The Return by Robert Murray Gilchrist five minutes ago. I drew the window curtain
aside, and let the mellow sunset light contend with the glare from the girandols.
Below lay the orchard of Vernon Garth, rich and heavily flowered fruit trees.
Yonder a meddler, here a pair, next a quince. As my
eyes, unaccustomed to the day, blinked rapidly, the recollection came of a
scene forty five years past, And once more, beneath the oldest tree stood
the girl I loved, mischievously plucking yarrow, and, despite its evil omen
twining the snowy clusters in her black hair. Again, her coquettish words rang
in my ears. Make me thy lady, make me the richest woman in
England, And I promise thee Brian we shall be the happiest of God's creatures.
And I remembered how the mad thirst for gold filled me, how I
trusted in her fidelity, and without reasoning or even telling her that I would
conquer fortune for her sake, I kissed her sadly and passed into the world.
Then followed a complete silence until the star of Europe the greatest diamond discovered
in modern times lay in my hand, a rough, unpolished stone, not
unlike the lumps of spar I had often seen lying on the sandy lanes of
my native county. This should be Rose's own, and all the others that
clanked so melodiously in their leather bulse should go towards fulfilling her ambition. Rich
and happy, I should be soon, and should I not marry an untitled
gentlewoman sweet in her prime. The twenty years interval of work and sleep was
like a fading dream, for I was going home. The knowledge thrilled me
so that my nerves were strung tight as iron ropes, and I laughed like
a young boy. And it was all because my home was to be in
Rose Pascal's arms. I crossed the sea and posted straight for Halkton Village.
The old hostelry was crowded. Jane Hopgarth, whom I remembered a ruddy faced
child, stood on the box edged terrace courtesying in matronly fashion to the departing
mail coach. A change in the sign board drew my eye. The white
lilies had been painted over with a miter, and the name changed from the
Pascal arms to the Lord Bishop. Angrily, aghast at this disloyalty, I
cross questioned the ostlers, who hurried to and fro, but failing to obtain
any coherent reply, I was fain to content myself with a mental denunciation of
the times. At last I saw bow legged Jeffreys, now bent double with
age, sunning himself at his favorite place, the side of the horse trough.
As of old, he was chewing a straw. No sign of recognition
came over his face as he gazed at me, and I was shocked.
Because I wished to impart some of my gladness to a fellow creature. I
went to him, and, after trying in vain to make him speak,
held forth a gold coin. He rose instantly, grasped it with palsied fingers,
and muttering that the hounds were starting. Hurried from my presence. Feeling
half sad, I crossed to the churchyard and gazed through the grated window of
the Pascal burial chapel at the recumbent and undisturbed effigies of Geoffrey Pascal, gentlemen
of Breton Hall, and Margot Maltravero, his wife, with their quaint epitaph
about a perfect marriage enduring forever. Then, after noting the rankness of the
docks and nettles, I crossed the worn stile, and with footsteps surprising fleet,
passed towards the stretch of moorland, at whose further end stands Breton Hall.
Twilight had fallen. Ere I reached the cottage at the entrance of the
park. This was in a ruinous condition. Here and there sheaves in the
thatched roof had parted and formed crevices through which smoke filtered. Some of the
tiny windows had been walled up, and even where the glass remained, snake
like ivy hindered any light from falling into their thick recesses. The door stood
open, although the evening was chill. As I approached, the heavy autumnal
dew shook down from the furs and fell upon my shoulders. A bat,
swooping in an undulation, struck between my eyes and fell to the grass,
moaning querulously. I entered. A withered woman sat beside the peat fire.
She held a pair of steel knitting needles, which she moved without cessation.
