Chapter 11

From a painful slumber I awoke in about an hour with red-heat at my brain and with a sickening dread at my heart. 'It is fever,' thought I; 'I am going to be ill; and what is there to do in the morning at the ebb of the tide before Winifred can go upon the sands? I ought not to have come home at all,' I said. 'Suppose illness were to seize me and prevent my getting there?' The dreadful thought alone paralysed me quite. Under it I lay as under a nightmare. I scarcely dared try to get out of bed, lest I should find my fears well-grounded. At last, cautiously and timorously, I put one leg out of bed and then the other, till at length I felt the little ridges of the carpet; but my knees gave way, my head swam, my stomach heaved with a deadly nausea, and I fell like a log on the floor.

As I lay there I knew that I was indeed in the grasp of fever. I nearly went crazed from terror at the thought that in a few minutes I should perhaps lapse into unconsciousness and be unable to rise--unable to reach the sands in the morning and seek for Wynne's body--unable even to send some one there as a substitute to perform that task. But then whom was I to send? whom could I entrust with such a commission? I was under a pledge to my dead father never to divulge the secret of the amulet save to my mother and uncle. And besides, if I would effectually save Winifred from the harm I dreaded, the hideous sacrilege committed by her father must be kept a secret from servants and townspeople. Whom then could I send on this errand? At the present moment, there were but four people in the world who knew that the cross and casket had been placed in the coffin--my mother, my uncle, myself, and now, alas! Winifred. My mother was the one person who could do what I wanted done. Her sagacity I knew; her courage I knew. But how could I--how dare I, broach such a matter to her? I felt it would be sheer madness to do so, and yet, in my dire strait, in my terror at the illness I was fighting with, I did it, as I am going to tell.

By this time the noise of my fall had brought up the servants. They lifted me into bed and proposed fetching our medical man. But I forbade them to do so, and said, 'I want to speak to my mother.'

'She is herself unwell, sir,' said the man to whom I spoke.

'I know,' I replied. 'Call her maid and tell her that my business with my mother is very important, or I would not have dreamed of disturbing her; but see her I must.'

The man looked dubious, but observing my wet clothes on a chair he seemed to think that something had happened, and went to do my bidding.

In a very short time my mother entered the room. I felt that my moments of consciousness were brief, and began my story as soon as we were alone. I told her how the sudden dread that Wynne would steal the amulet had come upon me; I told her how I had run down to the churchyard and discovered the landslip; I told her how, on seeing the landslip, I had descended the gangway and found the body of Wynne, the amulet, the casket, and the written curse. But I did not tell her that I had met Winifred on the sands. Excited as I was, I had the presence of mind not to tell her that.

As I proceeded with my narrative, with my mother sitting by my bedside, a look of horror, then a look of loathing, then a look of scorn, swept over her face. I knew that the horror was of the sacrilege. I knew that the loathing and the haughty scorn expressed her feeling towards the despoiler--the father of her whose cause I might have to plead; and I began to wish from the bottom of my heart that I had not taken her into my confidence. When I got to the finding of Tom's body, and the look of terror stamped upon his face, a new expression broke over hers--an expression of triumphant hate that was fearful.

'Thank God at least for that!' she said. Then she murmured, 'But that does not atone.'

Ah! how I regretted now that I had consulted her on a subject where her proud imperious nature must be so deeply disturbed. But it was too late to retreat.

'Henry,' she said, 'this is a shocking story you tell me. After losing my husband this is the worst that could have happened to me--the violation of his sacred tomb. Had I only hearkened to my own misgiving about the miscreant! Yet I wonder you did not wait till the morning before telling me.'

'Wait till the morning?' I said, forgetting that she did not know what was at my heart.

'Doubtless the matter is important, Henry,' said she. 'Still, the mischief is done, the hideous crime has been committed, and the news of it could have waited till morning.'

