CHAPTER XIII

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S CONFESSION.

"They tell me I am a dying woman; and though I feel as I never felt before, I can hardly realize it. I never thought to bring myself to save the words I am going to say, to tell the story I am going to tell. All my life long I have been a wicked woman. I don't ask your pity--I do not want it; and if you now feel pitiful, seeing me lie here, when you have heard all, you will turn from me with loathing and spurn the miserable creature before you. No, I never thought it would come to this--that I should wish to tell out the sins of my life. But I have listened to words this night that I have not heard since the days of my childhood, from the lips of that good man, and they have done what nothing else could do. I could fancy myself a child once more, kneeling at my mother's knee and saying the 'Our Father;' lisping the prayers I have never dared to teach _my child_. My child! O God, {235} will he not curse his mother, knowing what she is, and what she has made him? My child, who will rise up in judgment against me at the last day, because in loving him I have worked his ruin! Better he had died, my fair-haired boy, nestling his baby head against my breast, cooing his baby cry in my ear, than live to be what I have made him. Better far we both had perished--mother and son--and been buried in one grave; the angels would not have veiled their faces then as they veil them now. Life and strength are ebbing fast, fast from me; and if I want to say all that I have to say--all the crushing load of guilty knowledge that lies upon my soul--I must hasten on. Lift me up a little more--it is hard to get breath--and turn my face from the light, sister. I can bear it better when it is dark. I go back to the beginning. One is standing there who has a right to know all I have to tell."

"I am a Belgian by birth, a native of Antwerp. My father was clerk in the custom-house there, and I was his only child. He and my mother lavished their love and their all upon me, and I received a very good education. At seventeen I met Robert Bradley; he was mate on board an English merchant-vessel. My parents looked down on him, but he loved me, and soon my heart was bent on him. We ran away together and were married at Plymouth. I never saw father nor mother nor my native place again. They died soon after; I broke their hearts. A year after our marriage my baby was born: it was the first joy unmixed with pain I had known since I left Antwerp when the boy was placed in my arms; it was the last I was ever to have. Six months after his birth Robert got into trouble; trouble that brought him in danger of the law. His employers dismissed him, and we were fated to quit Plymouth, where I had lived since our marriage whilst he was at sea. The little savings Robert had put by were soon gone, like his character, and we had to tramp, tramp, till we came to London. There he got temporary employment on the river; but he was changed. He was no longer like the Robert of old days, the man I had loved and for whom I had forsaken everything. Poverty pinched us very sorely; but if he had been what he was when I first knew him I would have minded nothing. But he degraded me, and I felt he would degrade my child. It was all I cared for now--my little boy; let him remember that. Oh! let him remember it, that he was all I loved and cared for! For more than a year we struggled on through misery untold. Robert drank terribly, and this vice brought out the coarseness of his nature, the low habits he had contracted amongst his seafaring associates. At last, when it came to seeing my boy wanting bread, I could bear it no longer; and one day I left the wretched hole where we lived, and with the child in my arms walked away from London. Miles away I wandered beyond the Surrey hills, with a little money in my pocket and my best and only gown on my back, lying down to rest in the sweet hay-fields or by the woodside, for it was summer-time, till at last one early morning I reached a little village, and sought rest and shelter at a small farmhouse. I found both, and I likewise found friends--or rather my child did. He was fair and winning with his baby beauty, and the mistress of the house took to him, having just lost hers. I stopped some months, helping her in all her household duties, for I was very thrifty and handy, and I earned my own bread and the boy's. But his future troubled me. I wanted money to educate him, to set him forward in life; and I determined to go into regular service. When my friends heard of this they offered to take charge of my little one, whom they loved as if he had been their own. So it happened that when I came across an advertisement for a married woman to take charge of a city merchant's house in London and act as housekeeper to him, I answered it. I referred to the people I lived {236} with and to the clergyman of the parish, and finally was engaged by Mr. Gilbert Thorneley. Perhaps the low wages I asked induced him to take me; perhaps having seen me, his keen shrewdness detected there was a story that was mine, and so could trade upon it and grind me down. Anyhow I entered his service in the spring of 1832. Of my husband up to that time I had heard nothing. I assumed my maiden name, and carefully concealed every clue to finding either myself or my child. The kind people who had taken charge of the boy were named Wilmot. He was christened Robert; but they gave him the name their dead child had borne, and he went by the name of '_Lister Wilmot_.' I made no objection; it helped to conceal him from his father."

