship which nothing can ever break.
“Monsieur,” said Sister Gudule, looking diffidently at me, “we have thought that she might lie in our little graveyard outside here. It is a pretty place, monsieur. There are flowers, and trees, and a fountain, and in summer the nightingales sing there every evening. But if you wish otherwise, monsieur — ?”
“No,” said Tom Christmas, “let her be buried here where she has found such good friends. May we see the place?”
She took us out into the tiny cemetery. It was, indeed, an ideal resting-place. Flowers grew on every side, and the trees were in full leaf. They had already prepared a grave under the shadow of an old yew-tree, and the same hands which had decked the room with flowers, had lined the grave with moss and roses.
“We had arranged for the burial to take place this evening,” said the Sister. “The Curé was to come after vespers, monsieur. But now we will do what monsieur pleases.”
We told her that everything she proposed was good to us, and that we were only too anxious to show our gratitude for the good Sister’s kindness. And then, promising to return in the evening, I took Tom away to the little inn and succeeded in making him eat some food, and after that I got him to sleep. And he slept soundly, for he had not closed his eyes since leaving London.
It was six o’clock when we went back to the convent, and the bells of the little church and the convent chapel were ringing the Angelus. Sister Gudule again received us.
“You would like to see her again, gentlemen? We have carried her into the chapel and there is no one there.”
We followed her along the quiet corridors into the little chapel. The altar was hung with black and lighted with many candles, and before it, on a bier, she lay with the flowers still clustered about her. The nun turned back the covering from the quiet face. Tom Christmas stooped down and kissed the calm forehead.
“Good-bye, my dear,” he said, just as if she had been alive, and he bidding her farewell for an hour or a day. “Kiss her, Len. She loved you, too.”
I bent my head and kissed her, and then for the first time recognised that she was really dead, and that we should never see her or speak to her again. I took Tom’s arm and we went and sat down in a remote corner of the chapel, and presently two more nuns came in and put the lid on the simple coffin, and placed a large pall over it. And then the whole of the community entered two and two, and the Superior last of all, and they sang the solemn office for the dead, and we two sat and listened to the sweet voices and felt comforted.
And then, when the last notes had died away, four nuns took up the bier and went out, the others following, and Tom Christmas and I walking behind them. And outside the chapel we were met by the old priest and two boys, and they went before the bier with candle, and incense, and holy water, reciting the Psalms in the holy Latin tongue. And there in the little convent cemetery they laid her in the flower-lined grave, and heaped more flowers upon her. And we stood by, the old white-haired priest and two little peasant lads, the nuns in their long black gowns, and we two who had loved her so deeply, and had never thought that her life would be so short.
And all the time that the Curé was reading the service, a thrush was singing loudly in the yew-tree above.
“Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon her!” said the old man.
And the boys responded softly, “Amen!”
One last look at the quiet grave. Ay, rest in peace, our little Primrose! Thou wert frail and easily tempted, but here are two hearts that will always love thee and believe thee pure as the flowers which cover all that is left of thee on earth!
We have lingered awhile in the little cemetery, we have said good-bye to the kind-hearted Sisterhood, and have promised to visit them again and see the flowers growing over Maggie’s grave; and now we are standing at the door of the convent, and Sister Gudule has come across the courtyard to open the outer door. She touches me lightly on the sleeve and shows me two little packets.
“I thought that monsieur and his friend would perhaps like these,” she says, diffidently. “She had such beautiful hair, monsieur, and I — I cut these two locks from it this afternoon.”
We are outside in the dusky road, with two or three stars glimmering high above our heads and a faint blush in the west where the sun set an hour ago. We do not speak for a long time; our minds are too full of what we have seen. A bird or two still twitter in the hedgerows, and now and then a peasant clatters by in his wooden shoes and bids us good-night. All nature is full of a great benediction.
“Len, I came here with terrible thoughts in my heart! When I heard she was dead I said to myself that I would seek him out and kill him as he killed her. I vowed that I would hunt him down wherever he might hide, and kill him as cruelly as ever man was killed. I felt that no agony, no pain could punish him sufficiently. I longed for the power of God, so that I might have him placed within my grasp and torture him and laugh at his sufferings and make death a welcome thing to him!