'But, mother, unless my father's words are idle breath, it is important, most important, that the amulet should again be buried with him. I meant to go to the sands in the morning and wait for the ebbing tide--I meant to take the cross from the breast of the dead man, and to replace it in my father's coffin. That, mother, was what I meant to do. But I am too ill to move; I feel that in an hour or so, or in a few minutes, I shall be delirious. And then, mother! Oh, _then_!--'My mother looked astonished at my vehemence upon the subject.

'Henry,' she said, 'I had no idea that you felt such an interest in the matter; I have certainly misjudged your character entirely. And now, what do you want me to do?'

'Nobody,' I said, 'must know of the cross but ourselves. I want you, mother, to do what I cannot do: I want you to go on the sands and wait for the turn of the tide; I want you to take the cross from Wynne's breast, if the body should be exposed, and secure it in secret till it can be replaced in the coffin.'

'_I_ do this, Henry?' said my mother, with a look of bewilderment at my earnestness. 'Yet there is reason in what you say, and grievous as the task would be for me, I must consider it.'

'But will you engage to do it, mother?'

'Really, Henry, you forget yourself,--you forget your mother too. For me to go down to the sands and watch the ebbing of the tide, and then defile myself by touching the body of this wretch, is a task I naturally shrink from. Still if, on thinking it over, I find it my duty to do it, it will not be needful for me to enter into a compact with my son that my duty to my dead husband shall be performed. Good-night. I quite think you will be better in the morning. I see no signs myself of the fever you seem to dread, and, alas! I am not, as you know, ignorant of the way in which a fever begins.'

She was going out of the room when I exclaimed, in sheer desperation, 'Mother, I have something else to say to you. You remember the little girl, the little blue-eyed girl, Wynne's daughter, who came here once, and you were so kind to her, so gracious and so kind'; and I seized her hand and covered it with kisses, for I was beside myself with alarm lest my one hope should go.'

The sudden little laugh of bitter scorn that came from my mother's lips, the sudden spasm that shook her frame, the sudden shadow as of night that swept across her features, should at once have hushed my confession. But I went on: my tongue would not stop now: I felt that my eloquence, the eloquence of Winifred's danger, must conquer, must soften even the hard pride of her race.

'And she has never forgotten your graciousness to her, mother.'

'Well?' said my mother, in a tone whose velvet softness withered me.

'Well, mother, she is in all things the very opposite of her father. This very night she told me'--and I was actually on the verge of repeating poor Winifred's prattle about her resembling her mother, and not her father (for already my brain had succumbed to the force of the oncoming fever, and the catastrophe I was dreading made of me a frank and confiding child).

'Well?' said my mother, in a voice softer and more velvety still. 'What did she tell you?'

That tone ought to have convinced me of the folly, the worse than folly, of saying another word to her.

'But I can conquer her,' I thought; 'I can conquer her yet. When she comes to know all the piteousness of Winifred's case, she _must_ yield.'

'Yes, mother,' I cried, 'she is in all things the very opposite of Tom. She has such a horror of sacrilege; she has such a dread of a crime and a curse like this; she has such a superstitious belief in the power of a dead man's curse to cling to the delinquent's offspring, that, if she knew of what her father had done, she would go mad--raving mad, mother--she would indeed!' And I fell hack on the pillow exhausted.

'Well, Henry, and is this what you summoned me from my bed to tell me--that Wynne's daughter will most likely object to share the consequences of her father's crime? A very natural objection, and I am really sorry for her; but further than that I have certainly no affair with her.'

'But, mother, the body of her father lies beneath the _débris_ on the shore; the ebbing tide may leave it exposed, and the poor girl, missing her father in the morning, will seek him perhaps on the shore and find him--find him with the proof of his crime on his breast, and know that she inherits the curse--my father's curse! Oh, think of _that_, mother--think of it. And you only can prevent it.'

For a few moments there was intense silence in the room. I saw that my mother was reflecting. At last she said:

'You say that Wynne's daughter told you something to-night. Where did you see her?'

'On the sands.'

'At what hour?'

'At--at--at--about eleven, or twelve, or one o'clock.'