There was the movement of a violent shiver in the form that stood next to me, and a low muttered sound; I did not catch the words, but the dying woman must have heard something, for she paused and half turned her head, as if listening. Then after a moment she continued her narration:

"I have no need to describe to you Gilbert Thorneley's character. What right have I now, with death so close to me, to malign the dead! And yet I must tell, because it is part of the burden I am laying down, all the hatred, the contempt I felt for him as I got to know his meanness, his low cunning, his niggardly ways. The clerks he kept on miserable salaries, the workmen he employed and ground down to the uttermost farthing, all knew and told me of the heaps of wealth that were flowing into his coffers; how sum upon sum accumulated in his hands; and how his name was a byword and a proverb for a rich and prosperous man. And one hundredth part of that wealth had bought me the only joy I ever craved now--union with my child, and security for his future! I brooded over this in long lonely hours, brooded until I grew mad, until Satan entered into me, and I turned my face from God. Just at this time my master was away from home for many weeks. I did not know where he went, or on what business; but on his return he made two announcements to me: first, that he had bought a house and estate in Lincolnshire; and secondly, that he was going to be married. I replied I supposed he would now no longer want my services. To my surprise and dismay, he answered me by saying he should require me to go down to his new house and act there as housekeeper. He added he had discovered all about me, where my child was, and the whole story of my husband; that I was now in his power; if I would serve him faithfully I should never want for money, and that my boy should be forwarded in life. If I refused, he would make everything known, and put Robert on my track. I consented to remain in his service, and to do all that he required.

"I went down shortly into Lincolnshire to the Grange; and there he brought home his young bride. By this time I had got to know many of his secrets. I had sold myself to him and he paid me; handsomely enough for him, considering the miser that he was. His wife was not happy--how could she be? She was kept shut up in that dismal Grange from month to month, without a soul to speak to save him or me. He did not want _her_, he wanted her fortune. That has been told before. To spy upon her, to watch her, was my office down in those dreary fens; to walk with her, to attend her in her drives, never to lose sight of her except when with him. If she had liked me, if she had shown any kindness to me, I would have been her friend, and shielded her from the tyrant whom she called husband. But she treated me with haughtiness--undisguised contempt; me, who had her in my power. I have hot blood and passions in me, cold and phlegmatic as I seem; and she roused the passion of hatred within me. During my residence in Lincolnshire, my husband traced me out through an accidental circumstance. We had one interview. {237} He entreated me to return to him; but I would not. He threatened to keep and eye on me, to watch me. I dared him to it. Afterward I found that I had been foolish to brave him. A year after her marriage Mrs. Thorneley bore her first child; but before that an event occurred which influenced and sealed her fate. I detected her in two stolen interviews with a cousin of hers, an officer in the army. My master believed that when her aunt died she had no living relative left. I bear witness now that nothing passed at those interviews that all the world might not have heard; but I used my knowledge of them with Mr. Thorneley. I have said before he wanted her money and not her, and this cousin turning up frightened him. He accused her of all that was most shameful, egged on by me. I was the richer for it. I had now a goodly sum put by for my boy. Then the heir was born; a weakly, puling child. You know what he grew up to be--an idiot. Mrs. Thorneley was very ill; I knew her husband did not wish for her recovery. I did not suspect he absolutely wished her death. At last she died--suddenly. Only he and I were in the room, _I_ was that '_other person_' spoken of by him to Mr. Kavanagh. She died by prussic acid administered to her by him; and _I_ discovered it. Henceforth _he_ was in _my_ power, not I in his. I kept silence, and the matter was hushed up with money.

"The baby was left to be nursed at the Grange; and my master and I returned to town. Once more I settled down to my old duties in the city house, bearing in my breast the knowledge of my master's fearful secret. All sense of right and wrong, all conscience, was deadened within me; the secret was mine--mine to turn into gold and riches for my child. I went down to visit him at the farm in Surrey; and as I pressed him in my arms I whispered to him of what he should be--a grand, rich gentleman.

"Two years after this time my masters widowed sister, Mrs. Atherton, died; and he adopted her only child, Hugh. I saw that this would prove either an aid or an obstacle to my plans. Very little, I found, was known about Mr. Thorneley's family; he had come to London as a lad, from a distant part of England. One evening I sought him, and opened my scheme to him. I had him in my power, terribly, irremediably; and he consented to it. I was to bring my boy away from Surrey, and he would adopt and bring him up as the child of another sister, with his nephew, Hugh Atherton. He was to retain the name of Lister Wilmot.

"Excepting during occasional hasty visits to the Grange, Mr. Thorneley never saw his son and heir. The child had been born an idiot; that he would ever be otherwise was hopeless.

