The House of Egremont

by Molly Elliot Seawell

There was not a sound. Bess continued to look at him, the blood slowly leaving her face. That feeling of pity for her, and pain at the thought of her pain, made it impossible for Roger to meet her glance. He looked another way. The only sign of emotion she gave was her quickened breathing; it was as if she caught her breath in gasps. After five minutes, which seemed to Roger Egremont an hour, Bess spoke in a voice that slightly trembled.

“I can truly say, God bless thee and make thee forever happy.”

Then there was another pause. After she had spoken, she became more agitated, and in her struggle to regain her composure she rose to her feet and walked toward the château. Roger rose too, and that piercing feeling of pity for her made him keep by her side. Without a word they passed through the forest glades, and when they came to the edge of the woods they stopped. Bess’s eyes sought Roger’s with a troubled expression.

“Why have I brought you here?” she asked. “I forget.” Then, recovering herself, she said in a calm voice,—

“I remember now. There are vespers at six o’clock in the chapel, and the King and Queen like to hear me sing with the congregation. The others sing softly when I begin. ’Tis there I am bound.”

They went on in silence.

As they came within sight of the clock over the gateway of the old palace, Roger saw that it was six o’clock, and the sweet spring afternoon was closing in. He walked with Bess through the courtyard and to the chapel door. There was close by a stair, narrow, dark, and winding, which led to the organ-loft. Already there was a whisper of music from the organ floating through the white arches of the chapel. At this door, where Bess and Roger stood alone in the waning light, she turned to him. It was dusky where he stood, and the outlines of her fair face were not perfectly clear to him, but her red-brown eyes shone with a lambent light, both bright and soft; their expression reminded him of something far away in time and distance,—the eyes of a partridge, caught and hurt in a trap at Egremont; he had in mercy killed the poor creature. He felt unnerved under that soft gaze, with its mute, involuntary reproach.

“Good-bye, Roger,” she said, in a voice clear and soft, and very unlike her usual tones, which were ringing and rich with life and humor and courage. “When the vespers are over do not wait for me. I shall go through the park alone; I am not afraid. ’Tis our last meeting before you are married, perhaps our very last; so I say, God bless thee,—if a blessing is of any good from such an imperfect creature as Bess Lukens. We have lived the importantest part of our lives together. I was but the turnkey’s niece, and you were an unlettered country gentleman when we were first acquainted in Newgate gaol. Since then, both of us have had good fortune; yours is but beginning, I hope. But those we know in our dark time, and by whose side we live and fight and conquer and are sometimes overthrown, are always more to us than those we know in the pleasant primrose path. So I think you will no more forget me than I shall forget you.”

“Truly,” replied Roger; “if I forget you, Bess Lukens, may God forget me.”

She went noiselessly up the stair, and her figure melted away in the darkness. Roger Egremont walked into the chapel and seated himself in a dark corner. All the church was dusk, except the altar, where two candles twinkled and the sanctuary lamp burned steadily and softly. A few persons came in quietly, the King leaning upon the arm of the Queen, who gently supported him to his armchair. The priest came out on the altar, and the golden voice of the organ was uplifted. Roger listened for the echo of those glorious tones of Bess Lukens’s in the psalms, but he heard them not. The church was quite dark, but as the music swelled and died two little acolytes in white cassocks, and with faces like angels, came out and lighted all the candles on the altar, making a glory of light in the holy place. And then, with a mighty rush of melody from organ and voices, came the Magnificat. Bess’s voice, more pure, more sweet, more thrilling than Roger Egremont had ever heard it, rose above the waves of music.