CHAPTER XXXII

NEMESIS

Certainly Robert St. Amande looked now like a villain unmasked! All eyes were fixed upon him as he rolled his own round upon the assembled company; there was one pair, however, he did not see; the eyes of Louise, Lady St. Amande, who from behind the great pipes of the organ, had never ceased to gaze upon him and that other craven villain since they entered; and that he stood before them most thoroughly exposed he must have known well. Yet was his bravado such that he still endeavoured to brazen it all out; he still attempted to assert his wicked cause. Alas! I cannot think, even now, but that he would have desisted and have withdrawn ere it was too late could he have foreseen the dreadful tragedy that his conduct was to produce.

After a few seconds he again found his tongue; once more he nerved himself to address all in that saloon, defiant still and reckless in the blackness of his heart.

"He was to have been shipped to the plantations," he said, "not because I deemed him the rightful Gerald St. Amande, but because I knew him, even granting him to be the boy born at New Ross, to be smirched in his birth; because I knew my brother was not his father. 'Twas for the honour of the family; of my family, of yours, my lord Marquis, that no such child should ever sit in the place of honour. And wherein did I sin? Your house, my lord, the house in which I hope some day to sit as Marquis of Amesbury, has ere now refused the right of peerage to those born in wedlock when 'twas well known that, in spite of such birth, they had not been lawfully begotten. And that I knew of him; I know it and proclaim now." As he spoke he glared even more fiercely than before, so that his looks were terrible to see. Then he continued, "You, Sir Philip Yorke, you have produced your proofs to-day and have deemed them overwhelming. Now is the time, now the hour, for me to produce mine. I do so. You challenge me to bring forth evidence of the child's paternity other than that of my late brother. Behold it, then. Here sits the man who is the father of that other sitting there. 'Tis he, Wolfe Considine, the discarded admirer of Louise Sheffield before her marriage, the accepted lover of Louise St. Amande after her marriage, the father of Gerald St. Amande, the man who has been wrongfully installed as Lord St. Amande in the Irish peerage."

"God!" exclaimed my husband. "This can be borne no longer." And, as he spoke, he endeavoured to tear his sword from its sheath. Yet, between us, the Marquis and I did manage to appease him for the time, while the former whispered in his ear, "Tush, tush, be calm! Remember your mother hears all. Ere long we will bring her forth to confute them. Peace, I say."

Then, clearly and distinctly upon all ears, there fell the crisp tones of the Attorney-General addressing Robert St. Amande's accomplice. "You have heard, sir," he said, "that which Mr. St. Amande hath advanced. Do you confirm his words?"

A swift glance passed between them--'twas plain to be observed; the other hesitated a moment, and then, oh! unutterable villain, slowly he bowed his head and said, "I do confirm them."

I glanced at the organ as he spoke, I wondered how she behind it could sit there so calm and unmoved if the last of her strength was not yet gone; and then again Sir Philip Yorke was speaking: "Yet, Mr. Wolfe Considine, your confirmation is somewhat strange. You were, if I mistake not, proscribed as a rebel in the reign of Her late Majesty, Queen Anne. I have a full description of you here, handed to me by the Marquis. I will read it:--Wolfe Considine, late an officer in the First Royal Scots Regiment, from which he deserted before Oudenarde. Irishman, a spy in Scotland and traitor. Proscribed in seventeen hundred and ten and fled to Hamburg. Now, sir, since you were absent from England from that year until after the accession of the late King in seventeen hundred and fourteen, will you tell us how you could possibly be what you state you are, the father of Lord St. Amande!"

"I--I--I was frequently back in England--in Ireland--at that time," he stammered, "disguised and unknown to the Government. 'Twas there, then, that I met Louise St. Amande."

A terrible cry rang down the room as he spoke; a cry betwixt a scream and a gasp, one that caused all our eyes to be turned to the spot whence it came. And there we saw that which was enough to appal us; which caused Gerald to spring to his feet and rush forward and made me tremble and desire to weep.

For, erect and strong, as though she had never known an illness; her eyes fixed with an awful glare upon the unhappy wretch; her hands twitching and closing and opening spasmodically, we saw advancing down the room towards us the woman so foully calumniated. Back from her she motioned her son, as though commanding him not to bar her passage; slowly but unhaltingly she came on until, at last, she stood full face in front of the coward-hearted scoundrel before her. "Liar," she hissed forth, "liar! Deny it! Deny it! Retract! Retract!"

He stood shivering before her, his ashen lips muttering and trembling, though no sound came from them; he seemed, indeed, as though stricken dumb.

"Liar," again she said, still with the dreadful stare in her eyes as though she gazed on some horror unspeakable, "liar! Retract! You sat once at his board and ate of his dish; when you were beggared he gave you money and clothed you; yet now you would steal his wife's honour from him; the honour from his child. Retract! Retract, ere it is too late!"

