CHAPTER XXVII.
Ada’s Flight and Despair.—Old Westminster Bridge at Daybreak.—The Smith.—Mad Maud.
When Ada, the beautiful and persecuted child of the dead, passed from the room in the garments befitting her sex, she thought her heart must burst with the suppressed feelings which were conjured up in its inmost recesses. One awful question occurred to her to be traced in letters of liquid fire upon her brain, and that was: “Is it true that Jacob Gray is my father?” His assertion of the fact had come upon her so entirely unawares that, as Gray had himself exultingly supposed, she had not time to think—but the doubt—the merest suspicion that it might true, was madness. Ada did not—she could not, even at the moment that Gray declared himself her father, believe his words; but still the doubt was raised, and although all reason—all probability—all experience gave the lie to the assertion, there was still the awful intrusive thought that it might be so.
Upon the impulse of that small possibility, that in that moment of despair and agony of soul Jacob Gray had spoken truly, Ada acted. She could not run the dreadful risk of sacrificing even a brutal and criminal father, and with a speed that in her state of mind was marvellous, she altered herself, in her girl’s clothing, and, as we have seen, for the time, saved Jacob Gray from death.
As she descended the narrow, dilapidated staircase, she pressed her hands convulsively upon her heart to still its tumultuous beatings. Her position in life appeared to her to be all at once strangely altered. If—and oh! That horrid if,—if conveying as it did a possibility of the fact—if Jacob Gray was really her father!—What was she now to do?—How think of him?—How address him? Could she ever bestow upon him the smallest fraction of that dear love which flows in so easy and natural a current from a child to its parent? Could she call him father?—No, she felt that she could not. She examined her feelings to endeavour to detect some yearnings of natural love and duty—some of that undefined, mysterious instinct she had read of as enabling the parent to single out the child—the child the parent, from the great mass of humanity; but the search—the self-examination was in vain. Jacob Gray was to her but the cruel, vindictive tyrant, rioting in oppression and brutality when un-resisted, and shrinking from her like a beaten hound when she dared to confront him, and question his acts.
“God of Heaven!” she said, when she had reached the street; “there should be some similarity of thought, some community of feeling between a father and his child. Do I and Jacob Gray think alike in anything? Have we one feeling in common?—No,—not one.”
As the probabilities of his not being her father crowded upon her mind, now that the intense excitement of the minute was over, Ada became more happy and composed, and she slackened her pace, seeing that she had already placed a considerable distance between herself and the house which had been to her a prison for so long a period.
“I will not, cannot believe it,” she said to herself; “that man is no father of mine. ’Twas a trick—a master-stroke in the extremity of his fortunes to bend me to his wishes, for some reasons which I know not, and cannot even hazard the wildest guess of. My father? Jacob Gray, my father? Oh, no, no, no! Rather never let me look upon a father’s face, than feel assured of such a horror as that! It cannot—cannot be. Oh, what would I not give to be assured of the lie! Had I worlds of riches in my grasp, I would unloose my hold and let them fly from me to be assured, past all doubt—past all hesitation, that Jacob Gray was to me neither father nor uncle.”
The dank fog that hung upon the Thames was now slowly clearing from before the face of heaven, and by the time Ada had reached Westminster Bridge, she could see through several breaks in the sky, glimpses of the starry host looking down upon the rapidly departing night.
The excitement the young girl had gone through had hitherto supported her against the intense coldness of the raw air, but now she trembled in every limb, and as she stood upon the silent bridge, trying to pierce with her dark, lustrous eyes, the heavy fog, and to catch a glimpse of the rushing stream below, she felt the cold to her very heart, and all the miseries of her homeless, friendless situation, rushing at once like a full tide upon her mind, she shrank into one of the little alcoves of the bridge, and sinking upon the rude wooden seat, she burst into tears, and sobbed aloud in the deep anguish of her heart.
Suddenly then she started to her feet, as she heard a heavy footstep approaching. Her first impulse was to leave her place of refuge, and walk quickly onwards, but a second thought caused her to shrink back, with the hope that the stranger would pass on, and she should escape his observation.
Nearer and nearer she heard the heavy measured tread approaching, and an undefinable sensation of fear crept over her as the sounds echoed from one side of the old bridge to the other.
