The Long Night

by Stanley John Weyman

"Hush!" she cried, raising her hand in warning. "Hush!" And then, "You did not—hear anything?" she asked. For an instant her eyes met his.

"No." He met her look, puzzled; and, obeying her gesture, he listened afresh. "No, I heard nothing. But——"

He heard nothing even now, nothing; but whatever it was sharpened her hearing to an abnormal pitch, it was clear that she did. She was on her feet; with a startled cry she was round the table and half-way across the room, while he stared, the word suspended on his lips. A second, and her hand was on the latch of the staircase door. Then as she opened it, he sprang forward to accompany her, to help her, to protect her if necessary. "Let me come!" he said. "Let me help you. Whatever it is, I can do something."

She turned on him fiercely. "Go back!" she said. All the confidence, the gentleness, the docility of the last three days were gone; and in their place suspicion glared at him from eyes grown spiteful as a cat's. "Go back!" she repeated. "I do not want you! I do not want any one, or any help! Or any protection! Go, do you hear, and let me be!"

As she ceased to speak, a sound from above stairs—a sound which this time, the door being open, did reach his ears, froze the words on his lips. It was the sound of a voice, yet no common voice, Heaven be thanked! A moment she continued to confront him, her face one mute, despairing denial! Then she slammed the door in his teeth, and he heard her panting breath and fleeing footsteps speed up the stairs and along the passage, and—more faintly now—he heard her ascend the upper flight. Then—silence.

Silence! But he had heard enough. He paused a moment irresolute, uncertain, his hand raised to the latch. Then the hand fell to his side, he turned, and went softly—very softly back to the hearth. The firelight playing on his face showed it much moved; moved and softened almost to the semblance of a woman's. For there were tears in his eyes—eyes singularly bright; and his features worked, as if he had some ado to repress a sob. In truth he had. In a breath, in the time it takes to utter a single sound, he had hit on the secret, he had come to the bottom of the mystery, he had learnt that which Basterga, favoured by the position of his room on the upper floor, had learned two months before, that which Grio might have learned, had he been anything but the dull gross toper he was! He had learned, or in a moment of intuition guessed—all. The power of Basterga, that power over the girl which had so much puzzled and perplexed him, was his also now, to use or misuse, hold or resign.

Yet his first feeling was not one of joy; nor for that matter his second. The impression went deeper, went to the heart of the man. An infinite tenderness, a tenderness which swelled his breast to bursting, a yearning that, man as he was, stopped little short of tears, these were his, these it was thrilled his soul to the point of pain. The room in which he stood, homely as it showed, plain as it was, seemed glorified, the hearth transfigured. He could have knelt and kissed the floor which the girl had trodden, coming and going, serving and making ready—under that burden; the burden that dignified and hallowed the bearer. What had it not cost her—that burden? What had it not meant to her, what suspense by day, what terror of nights, what haggard awakenings—such as that of which he had been the ignorant witness—what watches above, what slights and insults below! Was it a marvel that the cheeks had lost their colour, the eyes their light, the whole face its life and meaning? Nay, the wonder was that she had borne the weight so long, always expecting, always dreading, stabbed in the tenderest affection; with for confidant an enemy and for stay an ignorant! Viewed through the medium of the man's love, which can so easily idealise where it rests, the love of the daughter for the mother, that must have touched and softened the hardest—or so, but for the case of Basterga, one would have judged—seemed so holy, so beautiful, so pure a thing that the young man felt that, having known it, he must be the better for it all his life.

And then his mind turned to another point in the story, and he recalled what had passed above stairs on that day when he had entered a stranger, and gone up. With what a smiling face of love had she leant over her mother's bed. With what cheerfulness had she lied of that which passed below, what a countenance had she put on all—no house more prosperous, no life more gay—how bravely had she carried it! The peace and neatness and comfort of the room with its windows looking over the Rhone valley, and its spinning-wheel and linen chest and blooming bow-pot, all came back to him; so that he understood many things which had passed before him then, and then had roused but a passing and a trifling wonder.

Her anxiety lest he should take lodging there and add one more to the chances of espial, one more to the witnesses of her misery; her secret nods and looks, and that gently checked outburst of excitement on Madame Royaume's part, which even at the time had seemed odd—all were plain now. Ay, plain; but suffused with a light so beautiful, set in an atmosphere so pure and high, that no view of God's earth, even from the eyrie of those lofty windows, and though dawn or sunset flung its fairest glamour over the scene, could so fill the heart of man with gratitude and admiration!

Up and down in the days gone by, his thoughts followed her through the house. Now he saw her ascend and enter, and finding all well, mask—but at what a cost—her aching heart under smiles and cheerful looks and soft laughter. He heard the voice that was so seldom heard downstairs murmur loving words, and little jests, and dear foolish trifles; heard it for the hundredth time reiterate the false assurances that affection hallowed. He was witness to the patient tendance, the pious offices, the tireless service of hand and eye, that went on in that room under the tiles; witness to the long communion hand in hand, with the world shut out; to the anxious scrutiny, to the daily departure. A sad departure, though daily and more than daily taken; for she who descended carried a weight of fear and anxiety. As she came down the weary stairs, stage by stage, he saw the brightness die from eye and lip, and pale fear or dull despair seize on its place. He saw—and his heart was full—the slender figure, the pallid face enter the room in which he stood—it might be at the dawning when the cold shadow of the night still lay on all, from the dead ashes on the hearth to the fallen pot and displaced bench; or it might be at mid-day, to meet sneers and taunts and ignoble looks; and his heart was full. His face burned, his eyes filled, he could have kissed the floor she had walked over, the wooden spoon her hand had touched, the trencher-edge—done any foolish thing to prove his love.