He was dumb. Dumb with fear and dismay! He could frame no words in answer to the spectre that had arisen before him; he could not meet the glance of the poor paralysed woman whose strength had come back to her so that she might confront him. Still she went on:

"Retract, I say." And with those eyes piercing his soul, she continued, "Was my early acquaintance with you--unsought by me and never desired--fit justification for hurling the name of wanton at me all these years? Was my poor unhappy husband's charity to you fit justification for branding his child so vilely? See, here he stands before you. See," and she struck Gerald, who remained by her side, so fiercely on the breast as she indicated him that he bore the bruise for some days. "See! Is he that thing you state? Answer, vile traducer. Answer me."

"For the love of God! be calm, mother. Heed him not," my husband cried.

But, instead, she heeded not her son and again continued, though as she spoke she wiped her lips with her handkerchief, and all saw that it had blood upon it when she had done so.

"Retract, I say! Retract, I say! What! Shall a woman cherish above all other things her honour only to have it fouled and maligned by any crawling villain who chooses to speak the word? Am I--are all women--at the mercy of such base things as you?"

She gazed at him a moment and again she reiterated:

"Retract! Retract! Retract, I say!"

Still his lips quivered but uttered no sound; once he gazed round the room as though seeking to escape; the perspiration stood in beads upon his brow; his knees shook under him. And then, unhappy wretch! he whispered: "I--I cannot; I dare not."

They were the last he ever uttered. Swift as lightning darting from the clouds, the right arm that had been so long paralysed was thrust forth; in an instant her hand had seized the sword that hung by his side and had torn it from its sheath; in another it had passed through his body, the hilt striking against his breast. There was a piercing scream from him, a thud as the body fell to the floor a moment after; a clang of steel as she, after drawing forth the weapon from him, let it fall from her now nerveless hand and, with a gasp, sunk into her son's arms.

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she moaned, while from her lips there oozed a thin red stream! "Oh, my dear one, at last I have repaid his attempt upon our honour and now 'tis finished. My sweet, this is the end. I have not five minutes' life left to me. Farewell."

Once, as Gerald held her in his arms, she tried to put her own around his neck, he helping her to do so, and then, opening her eyes wide, she whispered, "Thrust a sword through a man's body, Gerald; through a man's body," and so passed away.

How shall I write further, how continue an account of that which I no longer witnessed? The room swam before my eyes; I heard a terrible cry escape from the white lips of Robert St. Amande; in a mist I saw the horror-stricken faces of the assembled guests and of the Marquis. I knew that Sir Robert Walpole called loudly for a physician and a chirurgeon to be fetched; I saw the dead man lying at my feet, the dead woman in her son's arms, and then I swooned and knew no more.

THE NARRATIVE CONCLUDED BY GERALD, VISCOUNT ST. AMANDE

"AFTER THESE STORMS AT LAST A CALM"

Many years have passed since those events occurred which have been written down by my dear wife and myself, and, hand in hand as ever, we are beginning to grow old. Thus I, who was but a boy when my father died and this history commenced, am now a middle-aged man fast nearing forty. My children, too, are no longer to be regarded as children; Gerald, my eldest boy, is promised a guidon in the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards Blue. My second son is at home in England in preparation for Oxford. My third, a little lad, is a midshipman serving under Sir Charles Knowles, and, by his last letter, I gather that he is almost as proud of the naval uniform which hath this year of grace, 1748, been authorised to the King's Navy, as of the attack on Port Louis, in St. Domingo, in which he took part. Of daughters I have been blessed with one alone, who in name, as in features and complexion, resembles what her dear mother must have been ere I had the good fortune to set eyes on her.

The Marquis of Amesbury has been dead twelve years, yet the House of Lords has not yet called me to take my seat there as his successor. This, however, is of supreme indifference to me--so much so, indeed, that I have not yet petitioned them to enrol me in his place, though Sir Robert Walpole, after he became Earl of Orford, frequently desired me to do so, saying that it would be better done in his lifetime than afterwards. Yet he is dead, too; and 'tis not done. Why should it be, I often ask myself, except for my children's sake? I dwell in Virginia, which spot I love exceedingly, and I am never like to dwell anywhere else; while as for the Marquis's wealth it has all come to me. Yet, as I say, for the children's sake I must some day make out my claim to the honour. When I do so there can be no opposition to it.

After that dreadful tragedy in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and after the Marquis had sternly bade my uncle go forth and never darken his doors again, Robert St. Amande--seeing, I suppose, that all was lost and being, indeed, then very near to absolute destitution--betook himself to the Temple Stairs, and, casting himself into the river, was swept away by the fast ebbing tide and drowned, his body never being recovered. He left a child, the boy by his second marriage that has heretofore been spoken of, who has ever since been my care, and who will be so as long as I live, as well as being provided for at my death, but that he can dispute my children's birthright is, of course, impossible. Nor, I think, is it probable he would have any desire to do so, being in character most amiable and gentle as well as grateful, and vastly different from his wretched half-brother, Roderick.

The remains of my dear mother lie in the vaults of her own people, and there the sad and loving heart of Louise St. Amande knows at least the peace that was never accorded it in this world. Poor mother! Poor stricken wife, how sad was your existence! The love you gave your husband was doomed to slight and contumely; the love you gave your child could never induce Fate to let that child stay long by your side. And often as I meditate on her and on her strange life and ending, I see her again as I saw her on that last day; I hear her last whisper, "Thrust a sword through a man's body, Gerald." As I do so I recognise fully that she had never forgotten the words we spoke together in her lodgings in Denzil Street until the time came for them to bring forth their fruits.