“And then, Len, I went in alone and saw her. Oh, did she ever look so beautiful as she did then? I stood there and spoke softly to her, and she could not answer, and I bent down and kissed the cold lips that seemed still to smile, and I put my hand on her hand — the hand that ought to have been mine. And I knelt down by her and watched her just as if she had been asleep, and somehow the hard, terrible feelings went away from my heart. After all, Len, she — she loved him. Let that save him. Unless he is some devil let loose to prey on men, his own heart will punish him enough.
“Only, Len, never speak of him to me again!”
We reached the “Three Swans” and went into our room. Going outside to give some orders about our carriage, I saw the landlord, Master Pierrot, in a state of great excitement. Seeing me he began to nod and wink in a mysterious manner, and led the way into a retired corner of the courtyard.
“He has been here, to-night, monsieur!”
“He? Who?”
“Ah, the vile libertine! Ah, the heartless roué! Ah, the devil incarnate! Yes, monsieur, the betrayer of that angel whom you have buried to-night. He walked in here but ten minutes after you had gone to the convent, monsieur. ‘Where is madame?’ he asks. My wife went to him. ‘Madame,’ says she, ’is in Heaven, villain. They inter her to-night.’ Monsieur, he staggered, and went pale. Ah, my little wife was bitter with him, I promise you. She spared him nothing. She told him all; how the poor lady died, and of your and your friend’s arrival, monsieur. And then she told him to leave an honest man’s house, monsieur, unless he wished a ducking in the horse-trough. And, oh, monsieur, I fear it was impolitic, but Jacques Magnier, the smith, that great fellow whom you saw to-day, was standing by, and he shouted that we would have no roués here, and smote the man across the face, monsieur, a terrible blow, for Jacques can knock down an ox. And I thought he had killed him, for there was much blood, and he fell. But presently he rose, and walked out, and went down the road, and disappeared.”
“Say nothing of it to my friend inside, Monsieur Pierrot.”
“Monsieur may rely on my discretion. But, oh, if monsieur could but have seen Jacques strike him!”
My story is finished. It is ten years now since Maggie died; and every spring I have gone to Fontrenelle with Tom Christmas, and looked at her grave in the little convent cemetery. There is a dainty slab of marble above it, and her name cut upon the stone, and some words of Scripture. It is always bright with flowers, and Sister Gudule tells us that the thrushes sing in the yew-tree all day long. They are always glad to see us at the little convent, and there are several objects in the tiny chapel which Tom Christmas has sent to them from time to time.
And Tom is still toiling on at Spivey’s. Mr. Spivey has prospered more and more, and has now a large establishment, and Tom Christmas is his head clerk, and has a salary which would be a small one in some similar places, but is a large one for Spivey. He is content and happy, and never so much so as when he comes to see me, and sits by my domestic fireside, and plays with my children.
Let me close with three pictures.
The first is a large theatre. The house is packed from floor to ceiling, there is not a seat to be had; for it is the first night of a new play by that popular author and dramatist, Mr. Rupert Tremayne, better known to his large and brilliant circle of friends as Frank Lestrange. Few men have had such a successful career. He is said to earn large sums; he has had a fortune and an estate left him; he is immensely popular with the higher classes of society, and in great favour with Royalty itself. He is a Member of Parliament, and will probably get a peerage; and he has lately married the only daughter of Sir Percival Gresham, the great banker, who is said to have given his child half-a-million as a marriage portion. Such is the gossip of the knowing ones who have flocked together to-night to see his latest success. For it is a success. Every act goes well, every scene and situation tells. The subject is an every-day one. There is a villain who wrongs a woman, and there is a good young man who suffers for her. And in the play the villain prospers for a time; but Nemesis lights upon him at last, and Vice is punished while Virtue is rewarded. Ah, but is it always so? You, Frank Lestrange, standing before the curtain, with the plaudits of the audience ringing in your ears, know that it is not; for you are not punished yet.