"I went down to the little farm and brought away my boy--my little Robert. For two years he had never seen me, and had forgotten his mother. I brought him away from his friends, from all the pure, simple influence that surrounded him there, from the innocent joys of country life, from the wholesome atmosphere of honest toil and labor--brought him up to dwell in the abode of one whose hands were dyed with crime, brought him within the baleful influence of his mother's teaching. Too late now--too late; but as I see it all at this moment, it had been better to beg, better to die, than have brought him within the shadow of that man's gold.

"Once more my husband burst upon me. He was jealous, he said, jealous of my master, and he insisted upon knowing where his child was. With false promises I got rid of him. It was late in the evening when he came and went. He had a companion with him--an ill-looking Irishman, named Sullivan. That night the house was broken into. Being roused, I surprised one of the burglars retreating; he was the image of my husband, and yet it was not he, I felt convinced. But it gave me an idea. If I could swear to him and he were taken, he would be transported, and I should be free from {238} him, at least for a time. I helped Inspector Keene to detect him by means of anonymous letters, and then swore to his identity. He was condemned and sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude. I have not much more to tell, up to last October.

"The two boys grew up together into young men--one the real, the other the pretended nephew of Mr. Thorneley--and as his joint heirs. Of his own son nothing was seen, nothing heard; he might have been dead, but that I knew he was not. If Lister Wilmot had only succeeded to one-half of Gilbert Thorneley's fortune his future would have been amply, brilliantly provided for. I coveted more for my son; he coveted more for himself. In those days he never knew I was his mother; but I had tended him when a child, and he used to confide in me. It was the only sweetness I ever tasted amidst the cup of bitterness I had prepared myself. He was proud and ambitious; I dared not tell him who he was. So he grew up in ignorance of our relative positions--he, the reputed nephew and joint heir of the richest man in England; I, his mother, that man's housekeeper and servant. He confided in me; and shortly after Mr. Hugh Atherton's engagement to Miss Leslie, I wormed from him that he too loved her. This and some money difficulties he got into at that time were harassing him sorely. I could not see my boy suffer and not try to help him--I could not see him thwarted in his love; and one day I went to his chambers and told him I possessed a secret of his uncle's, and would use it in his favor. He then said how jealous he was of his cousin, how fearful he felt lest Atherton, being Thorneley's favorite nephew, should at last be left sole heir. That evening I once more sought my master; and using all the power I had over him, extorted from him an oath that, with the exception of a nominal sum left to Mr. Atherton, a will in favor of my son as his sole heir should be made on the morrow. This was done. That will was read on the day of the funeral. After making it my master never seemed well or at ease; and day by day, hour by hour, I watched him in fear and dread lest he should revoke it. We were both hurried on mysteriously to our fate.

"On the 23d of October last Mr. Thorneley received a visit from Mr. John Kavanagh in Wimpole street. I misdoubted the object of the interview; watched, listened, and overheard in great part what took place. The sending for the two men servants, and their saying on returning to the kitchen that they had been signing their names to something which looked like a will, confirmed my suspicious. Then the devil once more entered into my soul. What! after all my toil, my watching, my sufferings; after having bartered my salvation for this mess of pottage, should my boy be cast adrift upon the world when the old man died, and not inherit a penny of the money he had been taught to consider rightfully as his own? Never. Perish rather and die. Die! The word haunted my brain and rang in my years--die! Who should die but he, the old miser? Then a terrible resolve got possession of me, and I dressed myself and went out. The history of that evening is known to you all. _I_ was the woman who met Mr. Kavanagh Vere street; _I_ was the women who entered the chemist's shop and the poison; _I_ was the woman who sent the money to James Ball and bade him not identify me. I saw the meeting between Mr. Atherton, whom I hated, and Mr. Kavanagh, whom I hated also, because he was his friend. I heard the whole of their conversation and then the future opened out to me, lighted by the flames of hell. I went home; and scarcely had I arrived when first Lister came, and then Hugh Atherton. I heard them talking together; I heard my son say he trouble about money, and that he was going to ask for some. That was well. I had poisoned the old man's mind, and told him days before that Atherton was leading Lister into extravagance; that {239} only my son had gained Miss Leslie's affections, he should never have come upon Mr. Thorneley's for a son. He was irritated against his nephew; this evening was the crisis. What I have related explains his words to Mr. Atherton.

"At nine o'clock I took up his usual refreshment. Ale _was_ poured out in a glass, and into the ale poured out I emptied the paper of strychnine bought at the chemist's. Strangely enough, I did it unobserved by Barker. He little thought there was need to watch me. Strangely, too, Mr. Atherton never noticed that I spoke to Lister as I left the study. I said to him in a low voice: 'Don't give your uncle his ale to-night; let him get it himself'.' The results were what I foresaw. Lister never stirred, and Mr. Atherton handed the glass to his uncle. I put the paper in the pocket of Mr. Atherton's overcoat as I passed through the hall on my way down.

