King of the Castle Part 15

"You know I would have come to you before, but poor papa has been so ill, and I dared not come away. But he is better now, and sitting up."

The mention of Gartram seemed to harden the woman once more, and with a catching sigh she sat up rigidly in her chair. The thoughts of him who lay waiting in the next chamber brought with them the terrible scenes through which she had pa.s.sed, and the scale of tenderness which Claude had borne down now rose upward to kick the beam.

"It was a terrible shock to him," continued Claude. "You have been too full of your own trouble to know, but he was seized with a fit, and when I reached home I thought he was dead."

The woman drew her breath hard, but did not speak; only sat frowning, her brow a maze of wrinkles, her lips drawn to a thin pink line, and her teeth set fast, gazing once more straight before her at the drawn-down blind.

"Hah!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed at last. "It has all come to an end."

Claude started, and looked up in the woman's face, the words were spoken in so strange and hard a tone.

"I don't like to talk to you about the future, and hope," Claude said at last; "it seems such a vain kind of way to comfort any one in affliction."

"Yes; life is all affliction," said the woman bitterly; and she frowned now at the kneeling girl.

"No, no; you must not look at things like that, Sarah. But it is hard to bear. How well I remember coming to see your home directly you were married."

"Don't talk about it, child," said the woman hoa.r.s.ely.

"No, we'll talk about something else; or will it not be kinder if I sit with you only, and stay as long as I can?"

"No," said the woman harshly. "Rennals will take poor Isaac's place.

How soon will it be?"

"How soon?"

"Yes; how soon shall I have to turn out of my poor old home?"

"Don't talk about it now, Sarah," said Claude gently. "It will be terribly painful for you, I know."

"Painful!" said the woman, with a bitter laugh, "to go out once more into the cruel world. But a way will open," she added to herself; "the time will come."

Her face grew more stony of aspect moment by moment, as she gazed through her nearly closed eyelids straight before her, heedless of the fact that Claude had risen from her knees, and was holding one of her hands.

"Don't talk of the world so bitterly, Sarah, dear," said Claude gently.

"I must go now."

"Yes," said the woman, in a harsh voice.

"Mary is sitting with papa till I go back, or she would have come with me. She sent her kindest and most sympathetic wishes to you. She is coming to see you soon."

"Yes," said the woman again, in the same strange, harsh way.

"You know you have many friends and well-wishers who will be only too glad to help you."

"Yes; Norman Gartram, whose first thought is to turn me out of the home we have shared so long."

"Don't be unjust, Sarah, dear. Papa speaks harshly sometimes, but he has the welfare of all his people at heart."

"And casts me out on to the high road."

"Nonsense, dear," said Claude gently. "Don't speak in that bitter way, when we are all trying so hard to soften your terrible loss. Papa's business must go on; and Rennals, naturally, takes poor Woodham's place.

I thought it all over this morning, and I felt that you would consent."

"To give up the house? Of course; it is not mine."

"And would be of no use to you now."

"No;--but a way will open to me yet," she added to herself.

"Sarah, dear old friend, you could not live alone. You will come back to your own old place with us?"

"What?"

The woman sprang to her feet as if she had received some shock, then reeled, and would have fallen, but for Claude's quick aid.

"I have been too sudden. I ought to have waited, but I thought it would set your mind at rest."

"Say that again," whispered the woman, with her eyes closed.

"There is nothing to say. Papa will agree with me that it would be best to have our dear old servant back again; and, as soon as you can, you will come."

"No, no; no, no; it is impossible," cried the woman, with a shudder. "I could not return."

"You think so now; but papa will consent, and I shall insist, too. But there will be no need to insist. It will be like coming back home."

"No, I tell you," cried the woman excitedly; and it was as if a wild fit of delirium had suddenly attacked her. "No, no, Isaac, darling, I cannot, I dare not do this thing."

"My poor old nurse," said Claude affectionately; "we will not talk about it now. You must wait, and think how it will be for the best."

"Be for the best!" she cried, in a wild strange way. "You do not know-- you do not know."

"Oh, yes; better than you do, I am sure. Come, I will leave you now.

Don't look so wildly at me. There, good-bye, dear old nurse--my dear old nurse. Kiss me, as you used when I was quite a child, and try to reconcile yourself to coming to us. It is fate."

Claude kissed her tenderly, and then, not daring to say more, she hurried from the darkened room, to walk swiftly back, glad that the loneliness of the cliff road enabled her to let tears have their free course for a time.

Could she have seen the interior of the cottage, she would have stared in wonder and dread, for, sobbing wildly and tearing at her breast, with all the unbridled grief of one of her cla.s.s, Sarah Woodham was walking hurriedly to and fro, like some imprisoned creature trying to escape from the bars which hemmed it in.

"His child,"--she cried,--"his poor, innocent child to draw me there.

What did she say? It is fate. Yes, it is fate; and we are but the instruments to work His will."

She stopped, gazing wildly towards the inner chamber, pausing irresolutely for a few moments before rushing in and flinging herself upon her knees by the dead.

It was an hour after that she came tottering out, to stand by the chair she had occupied, and by which she found a handkerchief Claude had dropped; and, catching it up, she pressed it to her lips.

"His poor, innocent child to lead me there to execute judgment on the evil doer. And I have prayed so hard--so hard--in vain--in vain. Yes, she is right. We are but instruments; and it is my fate."

She stood with her hands pressed to her brow, as if to keep her throbbing brain from bursting its bonds. Then a strangely-weird, despairing look came across her darkening face, and she let herself sink, as if it were vain to combat more; and there was a terrible silence in the place, as she seemed to be looking forward into the future.