Monica, Volume 3 (of 3)

“Randolph!” was all that Beatrice could get out. Somehow the desolation of Monica’s life had never come home to her with quite the same sense of realisation as now, in the hour of her deepest happiness.

“He would be glad,” answered Monica, steadily and sweetly. “He loved you dearly, Beatrice; and he and Tom were always such friends. It was his hope that all would come right. If he can see us now, as I often think he can, he will be rejoicing in your happiness now. You must shed no tears to-night, dearest, unless they are tears of happiness.”

Beatrice suddenly half rose, and hung her arms round Monica.

“How can you bear it? How can you bear it? Monica, I think you are an angel. No one in this wide world was ever like you. And to think – ” she shuddered strongly and stopped short.

“You are excited and over-wrought,” said Monica gently. “You must not let yourself be knocked up, or Tom will scold me when he comes back. See, Haddon is waking up. He had such a bad headache, poor boy; I hope he has slept it off. You must tell him the news – it will please him I am sure.”

“You tell him,” whispered Beatrice, and slipped away to relieve her over-burdened heart by a burst of tears; for one strange revelation following upon another had tried her more than she had known at the time.

Haddon was quietly pleased at the news. He liked Tom; he had fancied that he and Beatrice were not altogether indifferent to each other, so this conclusion did not take him altogether by surprise. He was sorry to think of losing Beatrice, but not as perplexed as he would have been some months before. Life looked different to him now – more serious and earnest. He began to have aspirations of his own. He no longer regarded existence as a sort of pleasant easy game of play.

Certainly it seemed as if the course of true love as regarded Beatrice and Tom, after passing its early shoals and quicksands, were to run quietly and smoothly enough now. He came back from St. Maws in time for dinner, and when dessert was put on the table, he announced his plans with the hardihood characteristic of the man.

“Aunt Elizabeth is delighted, Beatrice, and so is Raymond,” he said. “I have told them that we will be married almost at once, within two months, at least – oh, you needn’t look like that. I think I’ve waited long enough – pretty well as long as Jacob – ”

“Did for Leah – and didn’t like her in the end – don’t make that your precedent.”

“Well, don’t interrupt,” proceeded Tom imperturbably. “We’ve got it all beautifully arranged. I’m going to take part of the regular practice, as Raymond has always been bothering me to do ever since it increased so much, and we’re to have half the house for our establishment, and he and Aunt Elizabeth the other. It was originally two houses, and lends itself excellently to that arrangement, though I dare say practically we shall be all one household, as you and our aunt have managed to hit it off so well. Monica, can’t Beatrice be married from Trevlyn when Haddon is well enough to give her away? It would save a lot of bother. I hate flummery, and I’m sure she does too. Come now, Beatrice, don’t laugh. Don’t you think that would be an excellent arrangement? Here we are; what is the good of getting all split up again? You’ll be losing your heart to another marquis if I let you out of my sight.”

Her eyes were dancing with mischievous merriment. She was more than ready to enter the lists.

“Just listen to the tyrant – trying to keep me a prisoner already! trying to take everything into his own hands – and not content without adding insult to injury!”

His eyes too were alight; but his mouth was grim.

“I have not forgotten how you served me last time, my lady.”

“At Oxford?”

“At Oxford.”

“Monica, listen. I will tell you how I served him. I had eyes for no one but him, silly girl that I was; I was with him morning, noon and night. Child as I was at the time, careless and inexperienced, even I was absolutely ashamed at the open preference I showed him; I blush even now to think of the undisguised way in which I flung myself at a particularly hard head. And yet he pretends he did not understand! If that is so, then for real, downright, hopeless stupidity and obtuseness, commend me to an Oxford double-first-class-man!”

Beatrice might get the best of it in an encounter of tongues, but Tom had his own way in the settlement of their affairs, possibly because her resistance was but a pretence. What, indeed, had they to wait for, when they had been waiting so many long years for one another?

Nothing clouded the horizon of their happiness. Even the hideous shadow which had been in a sense the means of bringing them together seemed to have vanished with the sudden disappearance of Conrad Fitzgerald from the neighbourhood. Upon the very day following Tom’s visit to him, he left his house, ill and weak as he was, to join his sister at Mentone. His servant accompanied him. The desolate house was shut up once more, and Tom Pendrill sincerely hoped that the haunting baleful influence of that wild and wicked nature had passed from their lives for ever.

And Beatrice after all was married at Trevlyn, in the little cliff church that had seen the hands of Randolph and Monica joined in wedlock. She resisted a good while, feeling afraid that it would be painful to Monica – a second wedding, and that within a few months of her own widowhood. But Monica took part with Tom, and the bride elect gave way, only too delighted at heart to be with Monica to the very last.

It was a very quiet wedding – as quiet as Monica’s own – even the people gathered together in the little church had hardly changed. Only one short year had passed since Monica in her snowy robes had stood before that little altar, with the marriage vow upon her lips – only a year ago, and now?

Yet Monica’s face was very calm and sweet. She shed no tears, she seemed to have no sad thoughts for herself, however others might feel. One pair of grey eyes seldom wandered from her face as the simple ceremonies of the day proceeded. One heart was far more occupied with thoughts of the pale-faced widow than of the blooming bride.

Haddon quitted Trevlyn almost immediately after his sister. The words of thanks he tried to speak faltered on his tongue, and would not come.

Monica understood, and answered by one of her sweetest smiles.

“You were Randolph’s friend; you are my friend now. You must not try to thank me. I am so very glad to think of the link that binds us together. I shall not lose sight of you whilst Beatrice is so near. You will come again some day?”