I felt that I was getting into a net, but was too ill to know what I was doing. My mother paused for awhile; I waited as the prisoner tried for his life waits when the jury have retired to consult. I clutched the bedclothes to stay the trembling of my limbs. On a chair by my bedside was my watch, which had been stopped by the sea-water. I saw her take it up mechanically, look at it, and lay it down again. In the agony of my suspense I yet observed her smallest movement.

'And in what capacity am I to undertake this expedition?' said she at length, in the same quiet tone, that soul-quelling tone she always adopted when her passion was at white-heat. 'Is it in the capacity of your father's wife executing his wishes about the amulet? Or is it as the friend, protectress, and guardian of Miss Wynne?'

She sat down again by my bedside, and communed with herself--sometimes fixing an abstracted gaze upon me, sometimes looking across me at the very spot where in the shadow beside my bed I bad seemed to see the words of the Psalmist's curse written in letters of fire. At last she said quietly, 'Henry, I will undertake this commission of yours.'

'Dear mother!' I exclaimed in my delight. 'I will undertake it,' pursued my mother in the same quiet tone, 'on one condition.'

'Any condition in the world, mother. There is nothing I will not do, nothing I will not sacrifice or suffer, if you will only aid me in saving this poor girl. Name your condition, mother; you can name nothing I will not comply with.'

'I am not so sure of that, Henry. Let me be quite frank with you. I do not wish to entrap you into making an engagement you cannot keep. You have corroborated to-night what I half suspected when I saw you talking to the girl in the churchyard; there is a very vigorous flirtation going on between you and this wretched man's daughter.'

'Flirtation? 'I said, and the incongruity of the word as applied to such a passion as mine did not vex or wound me; it made me smile.

'Well, for her sake, I hope it is nothing more,' said my mother. 'In view of the impassable gulf between her and you, I do for her sake sincerely hope that it is nothing more than a flirtation.'

'Pardon me, mother,' I said, 'it was the word "flirtation" that made me smile.'

'We will not haggle about words, Henry; give it what name may please you, it is all the same to me. But flirtations of this kind will sometimes grow serious, as the case of Percy Aylwin and the Gypsy girl shows. Now, Henry, I do not accuse you of entertaining the mad idea of really marrying this girl, though such things, as you know, have been in our family. But you are my only son, and I do love you, Henry, whatever may be your opinion on that point; and, because I love you, I would rather, far rather, be a lonely, childless woman in the world, I would far rather see you dead on this floor, than see you marry Winifred Wynne.'

'Ah! mother, the cruelty of this family pride has always been the curse of the Aylwins.'

'It seems cruel to you now, because you are a boy, a generous boy. You think it the romantic, poetic thing to elevate a low girl to your own station--perhaps even to show your superiority to conventions by marrying the daughter of the miscreant who has desecrated your own father's tomb. But, Henry, I know the race to which you and I belong. In five years' time--in three years, or perhaps in two--you will thank me for this; you will say: "My mother's love was not cruel, but wise."'

'Oh, mother!' I said, '_any_ condition but that.'

'I see that you know what my condition is before I utter it. If you will give me your word--and the word of an Aylwin is an oath--if you will give me your word that you will never marry Winifred Wynne, I will do as you desire. I will myself go upon the sands in the morning, and if the body has been exposed by the tide I will secure the evidence of her father's guilt, in order to save the girl from the suffering which the knowledge of that guilt would cause her, as you suppose.'

'As I suppose!'

'Again I say, Henry, we will not quarrel about words.'

I turned sick with despair.

'And on no other terms, mother?'

'On no other terms,' said she.

'Oh, mercy, mother! mercy! you know not what you do. I could not live without her; I should die without her.'

'Better die then!' exclaimed my mother, with an expression of ineffable scorn, and losing for the first time her self-possession; 'better die than marry like that.'

'She is my very life now, mother.'

'Have I not said you had better die then? On no other terms will I go on those sands. But I tell you frankly what I think about this matter. I think that you absurdly exaggerate the effect the knowledge of her father's crime will have upon the girl.'

'No, no; I do not. Mercy, dear mother, mercy! I am your only child.'