Now and then the person, whoever it was, would pause in his walk, and indistinct mutterings, as if he were communing with himself, reached the ears of Ada.
As he came near she could detect the words he used, and her ears were shocked by oaths of the most awful character, coupled with invectives and horrible imprecations against some one. Involuntarily Ada shrank still closer within the alcove, and now the stranger paused nearly opposite to where she was concealed, and she could hear his words distinctly.
“Curses on him,” he muttered; “I swear, I, Andrew Britton, swear by all the furies of hell that I will have that man’s blood! He shall bitterly rue his taunts, most bitterly. By Heaven, I would like to tear his heart out. I—I could set his blood flowing like a torrent. I could exult in any agony inflicted upon him. Cunning Britton am I? Taunt on—taunt on; every dog will have his day.”
There was now a dead silence for some moments, and Ada strove to recollect where and when she had heard that voice before.
“Can this be one of those from whose visits my—my—no, no, not my father—my uncle shrank from in so much terror? It surely is—or else I have heard his voice in some dream. Ha! He comes—he comes!”
Britton, for it was he, advanced a pace or two and leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, still muttering deep and awful curses. He was so close to Ada that she could have touched him with her small white hand, had she chosen, but she stilled the very beating of her heart as much as possible, in instinctive terror of that man.
“It’s all to do over again now,” he said: “all over again—with the additional difficulty that he is upon his guard. Oh, could I but light on that boy; I—I’d wring his neck—and then—then Jacob Gray, I would invent some method of burning you to death painfully; some method that would take long in doing this—I should see you writhe in your agony. By the fiends there’s comfort in the thought. Oh, that I had him here—here clinging to the parapet of this bridge while I—I, Andrew Britton, was slowly—yes, very slowly, sawing his fingers till he loosed his hold and fell. Then he would strike against yon projection. Ha! Ha! That would be one pang—I should hear him shriek—what music! Then down—down he would go into the water, mingling his blood with it! I should see him rise again, and his heart would break in another shriek. Ha! Ha! Ha!—I am better with the very thought. He—a step—I will to the Chequers, and drown care in a flagon!”
A strange wild voice was now heard singing in a kind of rude chaunt. The tones were feeble and broken, but Ada, with a feeling of pleasure, recognised in them those of a woman. Her attention, however, was in a moment again turned to Britton, who all at once exclaimed, “What voice is that? I—I know that voice, although I have not heard it for some time now.”
The voice became more distinct as the singer approached, and there was a wild earnestness in the manner in which the following words were spoken, which touched Ada to the heart:—
“The winter’s wind is cold,
But colder is my heart,
I pray for death full oft,
Yet may not now depart,
I have a work to do,
The gentle child to save,
Alas! That its poor father
Should want a shroud and grave.”
“Now I know her—now I know her!” cried Britton. “Damnation, it’s—it’s Mad Maud! Shall I fly from her—or—or kill her?”
Before he could decide upon a course of action, the poor creature was close to him. She laid her hand upon his arm—
“Found—found,” she shrieked. “Ha! Ha! Ha! Found at last. Andrew Britton I have travelled many miles to find thee out.”
“Away, cursed hag!” cried Britton,
“I have sought you,” continued the poor woman, “oh, how I have sought you and Learmont too. You see I am mad, and so I know more than ordinary people. The day is coming—the day of vengeance, and I have come to London to see it. I have asked often—often for you, Andrew Britton, and now you are found.”
“Devil!” cried Britton, “why do you haunt me?”
“Haunt you! Yes, that is the word, I do haunt you! I will haunt you to the last.”
“Indeed! Perhaps you may meet with some accident.”
“No, no; I will tell you who I asked for you. You will not be surprised.”
“Who?—Who dared you ask for me?”
“There was a man hung last Monday—”
“Well, w—what is that to me? If there were fifty men hung? What is it to me, I say?”
“Nothing—oh, nothing, Andrew Britton; but I asked if he knew your hiding-place.”
“Why ask him?”
“Because the good and just cannot know you; you belong not to them; I asked the man who stood beneath the gibbet if he had been tempted to crime by Andrew Britton, the savage smith of Learmont; I asked the hangman if he knew you, and when he said he did not, I described you to him, that he might recognise you, when his cold clammy hands, are about your neck!”
“Prating idiot!” said Britton, “if you tempt me to the deed, I’ll cast you over the bridge!”