There was no thread upon them, and when they clicked her lips twitched as
if she had counted. Some time passed before I recognized Rose's foster mother,
Elizabeth Carloss. The russet color of her cheeks had faded and left a sickly
gray. Those sunken, dimmed eyes were utterly unlike the bright black orbs that
had danced so mirthfully. Her stature too had shrunk. I was struck with
wonder. Elizabeth could not be more than fifty six years old. I had
been away twenty years. Rose was fifteen when I left her, and I
had heard Elizabeth say that she was only twenty one at the time of her
darling's weening. But what a change. She had, such an air of
weary grief that my heart grew sick. Advancing to her side, I touched
her arm. She turned, but neither spoke nor seemed aware of my presence.
Soon, however, she rose, and, helping herself along by grasping
the scanty furniture, tottered to a window and peered out. Her right hand
crept to her throat. She untied the string of her gown and took from
her bosom a pamanda set in a battered silver care I cried out. Rose
had loved that toy in her childhood. Thousands of times had we played ball
with it. Elizabeth held it to her mouth and mumbled it as if it
were a baby's hand. Maddened with impatience, I caught her shoulder and roughly
bade her say where I should find rose. But something awoke in her eyes,
and she shrank away to the other side of the house place I followed.
She cowered on the floor, looking at me with a strange horror.
Her lips began to move, but they made no sound. Only when I
crossed to the threshold did she rise, And then her head moved wildly from
side to side, and her hands pressed close to her breast, as if
the pain there were too great to endure. I ran from the place,
not daring to look back. In a few minutes I reached the balustraded wall
of the whole garden. The vegetation there was wonderfully luxuriant as of old.
The great blue and white Canterbury bells grew thickly, and those curious flowers to
which tradition has given the name of Marie's Heart still spread their creamy tendrils and
blood colored bloom on every hand. But Pascal's dribble. The tiny spring,
whose water pulsed so fiercely as it emerged from the earth, had long since
burst its bounds and converted the winter garden into a swamp, where a miniature
forest of Queen of the Meadow filled the air with melancholy sweetness. The house
looked as if no careful hand had touched it for years. The elements had
played havoc with its orioles, and many of the latticed frames hung on single
hinges. The curtain of the blue blue parlor hung outside, draggled and faded,
and half hidden by a thick growth of bindweed. With an almost savage
force, I raised my arm high above my head and brought my fist down
upon the central panel of the door. There was no need for such violence,
for the decayed fastenings made no resistance, and some of the rotten boards
fell to the ground. As I entered the hall and saw the ancient furniture,
once so fondly kept, now mildewed and crumbling to dust, quick sobs
burst from my throat. Rose's spinnet stood beside the door of the withdrawing room.
How many carols had we sung to its music. As I passed,
my foot struck one of the legs, and the rickety structure groaned as if
it were coming to pieces. I thrust out my hand to steady it,
but at my touch the velvet covering of the lid came off, and the
tiny gilt ornaments rattled downwards. The moon was just rising, and only half
her disc was visible over the distant edge of the hell garden. The light
in the room was very uncertain, yet I could see that the keys of
the instrument were stained brown and bound together with thick cobwebs. While I stood
beside it, I felt an overpowering desire to play a country ballad with an
overword of willow brow bound. The woods, in strict accordance with the melody,
are merry and sad by turns, at one time filled with light happiness,
at another bitter, as the voice of one bereaved forever of joy.
So I cleared off the spiders and began to strike the keys with my forefinger.
Many were dumb, and when I struck them, gave forth no sound
save a peculiar sigh. But still the melody rhythmed as distinctly as if a
low voice crooned it out of the darkness. Wearied with the bitterness, I
turned away. By now the full moonlight pierced the window and quivered on the
floor. As I gazed on the tremulous pattern, it changed into quaint devices
of hearts, daggers, rings, and a thousand tokens more all Suddenly another
object glided amongst them, so quickly that I wondered whether my eyes had been
at fault. A tiny satin shoe stained crimson across the lappets. A revulsion
of feeling came to my soul and drove away all my fear. I had
seen that self same shoe, white and unsoiled, twenty years before, when
rain Rose danced amongst her reapers at the harvest home, and my voice cried
out in ecstasy. Rose, Heart of mine, delight of all the world's
delights. She stood before me, wondering, amazed, alas so changed.