'That is the very reason why you, who may some day be the heir of one of the first houses in England, must never marry Winifred Wynne.'

'But I don't want to be heir of the Aylwins; I don't want my uncle's property,' I retorted. 'Nor do I want the other bauble prizes of the Aylwins.'

'Providence has taken Frank, and says you must stand where you stand,' replied my mother solemnly. 'You may even some day, should Cyril be childless, succeed to the earldom, and then what an alliance would this be!'

'Earldom! I'd not have it. I'd trample on the coronet. Gingerbread! I'd trample it in the mud, if it were to sever me from Winifred.'

'You must succeed to it should Cyril Aylwin, who seems disinclined to marry, die childless,' said my mother quietly; 'and by that time you may perhaps have reached man's estate.'

'Pity, mother, pity!' I cried in despair, as I looked at the strong woman who bore me.

'Pity upon whom? Have pity upon me, and upon the family you now represent. As to all the fearful effects that the knowledge of this sacrilege will have upon the girl, _that_ is a subject upon which you must allow me to have my own opinion. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and provides thick skins for the _canaille_. What will concern her chiefly, perhaps entirely, will be the loss of her father, and she will soon know of that, whether she finds the body on the sands or not. This kind of person is not nearly so sensitive as my romantic Henry supposes. However, my condition will not be departed from. If you consent to give up this girl I will go on the sands; I will defile my fingers; I will secure the stolen amulet at the ebb of the tide, should the corpse become exposed. If you will _not_ consent to give her up, there is an end of the matter, and words are being wasted between us.'

'Give up Winifred, mother? That is not possible.'

'Then there is no more to be said. We will not waste our time in discussing impossibilities. And I am really so depressed and unwell that I must return to my room. I hope to hear you are better in the morning, and I think you will be. The excitement of this night and your anxiety about the girl have unstrung your nerves, and you have lost that courage and endurance which are yours by birthright.'

And she left the room.

But she had no sooner gone than there came before my eyes the insupportable picture of a slim figure walking along the sands stooping to look at some object among the _débris_, standing aghast at the sight of her dead father with the evidence of his hideous crime on his own breast; there came the sound of a cry to 'Henry' for help! I beat my head against the bedstead till I was nearly stunned. I yelled and bellowed like a maniac: 'Mother, come back!'

When she returned to my bedside my eyes were glaring so that my mother stood appalled, and (as she afterwards owned to me) was nearly yielding her point.

'Mother,' I said,'I consent to your condition: I will give her up--but oh, save her! Let there be no dallying, let there be no risk, mother. Let nothing prevent your going upon the sands in the morning--early, quite early--and every morning at the ebbing of the tide.'

'I will keep my word,' she said.

'You will use the fullest and best means to save her?'

'I will keep my word,' she said, and left the room.

'I have saved her!' I cried over and over again, as I sank back on my pillow. Then the delirium of fever came upon me, and I lay tossing as upon a sea of fire.

XII

Weak in body and in mind as an infant, I woke again to consciousness. Through the open window the sunlight, with that tender golden-yellow tone which comes with morning in England, was pouring between the curtains, and illuminating the white counterpane. Then a soft breeze came and slightly moved the curtains, and sent the light and shadows about the bed and the opposite wall--a breeze laden with the scent I always associated with Wynne's cottage, the scent of geraniums. I raised myself on my elbows, and gazed over the geraniums on the window-sill at the blue sky, which was as free of clouds as though it were an Italian one, save that a little feathery cloud of a palish gold was slowly moving towards the west.

'It is shaped like a hand,' I said dreamily, and then came the picture of Winifred in the churchyard singing, and pointing to just such a golden cloud, and then came the picture of Tom Wynne reeling towards us from the church porch, and then came everything in connection with him and with her; everything down to the very last words which I had spoken about her to my mother before unconsciousness had come upon me. But what I did _not_ know--what I was now burning to know without delay--was what time had passed since then.

I called out 'Mother!' A nurse, who was sitting in the room, but hidden from me by a large carved and corniced oak wardrobe, sprang up and told me that she would go and fetch my mother.

