CHAPTER XXXVII. THE DEATH-BED.
Haldane, like Baptisto, was clad funereally. A long black travelling cloak was wrapped around him, and a Spanish sombrero, also black, was drawn over his forehead. He was ghastly pale. He stood with knitted brows, gazing quietly at the clergyman.
Santley tried to speak, but could not. Again his left hand clutched his heart, and he seemed about to fall. Then he heard, as if in a dream—for the voice seemed far away—these words:
“I see, reverend sir, that Baptisto has told you everything. Yes, it is quite true, and yet so sudden, that even I can scarce realize my loss.”
“It is incredible,” cried Santley.. “Only a few hours since, I know, she was alive and well; and now——”
“And now,” returned Haldane, in the same cold, clear voice, “the end has come. It is strange that you, with your religious views, should be so surprised at what is sadly common. We mortals, are like men travelling in ships upon a great sea; we eat, drink, and are merry—too often forgetting that there is only a mere plank between us and the grave.”
Santley listened in wonder, less at the words than at the calmness, the perfect self-control, with which they were uttered. He had always thought Haldane hard and callous, but now he seemed to him a very monster of cold-bloodedness.
“I cannot believe it,” he cried; “and you—you seem so calm. Surely, if she were dead, indeed——”
“What would you have me do?” interrupted Haldane. “Weep, wring my hands? Will wailing and gnashing of teeth buy back the lost? If it would do so, reverend sir, then I might rave and tear my hair? But no; philosophy has taught me to contemplate the inevitable with resignation.”
“But she was so young! So—so beautiful!”
“Alas! the young too often die first, and the prettiest flowers are the first to fade away. She was always delicate, and latterly, I fear, the spirit was too strong for the frail body. It is comfort to reflect, now all is done, that she had at least the consolations of your holy faith. Death comes to all. Life is but the business of a day. One dies at dawn, another not till afternoon; another creeps wearily on till evening, when the stars of the eternity twinkle down upon his sad grey hairs. She died in her prime, and was at least spared the sorrows and infirmities that attend the lingering decay of nature. So peace be with her!”
“It is too horrible!” cried Santley. “If this is true, life is a hideous nightmare—a waking curse. She was too young, too good, to die!”
“It is strange,” returned Haldane thoughtfully, “that you, with your beautiful faith in immortality, should fear death so much. I have often noticed this inconsistency in men of your religion. Strong as is your belief in another life—a life, moreover, of eternal delight and happiness—you cling with curious tenacity to this life, which, at the same time, you admit to be miserable. We men of science, on the other hand, who believe death to be the final dissolution of the creature into his component element, can contemplate the change with equanimity.”
Santley looked at him in positive horror. Cold as ice, the man discussed his loss as if it were a mere matter for intellectual argument, a question in which he felt merely the interest of a dispassionate spectator of human affairs. And this, with the very shadow of death upon him; with his wife lying dead in the house, struck down, as it were, by the very thunderbolt of God. So far, then, he, Santley, was justified. He had not wronged the man, when he thought him a creature devoid of common tenderness and feeling, warmed out of his humanity by his frightful creed of negation. Such a being was beyond the pale of Christian brotherhood. He had done right; he had not sinned, when he had sought to lead Mrs. Haldane from the martyrdom of an evil wedlock, to the shining heights of a happier and more spiritual life.
“How did she die? It must have been very sudden. Tell me, for pity’s sake!”
“Calm yourself, reverend sir. Ah! you must have a tender disposition to feel another’s loss so much. You could not feel it more deeply, if you had lost a person very dear to you—a wife of your own bosom, so to speak.”
“I—I esteemed the lady,” stammered the clergyman, shrinking before the others cold, scrutinizing gaze. “She was so good, so noble!”
“Ah! was she not? But you asked me how she died? I think it was some obscure affection of the heart. She was always so emotional, so impulsive; and latterly, I fear, she was under great excitement. You will be grieved to hear she passed away in bitter mental pain.”
Santley started. Haldane continued, in the same cold voice, always keeping his eyes fixed steadily on those of the clergyman.
“There was something on her mind—some load, some trouble, some cruel self-reproach. I gathered from her fragmentary words that she was unhappy, that she sought my forgiveness for some fault of which she considered herself guilty. Whatever that fault was, it preyed upon her life, and hastened her end.”
“Why did not you send for me? It is horrible to think she died without the last offices of religion. I would have comforted her, prayed with her; I——-”
He paused in confusion, shrinking before the other’s steady gaze.
“There was no time,” answered Haldane; “and besides, to be honest, I did not care to have a clergyman.”
“It was not an outrage!” cried Santley. “It was blasphemous!”
“Pardon me. I don’t believe in confession, even at the extreme moment and I thought that, if she had anything to reveal, it had better be told to the person most interested, namely, her husband.”
“Anything to reveal!” exclaimed
Santley, shuddering. “What do you mean?”
“What I say. I am aware you are not a Roman Catholic, but I am afraid your sentiments lean dangerously to the offices of that pertinacious priesthood. You would doubtless have asked her to pour her secret into your ears, with a view to absolution. I preferred to keep her dying message sacred to myself. If she had erred and was penitent, as I suppose, no priest, Catholic or Protestant, lay or clerical, could absolve her?”