“You dare not, Andrew Britton! You dare not,” cried Maud. “Savage as you are, you dare not do that! Strange, too, as you boast yourself, you could not!”
“Indeed!“ answered Britton. “Now, by Heaven—”
“Hold—hold! Whatever you do, swear not by Heaven;—that Heaven you will never see! What have you to do with Heaven, that you should record your blustering oaths in its pure annals? Swear not by Heaven, Andrew Britton, or you may provoke a vengeance that may be terrible even to you.”
“Tell me,” said Britton, in an evidently assumed tone of mildness, “what brought you to London?”
“A holier errand, Britton, than that which has brought you, God knows I came to save, but you came to destroy.”
“Save who?”
“The child! The child!”
“You speak in riddles, Maud. What child?”
“I am mad!” replied the woman. “I know I am mad, but I have not forgotten—no, no. I cannot tell how long ago it is, but I saw the child of the dead brought forth by the bleeding man!”
“You rave,” cried Britton.
“No—no; I had no clue to that young child. To wander in search of it was hopeless till—till I found that you, Andrew Britton, were on the move. So long as the sound of your hammer rose on the night air at Learmont, I stayed there,—I hovered round your dwelling.”
“You played the spy upon me?” cried Britton.
“I did—I did; and wherefore should I not? I have followed you to this city. You came to seek the child; so have I. But you came quickly, with gold to urge you on your way; I have been many weeks begging from door to door. I asked two things wherever I went; one was a morsel of broken bread, and the other was to place my face towards London; now I am here,—here, Britton, I came to save the child.”
“Wretch!” cried Britton; “if your madness may be feigned for all I know. Swear to me that you will at once, return to Learmont.”
“Return?”
“Ay; you shall not dog my steps. I know not what you mean. You rave, woman—you rave.”
“Do I rave? Well, well, perhaps ’tis true. But I saw the child.”
“Tell me one thing, Maud. Do you know who that child is?”
There was a pause of a moment and Ada’s heart beat with tumultuous emotion, as she thought that now she might hear by this strange accidental meeting the secret of her birth.
“Yes,” said Maud; “yes—I know.”
“You are sure,” said Britton.
“I know, I know,” repeated Maud.
“Then, if there is a heaven above us, or a hell beneath us,” cried Britton, “you shall not leave this bridge alive.”
“Hush—hush!” cried Mad Maud, “I have dreamt it often, and believe it. You are to die before I do; it is so arranged, Andrew Britton.”
Ada looked out with trembling apprehension from her place of concealment, and she saw, by the rapidly increasing light of the coming day, the savage smith casting rapid glances around, as if to assure himself that no one was within sight of the deed of blood he was about to commit. For a moment an awful apathy crept over the heart of Ada, and she felt as if she were condemned to crouch in that little alcove without power of voice or action, and see the murder committed.
Mad Maud did not appear to have comprehended the last muttered threat of Britton, for she stood with her arms folded across her breast, murmuring in a low tone to herself, and apparently unheedful even of the presence of her enemy. Ada then saw the smith fumble awhile in his breast, and then he drew forth a knife. She saw it glitter in the faint light.
“Yes, yes,” said Maud, in a low tone, “I recollect all, or nearly all. How difficult it is to separate the dreams from the reality. The spirit of the dead man still haunts the place! Yes; that is real! He cries for his child!—His little child!—And there is a garb on his breast! Let me think. How has he lived so long after his murder? Oh, yes—I know now: it is by drinking the blood continually from his own wounds! Ay, that would preserve him!”
Britton made a step towards her.
“The child!” she cried suddenly.
“You shall torment me no longer,” he cried.
“Ha!” shrieked Maud, as she saw the knife uplifted, “you dare not—cannot do it!”
She shrank back, but Britton followed close upon her, Ada again saw the knife uplifted, and by a violent effort, like a person recovering from a nightmare, she screamed.
The sound seemed to Britton so great a surprise, that he staggered, and dropped the knife from his trembling hand.
Her own voice appeared to have broken the spell of horror that bound up the faculties of Ada, and now, by an impulse which lent her strength and courage, she rushed from the place of concealment, and, snatching the knife from the ground, she fled quickly along the bridge, crying, “Help!—Help!”
She had not proceeded many paces when she was caught in the arms of some one who cried,—
“Hilloa!—hilloa! What now, little one?”