“Yes, Lady Trevlyn,” he answered quietly, “I will come again;” and he raised the hand he held for one moment very reverently to his lips.

As he drove away he looked back, and saw Monica still standing upon the terrace.

“Yes,” he said quietly to himself, “I will come back – some day.”

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH.

“AS WE FORGIVE.”

A year had passed away since that fatal night when Randolph had left his wife standing on the shore – had gone away in the darkness and had returned no more: a year had passed, with its chequered lights and shades, but the anniversary of her husband’s death found Monica, as he had left her, at Trevlyn – alone.

Many things had happened during that year. Beatrice had married and settled happily in the picturesque red house at St. Maws as Tom Pendrill’s loving, brilliant wife. Monica had been to Germany once again, to assure herself with her own eyes of the truth of the favourable reports sent to her. She had had the satisfaction of seeing how great an improvement had taken place in Arthur’s condition; that although the cure was slow – would most likely need a second, possibly even a third year before it would be absolutely complete, yet it was practically certain, if he and those who held his fate in their hands would but have patience and perseverance. The boy was quite happy in the establishment of which he was a member. He had gone through the most trying part of the treatment, and was enthusiastic about the kindness and skill of his doctor. He had made many friends, and had quite lost the home-sickness that had occasionally troubled him at first. He was delighted to see Monica again. He was insistant that she should come to see him often; but he did not even wish to return to Trevlyn till he could do so whole and sound, as a man in good health and strength, instead of a helpless invalid.

Monica was summoned from Germany by the news of the dangerous illness of Lady Diana, who died only a few days after the arrival of her niece. She had been talking of making a permanent home at Trevlyn now that Monica was so utterly alone, but her death stopped all such schemes; and so it came about that in absolute solitude the young widowed countess took up her abode for the winter in the great silent castle beside the sea.

The sea still exercised its old fascination over Monica. Her happiest hours were spent wandering by its brink or riding along the breezy cliff. It was a friend indeed to her in those days, it frowned upon her no more. It had done its worst already – it had taken away the light of her life. Might it not be possible – was there not something of promise in its eternal music? Could it be that in some unexpected, mysterious way it would bring back some of the light that had been taken away – would be the means of uniting once again the hearts that had been so cruelly sundered? Strange thoughts and fancies flitted often through her brain, formless and indistinct, but comforting withal.

Returning to the castle at dusk one day, after one of these solitary rambles, she found an unusual bustle and excitement stirring there. Wilberforce hurried forward to explain the cause of the unwonted tumult.

“I hope I have not done wrong, my lady. You were not here to give orders, and I could only act as I felt you would wish. A lad came running in with a scared face not half an hour back, saying there was a man lying at the foot of the cliffs, as if he had fallen over. I scarce think he can be alive if that be so; but I told the men that if he was – as there is no other decent house near – I thought you would wish – ”

“That he should be brought here. Quite right, Wilberforce. Is there a room ready? Has Mr. Pendrill been sent for?”

“The groom has gone this twenty minutes. Living or dead, he must have a doctor to him. The maids are getting the east room ready, yet I doubt if he can be living after such a fall.”

“He may not have fallen over the cliff. He may have been scaling it, and have dropped from but a small height. See that everything likely to be needed is ready. He may be here almost immediately now.”

She went up to the bed-room herself, to see if it were ready should there be need. It was probably only some poor tramp or fisherman who had met with the accident – no matter, he should be tended at Trevlyn, he should lie in its most comfortable guest-chamber, he should have every care that wealth could supply. Monica knew too well the dire results that might follow a slip down those hard, treacherous cliffs not to feel peculiarly tender and solicitous over another victim.

The steady tramp of feet ascending the stairs and approaching the room where she stood, roused Monica to the knowledge that the injured man was not dead, and that they were bringing him up to be tended and nursed as she had directed. The door was pushed open; six men carried in their burden upon an improvised stretcher, and laid it just as it was upon the bed. Monica stepped forward, and then started, growing a little pale; for she recognised in the death-like rigid face before her the well-known countenance of Conrad Fitzgerald.

She could not look without a shudder at that shattered frame, and Wilberforce shook her head gravely, marvelling that he yet breathed. None save professional hands dared touch him, so distorted and dislocated was every limb; and yet by one of those strange coincidences, not altogether uncommon in cases of accident, the beautiful face was entirely untouched, not marred by a scratch or contusion. Death-like unconsciousness had set its seal upon those chiselled, marble features, and had wiped from them every trace of passion or of vice.

Tom Pendrill was amongst them long before they looked for him. He had met the messenger not far from Trevlyn, and had come at once. He turned Monica out of the room with a stern precipitancy that perplexed her somewhat, as did also the expression of his face, which she did not understand. He shut himself up with his patient, retaining the services of Wilberforce and one of the men.

It was two hours before she saw him again.

Monica wandered up and down the dark hall, revolving many things in her mind. What had brought Conrad so suddenly back at this melancholy time of the year? She had believed him abroad with his sister, with whom he seemed to have spent his time since his disappearance early in the spring. What had brought him back now? And why did he so haunt the frowning, treacherous cliffs of Trevlyn? Was he mad? But why did his madness always drive him to this spot? She asked many such questions of herself, but she could answer none of them.

At last Tom came down. His face looked as if carved in flint. She could not read the meaning of his glance.

“Is he dead?” she asked softly.

“He cannot last long. If he has any relations near, they should be telegraphed for.”

“His sister is in Italy, I believe. There is no one else that I know of.”