"In the night I went into the dead man's room, took his keys, sought and found the will in the escritoire in his study. Mine were the footsteps heard on the stairs by the cook. I took the will and concealed it up in my bedroom, effectually as I thought; but it seems not. This is the history of that night of the 23d of October last; this is the mystery of Gilbert Thorneley's death. He was murdered by _me_."

The feeble voice ceased, and the weary head sank lower upon the hello. We thought the end had come, and both priest and surgeon hastened to the dying woman's side. But it was not so; her task was not yet done. After an interval of many minutes she rallied again. Whilst she had spoken Wilmot gave no sign, save that one shuddering movement. I had rapidly taken down her confession in shorthand, standing just as we had entered, grouped at a little distance from the bed; and when she was silent I looked round at her son beside me. There he stood with his arms folded, motionless and rigid, his eyes fixed on the ground, his lips drawn tightly together, set and firm, and a dark heavy frown upon his brow. His face was deadly pale. "God move his heart," I inwardly prayed as I looked at him; for it was like gazing on a block of granite. Presently I heard Father Maurice say to her, "Are you able to speak without pain? You have said all that is necessary."

"No, no!" she replied, "not all;" and turned her face, on which the shadow of death was gathering fast, toward us once more. How long she had been unburdening her soul we had taken no count, and the grey dawn was stealing in at the window as she spoke again. It was opposite the bed.

"Will you undraw that curtain, sister?" she said; "I should like to look once more upon the sky before I die. It is very long since I dared to lift my face to it without dread; there seemed to be an eye looking down upon me with such terrible anger. It is gone now, the great fear. Can this be peace that is stealing over me? Peace for such as I?"

Father Maurice stooped down and spoke to her in a low tone, and I saw her hands fold together and her lips move. In a few moments she spoke once more. Her mind was wandering. "Robert! where is my boy?" and she started forward. "It is growing dark; why doesn't he come? Lister!"

Oh! the anguished longing of that cry, as if the mother's heart went out and broke with yearning! Would he, _could_ he resist that appeal? "Mother!" I saw a wild movement beside me, and a figure rushed forward and flung himself on his knees by the bed. I saw him encircle the dying woman in his arms and press his lips passionately to hers. She laid her hands round his neck and smoothed his face, just as if he had been a child. "Robert, my little Robert!" The intervening years had passed away to her mind; the memory of crime and sin {240} was taken from her, and only the consciousness of her child's presence was with her. "Forgiveness!" we heard her murmur; and she drew her son's head yet closer to her breast. Then there was a dead stillness. Once more the surgeon approached and touched Lister Wilmot on the shoulder. He raised his head a little, and the arms that clung round his neck fell powerless on the coverlet.

"She has fainted," said Mr. Lovell. Lister knelt on whilst restoratives were being applied, with his face buried in his hands. After a while consciousness came back; her eyes opened, and lighted up with a gleam of ineffable joy as they fell upon her son's bent head. She passed her hand caressingly over his hair, and then let it rest upon his shoulder.

"This is more than I deserved," she said; and her voice was fainter than when last she had spoken. "I ought not to have such happiness as this. Are you there, Mr. Kavanagh?"

"Yes, I am here;" and I went up to the bedside.

"I have done grievous wrong to your friend Mr. Atherton. Can you, can he forgive me?"

I told her yes, freely from my heart, and I knew I might say so from _him_. She moved her hand restlessly over Wilmot's hair, and a momentary look of trouble crossed her face.

I asked her if she had anything else to say to me; not to fear. That I prayed the Almighty Father to forgive her, even as I forgave any trouble she had caused me.

"My son, my poor boy! What will be done to him? He is innocent of the crimes I have revealed--innocent of the murder, innocent about the will."

Then a broken, hollow voice answered, "No, mother--not entirely. I suspected there was something wrong, but the temptation to profit by it was too strong."

She looked more troubled; and I thought she glanced at me piteously, imploringly.

"Do not let that disturb you. You may trust Atherton. Nothing will be done against your son. Die in peace."

"Robert, don't kill me! I have not got him here. He is safe. Little Robert, little baby! kiss me, kiss poor mother. It is very dark. I cannot see him;" and the poor hands wandered over the coverlet. We drew near, and the low solemn tones of the priest were heard saying the prayers for the dying. The red streaks of early morning shed their faint glow on the dying woman's face; her lips moved, and Wilmot passing his arm beneath her head, raised her a little on his shoulder; she stole her arm up round his neck, and we heard the words, "Forgive! Mercy!" There was a long struggling sigh, a gasp for breath; the blue-grey eyes opened once more and looked toward the eastern sky, then closed in death.