“Help!—Murder on the bridge!” cried Ada. “Oh!—Haste!—Haste!—Save the woman!”
It was the watchman going his rounds, and he hurried onwards, as fast as his chilled limbs would permit him, towards the spot indicated by Ada, who closely followed him.
“He has killed her!” exclaimed Ada, as she saw Maud lying apparently lifeless on the stones.
“Murder done!” cried the watchman.
Ada cast an anxious glance around her, and she thought that at the further extremity of the bridge she caught sight of the flying figure of the man who she believed had done the deed.
“There!” she said, pointing in the direction—“Pursue him!—There flies the murderer!”
The watchman immediately threw down the lantern, and with a great clattering of his iron-shod shoes, rushed across the bridge.
“Alas!—Alas!” cried Ada, clasping her hands. “What can all this mean? Who is this poor mad creature?—And who that fearful man? The mystery in which my birth, name, and fate is involved, grows more and more inexplicable. Was it of me she talked so strangely and so wildly? Oh! If she could but breathe to me one word, to assure me that Jacob Gray was not my father, how richly would the terrors of this fearful night be repaid!”
Ada knelt by the body of Maud as she spoke, and placed her hand over her heart, to endeavour to trace some sign of vitality.
“She lives—she lives!” suddenly cried Ada, as she felt the regular beating of the organ of life. “Perchance the villain has only struck her. He may not, after casting away his knife, have had the means of harming her very seriously.”
A deep groan now came from the lips of the insensible woman.
“Speak—oh, speak!” cried Ada.
Maud opened her eyes. They glared with the wild fire of insanity on Ada.
“Do you know me?” said the girl.
“Know you?—Know you? Are you an angel or a devil?”
“Alas!” cried Ada. “There is no hope.”
Maud passed her hand across her eyes for several moments as if trying to clear the mist that beset her memory and mental faculties. Then she said,—
“Where is he?”
“The man you were talking with?”
“Yes, Britton, the savage smith of Learmont.”
“He has fled.”
“Yes—yes—fled. He was pursued by the dead man asking for his child.”
“What child?” said Ada, in a voice trembling with anxiety.
“I saw its little arms cling round its father’s murderer. I heard him shriek—I heard him say the hell of conscience had began its awful work within his guilty breast.”
“The child—the child,” cried Ada,—“what was its name? Oh, tell me, if you can, its name?”
“Its name,” repeated Maud. “It was the child of the dead. It—it reminded me of my own. Listen! When I was young—for I was young once—and my hair hung in long silken rights from my brow, when my eyes danced in the pure light of heaven, and my heart mounted with joy, singing like the lark that carries its sweet notes even to the gates of heaven. Long—long ago I clasped to my breast such a dear child as that. So you see it reminded me of my own dear infant.”
“And you knew not its name?” said Ada.
“Its name!—No, I cannot tell you its name! but I will tell you a dream.”
“Answer me one question,” said Ada. “The child, I heard you say, you came to London to save. Was its name Gray?”
“Gray—Gray. Who is Gray?”
“There is hope even,” sighed Ada, “in the want of confirmation of a terrible doubt. If I am the child she raves so strangely of, she knows me not by that most hateful name.”
“Will you hear my dream?” said Maud, endeavouring to rise from the cold stones.
Ada saw that blood was trickling from her head, but whether she had struck it in falling, or the man who had attempted her destruction had inflicted the wound, was doubtful. Ada, however, assisted her to her feet, and as she did so she heard the tread of the watchman as he returned slowly from his pursuit.
“He’s off,” cried the man. “Hilloa!—Ain’t the woman dead?”
“Dead!” shrieked Maud, suddenly confronting the watchman, “is Andrew Britton dead?”
“Who?”
“Andrew Britton, the savage smith; because he is to die before me. Ha! Ha! Yes, Andrew Britton will die before I do.”
With wild laughter she flew rather than ran across the bridge in the direction of Lambeth, and her voice echoed in the still morning air, as she shrieked,—
“Andrew Britton—Andrew Britton—I am not dead!—Not dead yet!”
The watchman stared after her in amazement, and Ada took the opportunity, while he was thus fully engaged, of walking quickly onwards until she had cleared the bridge and the solemn spires of Westminster Abbey came upon her sight.