The red and yellow silk shawl still covered her shoulders, her hair still hung
in those eldritch curls, but the beautiful face had grown wan and tired,
and across the forehead lines were drawn like silver threads. She threw her arms
around my neck and pressing her bosom heavily on mine, sobbed so piteously that
I grew afraid for her, and drew back the long masses of hair which
had fallen forward, and kissed again and again those lips that were too lovely
for simile. Never came a word of chiding from them, love, she
said, when she had regained her breath. The past struggle was sharp and
torturing. The future struggle will be crueler still, What a great love yours
was to wait and trust for so long? Would that mine had been as
powerful, poor weak heart that could not endure the tones of a wild fear.
Throbbed through all her speech, strongly, yet with insufficient power to prevent
her feeling the tenderness of those moments. Often timorously raising her head from my
shoulder, she looked about, and then turned with a soft, inarticulate and
glad murmur, to hide her face on my bosom. I spoke fervently,
told of the years spent away from her, How when working in the diamond
fields she had ever been present in my fancy, How at night her name
had fallen from my lips in my only prayer, how I had dreamed of
her amongst the greatest in the land, the richest, and I dareswear the
loveliest woman in the world. I grew warmer still. All the gladness which
had been constrained for so long now burst wildly from my lips. A myriad
of rich ideas resolved into words, which, being spoken, wove one long
and delicious fit of passion. As we stood together, the moon brightened and
filled the chamber with a light like the days. The ridges of the surrounding
moorland stood out in sharp relief. Rose drank in my declarations thirstily, but
soon interrupted me with a heavy sigh. Come away, she said softly,
I no longer live in this house. You must stay with me to night.
This place is so wretched now, for time that in you and me
has only strength and love has wrought much ruin here. Half leaning on me,
she led me from the precincts of Breton Hall. We walked in silence
over the waste that crowns the valley of the Whitelands, and, being near
the verge of the rocks, saw the great pine wood sloping downwards, lighted
near us by the moon, but soon lost in density along the mysterious line
where the light changed into gloom. Intricate shadows of withered summer bracken struck and
receded in a mimic battle. Before us lay the priest's cliff, the moon
was veiled by a grove of elms, whose ever swaying branches alternately increased and
lessened her brightness. This was a place of notoriety, a veritable golgatha,
a haunt fit only for demons. Murder and theft had been punished here,
and to this day, fireside stories are told of evil women dancing round that
druid circle, carrying hearts plucked from gibbeted bodies. Rose, I whispered,
why have you brought me here? She made no reply, but pressed her
head more closely to my shoulder. Scarce had my lips closed. Ere A
sound like the hiss of a half strangled snake vibrated amongst the trees. It
grew louder and louder. A monstrous shadow hovered above. Rose from my bosom,
murmured, Love is strong as death, Love is strong as death.
I locked her in my arms so tightly that she grew breathless. Hold me,
she panted, you are strong. A cold hand touched our foreheads,
so that benumbed, we sank together to the ground, to fall instantly into
a dreamless slumber. When I awoke, the clear gray light of the early
morning had spread over the country beyond the hell Garden. The sun was just
bursting through the clouds, and had already spread a long golden haze along the
horizon. The babbling of the streamlet that runs down to Holkton was so distinct
that it seemed almost at my side. How sweetly the wild thyme smelt phil
with the tender recollections of the night. Without turning, I called Rose Pascal
from her sleep. Sweetheart, sweetheart, waken, Waken, Waken, See
how glad the world looks, see the omens of a happy future. No
answer came. I sat up, and looking round me, saw that I
was alone. A square stone lay near. When the sun was high,
I crept to read the inscription carved thereon. Here at four cross paths lieth
with a stake through the bosom, the body of Rose Pascal, who,
in her sixteenth year wilfully cast away the life God gave. End of the
Return by Robert Murray Gilchrist