Utterly bewildered and aghast, the unfortunate clergyman listened on. Surely hell had opened, and the thick sulphurous fumes were rising up to cover and darken the wholesome earth. That cold, grim figure, talking so calmly and watching him so keenly; that other dark figure of the Spaniard, still crouching near them in the doorway; surely, too, these were not men, but devils, sent to torture him and drive him mad. He looked around him. The snow-clad wood stretched on every side, save where the white lawns opened, marked with damp black spots of thaw, and stretching up to the doors of the gloomy mansion; but overhead the dark heavens had opened for a moment, and one sickly beam, falling aslant from the vaporous sky, was gleaming on the mansion’s roof. Unconsciously he fixed his eyes on that spot of brightness, in wonder and in terror, for he was thinking of the piteous sight within the house.
Dull as his faculties seemed, paralyzed by the extraordinary shock he had received, he had not failed to understand Haldane’s statement that his wife had suffered mental agony, and had made, or tried to make, some kind of confession.. After a long pause, still fixing his eyes on the sunbeam upon the roof, he murmured, almost vacantly—
“I am not quite myself, and do not seem to comprehend. Did you say that Mrs. Haldane asked for a clergyman before she died?”
“Certainly. She asked—for you!” Had his eyes not been turned away, he would have been startled by the expression on Haldanes face—so full of cold satisfaction and contempt.
“For me?” he murmured; “for me?”
“Yes. You had great influence over her—a singular influence. Perhaps, having been her spiritual adviser and knowing her thoughts so intimately, you could help me to discover the cause of the sorrow, the self-reproach, of which I have spoken.”
“I—I do not understand. She always seemed so bright, so happy.”
“She had no cause for secret grief? None, you think?”
“None.”
Unconsciously, as he spoke, he turned and met the gaze of his cross-questioner. He flushed nervously, and turned his eyes away. Did Haldane suspect the secret of his love? Had Ellen, before she died, spoken anything to incriminate him? Surely not; else his reception would have been different. Yet in her husband’s manner and look, despite his frigid politeness, there seemed a strange suspicion. The cold, cruel eyes never ceased to scrutinize him; they seemed to read his very soul.
“I see, reverend sir, that you cannot realize what has taken place.”
“I cannot realize it!”
“You will at least believe the evidence of your own eyes. Step with me to the house, and look upon her!”
As he spoke, Haldane moved towards the house. After a moment’s hesitation, Santley followed. Yes, he would look upon her for the last time; he would kneel and pray beside her. As he walked, he staggered like a drunken man.
They passed from the dismal shadow of the trees, crossed the snowy lawn, and ascended the steps leading to the house door. How dark and funereal looked the old mansion as they entered! All was silent; not a soul stirred; their footsteps sounded hollow on the paven floor of the open hall.
Haldane led the way into the drawingroom. The blinds were drawn, there was no fire, and the chamber seemed like a tomb.
“Wait here one moment,” said Haldane; and he retired, closing the door.
Santley sat and waited. His very life seemed ebbing away within him, but the low, deep thud of his overburdened heart kept time like a clock, and his ears were full of a sound like low thunder. His lips were dry as dust, and he moistened them vainly with his trembling tongue. Even then, as he sat shivering, he heard again from the distance the faint chime of the desolate chapel bell.
Toll! toll! toll! toll!
The door opened.
Haldane, bareheaded, appeared on the threshold.
“Come this way,” he said in a whisper.
Santley rose and tremulously followed. Through the dark lobbies, up the broad staircase, he went in terror, till Haldane paused at the closed door of the room on the first story, and, placing his finger solemnly on his lips, turned a key and entered.
Santley followed, and found himself at last in the chamber of death.
It was a large bedchamber, dimly lighted by the faint rays that crept through the blind, and scented, or so it seemed, with some sickly perfume. In one corner stood the white, cold bed, snowy sheeted, snowy curtained; and there, stretched out chill and stark, lay something whiter and colder—the marble bust of what had once been a living creature.
Yes, it was she, beautiful even in death. Her eyes were closed, her hair was smoothed softly over her brows, her face was fixed like marble in ghastly pallor, her waxen hands were folded on the sheet which covered her from feet to chin. She almost seemed to be sleeping, not dead, she was so calm, peaceful, and lovely, in that last repose.
On a small table beside the bed lay her Bible (Santley knew it well; it was a present from himself, with his own name written on the flyleaf), and a waxen taper, unlighted. Lying on the coverlet, close to her fingers, was a wreath of immortelles.
And through the window, which was left open at the top to admit the pure air, came again, wafted by the wind, the low, dreadful tolling of the chapel bell.
Toll! toll!
Haldane stood close by the bedside, not looking at his wife, but always keeping his stern eyes fixed upon the clergyman. Step by step, horrified yet fascinated, Santley crept nearer and nearer to the bed, his eyes dilated, his face even more ghastly than the face on which he gazed. He noticed everything—the marble features, the folded hands, the closed eyes beneath their waxen lids; he felt in his nostrils the sick perfume of death.
Then, overmastered by the piteous sight, he raised his arms wildly in the air, uttered a cry of anguish and despair, and fell, moaning and sobbing, on his knees by the bedside.