Of the others who have figured in this narrative let me now speak briefly. Oliver Quin, finding his occupation gone at my mother's death--whom during her life he would never quit, being always a most faithful and devoted servitor and friend---re-took up his old business, and is now a thriving dealer of beasts and black cattle on Tower Hill. Also has he been chosen as warden of the district in which he dwells--which is close by where my kidnapping took place so long ago--and he is a sidesman of his church, so that he is both prosperous, respectable, and respected. When I am in England, which is mostly once in every two or three years, we never fail to meet, he coming to pass an evening or so with me in the great house in the Fields, or I going to him in the City. And then, over a bottle of sound wine if it be summer, or a sneaker of punch if winter, we talk over our early adventures in Dublin and how we outwitted my uncle, and I retail again and again to him the sequel to those adventures in Virginia. Our wives know one another, too, for Quin hath married the daughter of a poor clergyman in the Minories, she having been a maid-servant in service of a rich cattle-dealer whom he knew; and they admire one another's babes and talk much mother's prattle together.

Kinchella likewise prospers in America, and doth well. He, too, has a thriving family and is happy. Mary, for so I now permit myself to call her, is my wife's greatest friend as ever, as their sons are my sons' greatest friends when all are at home. Kinchella's eldest is at Harvard; his youngest is at Trinity College, Dublin; and both are intended for the ministry. If they follow in their father's footsteps then must they be an ornament to that sacred calling, and go far towards reforming that which still needs much reformation in our colonies--the private lives of our divines.

O'Rourke and I have never met again, yet I know that he is thriving though he has grown very old. He dwells always at Savannah, in which rising city he is one of the leading men, and we frequently have correspondence with one another. And very touching and pathetic it seemed to me to be when, on my writing him that, on my next journey home, I intended to visit Ireland on my affairs, he asked me to take with me some roots and cuttings to plant on his dead daughter's grave in Dublin. "She died young," he wrote, "and ere you knew me. Had she lived, may be your lordship would never have known me, for I might have made a better life of it. She was all I had and she was taken from me, and thus I turned reckless and dissolute. Thank God I have seen the evil of my ways at last."

Buck still keeps the tavern--with my wife's redemption acquittal, which she gave to him as to all the bond-servants, framed above his chimney-piece--and does well at that occupation and horse-rearing. Lamb is growing very rich, having again quitted the sea and possessing now a plantation and many servants both white and black of his own, and bids fair to found a family.

And now for ourselves, to conclude. That I am content with fate you must surely know; who could be aught else who has ever by his side an angel to guide, support, and minister to him? Through all the years since first we met we have lived happily together, loving each other most fondly, sharing each other's joys and troubles--which latter have been but few--and being all in all to ourselves, with only our children to partake of any portion of that love. She is still the same as ever, her sweet, fair face as beautiful, her golden hair with scarce a silver one in it; and, if her years have made her more matronly, they have not robbed her of one charm. Nor is the gentle disposition altered a jot; the trust and belief in others, the unselfish nature, the simplicity and innocence of mind are as they were on that summer day when first I saw her bending over her roses; the day on which God raised up and gave to me the loving companion, friend, and champion of my life and cause.

After I have smoked my big pipe out and drunk my nightcap down, and seen that all the servants are a-bed--for we live in her old house in the same way her father and his fathers lived before us--I go to my rest and, as I pass to it, look in to her retiring-room to give her one fond, good-night kiss. Yet, often, ere I pull aside the hangings, I have to pause and stand reverently without. For many a time that room has become a shrine; within that shrine there is a saint. A saint upon her knees, her fair white hands clasped, and in those hands her golden head buried. A saint who prays to her God to bless her husband and her children ever; a saint who thinks of nought for herself but of all for those dear to her, and who, in that self-forgetfulness, finds her deepest happiness.

Than to possess such a fond heart as this there is no more to be asked.

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 1: A gossiping, chatting, or drinking place.]

[Footnote 2: The mastiffs in Virginia were trained to worry figures dressed as Indians, as well as being always taken out in any foray or chase after either a band of them or an individual, and the antipathy between these dogs and the savages was always very marked.]

[Footnote 3: Unfortunately, such was the class of ministers who originally went out to the American colonies (they generally being outcasts from their own country) that, in this instance, Roderick St. Amande was not only speaking the truth but also representing very accurately the common feeling of the Indian tribes towards the colonial clergyman.]

[Footnote 4: The incident of the Indian woman's mercy is not fictitious.]

[Footnote 5: Indians taken prisoners by the colonists were sometimes sold into slavery in Canada or the West Indies, where they generally died soon.]

[Footnote 6: So called from the poles smeared with blood which were erected before the Seminoles' tents when on the warpath. The French settlers also termed them "Bâtons Rouges," whence the name of the old capital of Louisiana.]

THE END

********************************************************* F. W. S. Clarke & Co., Ltd., Criterion Press, Leicester.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Land of Bondage, by John Bloundelle-Burton