'Mother,' I said, when she entered the room, 'you've been?'

'Yes,' said she, taking a seat by my bedside, and motioning the nurse to leave us.

'And you were in time, mother!'

'More than in time,' said she. 'There was nothing to do. I have realised, however, that your extraordinary and horrible story was true. It was not a fever-dream. The tomb has been desecrated.'

'But, mother, you went as you promised to the sands in Church Cove, and you waited for the ebb of the tide?'

'I did.'

'And you found--'

'Nothing; no corpse exposed.'

'And you went again the next day?'

'I did.'

'And you found--'

'Nothing.'

'But how many days have passed, mother? How many days have I been lying here?'

'Seven.'

'And no sign of--of the body was to be seen?'

'None. The wretch must have been buried for ever beneath the great mass of the fallen cliff. I went no more.'

'Oh, mother, you should have gone every day. Think of the frightful risk, mother. On the very day after you ceased your visits the body might have been turned up by the tide, and she might have gone and seen it.'

The picture was too terrible. I fell back exhausted. I revived, however, in a somewhat calmer mood. When my mother came into the room again, I returned at once to the subject. I reproached her bitterly for not having gone every day. She listened to my reproaches in entire calmness.

'It was idle to keep repeating these visits every day,' said she, 'and I consider that I have fully performed my part of the compact. I expect you to fulfil yours.'

I remained silent, preparing for a deadly struggle with the only being on earth I had ever really feared.

'I have fully kept my word, Henry,' said she, 'and have done for you more than my duty to your father's memory warranted me in doing.'

'But, mother, you did not do all that you promised to do; you did not prevent all risk of Winifred's finding it. She may find it even yet.'

'That is not likely now. I have performed my part of the compact, and I expect you to perform yours.'

'You did not use all means to save my Winifred from worse than death--from madness; you did not use all means to save me from dying of self-murder or of a broken heart; and the compact is broken. Whether or not I could have kept my faith with you by breaking troth with her, it is you who have set me free. Mother,' I said, fiercely, 'in such a compact it must be the letter of the bond.'

'Mean subterfuge, unworthy of your descent,' said my mother quietly, but with one of those looks of hers that used to frighten me once.

'No, no, mother; you have not kept the letter of the bond, and I am free. You did _not_ take the fullest and best means to save Winifred. Your compact was to save her from the risk I told you of. And, mother, mother, listen to me!' I cried, in a state of crazy excitement now: 'in the darkest moment of my life, when I was prostrate and helpless, you were pitiless as Pride. Listen, mother: Winifred Wynne shall be mine. Not all the Aylwins that have ever eaten of wheat and fattened the worms shall prevent that. She shall be mine. I say, she shall be mine!'

'The daughter of the man who desecrated my husband's tomb!'

'And my father's! That man's daughter shall be my wife,' I said, sitting up in bed and looking into those eyes, bright and proud, which had been wont to make all other eyes blink and quail.

'Cursed by your father, and cursed by God--'

'That curse--for what it may be worth--I take upon my own head; the curse shall be mine. Even if I believed the threat about the "desolate places," I would be there; if bare-footed she had to beg from door to door, rest assured, mother, that an Aylwin would hold the wallet--would leave the whole Aylwin brood, their rank, their money, and their stupid, vulgar British pride, to walk beside the beggar.'

The look on my mother's face would have terrified most people. It would have terrified me once, but in the frenzy into which I had then passed, nothing would have made me quail.

'Your services, mother, are no longer needed,' I said. 'Wynne's corpse might have been washed up by the tide, and your compact was to be there to see; but now, most likely, it is hidden, not under the loose fragments as I had feared, but under the great mass of earth,--hidden for ever.'

'But you forget,' said my mother, 'that the amulet has to be recovered.'

'Mother,' I said, in the state of wild suspiciousness concerning her and her motives into which I had now passed, 'I know what your words imply,--that Winifred is not yet out of danger; the evidence of the curse and the crime can be dug up.'

'I have no wish to harm the girl, Henry. You mistake me.'