Penshurst Castle Part 35

A clump of pollards hid the cl.u.s.ter of buildings which formed the nucleus of the little hamlet, till they were actually before a low, irregular block of cottages, and at the door of one of these Mary's guide stopped.

'A few of our brethren took refuge here after the taking of Axel and the burning of our habitation there. We are under the protection of the Duke of Parma, who is advancing with an army for the relief of Zutphen, and will, as we believe, drive from before us the foes of the Holy Church.'

As they pa.s.sed under the low doorway into a narrow entry paved with clay, Mary's guide said,--

'Tarry here, while I find what has pa.s.sed in my absence.'

Mary was not left long in suspense.

The man presently returned, and, beckoning her, said,--

'Come, without delay!'

Mary found herself in a low, miserably furnished room on the ground-floor, where, in the now clear light of the bright summer morning, Ambrose Gifford lay dying.

The 'large, cruel, black eyes,' as Lucy Forrester had called them long ago, were dim now, and were turned with pitiful pleading upon the wife he had so grievously injured.

The priest stood by, and signed to Mary to kneel and put her face near her husband, that she might hear what he had to say.

As she obeyed, the hood fell back from her head, and a ray of sunshine caught the wealth of her rich chestnut hair and made an aureole round it.

The grey streaks, which sorrow rather than years, had mingled amongst the bronze locks, shone like silver. She took the long, wasted hand in hers, and, in a low, clear voice, said,--

'I am here, Ambrose! what would you say to me?'

'The boy!' he gasped; 'fetch hither the boy!'

One of the Brothers obeyed the dying man's request, and from a pallet at the farther end of the room he brought the boy, whose cheeks were aflame with fever, as he lay helpless in the Brother's arms.

'Here, Ambrose,' the dying father said--'this--this is your mother; be a good son to her.'

Often as Mary Gifford had drawn a picture in her own mind of this possible meeting with her son, so long delayed, such a meeting as this had never been imagined in her wildest dreams.

'Thus, then, I make atonement,' the unhappy man said. 'Take him, Mary, and forgive it _all_.'

'Yes,' Mary said, as the boy was laid on the pallet at his father's feet, and his mother clasped him close to her side. 'Yes, I forgive--'

'_All?_' he said. '_All?_'

'As I pray G.o.d to be forgiven,' she said, womanly pity for this forlorn ending of a misspent life thrilling in her voice, as hot tears coursed one another down her pale sweet face. 'Yes,' she repeated, '_all_! Ambrose.'

'One thing more. Did I murder Humphrey Ratcliffe? Does that sin lie on my soul?'

'No, thank G.o.d!' Mary said. 'He lives; he was cruelly wounded, but G.o.d spared his life.'

There was silence now. The priest bid Mary move from the bed, and let him approach; but, before she did so, she bent over her husband and said,--

'Have you gone to the Saviour of the world for forgiveness through His precious blood, Ambrose? He alone can forgive sins.'

'I know it! I know it!' was the reply.

But the priest interfered now.

'Withdraw, my daughter, for the end is near.'

Then Mary, bending still lower, pressed a kiss upon the forehead, where the cold dews of death were gathering, and, turning towards her boy, she said,--

'Where shall I take him? Where can I go with him, my son, my son?'

There was something in Mary's self-restraint and in the pathetic tones of her voice, which moved those who stood around to pity as she repeated,--

'Where can I find a refuge with my child? I cannot remain here with him.'

One of the Brothers raised Ambrose again in his arms, and saying, 'Follow me,' he carried him to a small chamber on the upper floor, where he laid him down on a heap of straw covered with an old sacking, and said in English,--

'This is all I can do for you. Yonder room whence we came is kept for those stricken with the fever. Two of them died yesterday. We were burned out of house and home, and our oratory sacked and destroyed at Axel. We fled hither, and a troop of the Duke's army is within a mile to protect us.'

'Is there no leech at hand, no one to care for my child?'

'There was one here yester eve. He is attached to the troop I speak of, and has enow to do with the sick there. Famine and moisture have done their work, and G.o.d knows where it will end. There is a good woman at a small homestead not a mile away. She has kept us from starving, and, like many of the Hollanders, has a kind heart. I will do my best to get her to befriend you, Mistress, for I see you are in a sorry plight.'

'Even water to wet his lips would be a boon. I pray you fetch water,' she entreated.

The man disappeared, and presently returned with a rough pitcher of water and a flagon in which, he said, was a little drink prepared from herbs by the kindly Vrouw he had spoken of.

'I will seek her as quickly as other claims permit,' he said. And then Mary was left alone with her boy.

The restlessness of fever was followed by a spell of utter exhaustion, but the delirious murmurs ceased, and a light of consciousness came into those large, l.u.s.trous eyes, by which Mary knew this was indeed her son.

Otherwise, what a change from the rosy, happy child of seven, full of life and vigour, to the emaciated boy of twelve, whose face was prematurely old, and, unshaded by the once abundant hair, which had been close cropped to his head, looked ghostly and unfamiliar.

Still, he was hers once more, and she took off the ragged black gown, which had been the uniform of the scholars of the Jesuit school, and was now only fit for the fire, and taking off her own cloak, she wrapped him in it, bathed his face with water, put the herb cordial to his lips, and then, setting herself on an old chair, the only furniture in the tumbledown attic, she raised Ambrose on her knees, and, whispering loving words and prayers over him, hungered for a sign of recognition.

Evidently the poor boy's weary brain was awakened by some magnetic power to a consciousness that some lost clue of his happy childhood had been restored to him.

As his head lay against his mother's breast the rest there was apparently sweet.

He sighed as if contented, closed his eyes and slept.

Mary dare not move or scarcely breathe, lest she should disturb the slumber in which, as she gazed upon his face, the features of her lost child seemed to come out with more certain likeness to her Ambrose of past years.

For a smile played round the scarlet lips, and the long, dark fringe of the lashes resting on his cheeks, brought back the many times in the old home when she had seen them shadow the rounded rosy cheeks of his infant days.

A mother's love knows no weariness, and, as the hours pa.s.sed and Ambrose still slept, Mary forgot her aching back and arms, her forlorn position in that desolate attic, even the painful ordeal she had gone through by her husband's dying bed--forgot everything but the joy that, whether for life or death, her boy was restored to her.

At last Ambrose stirred, and the smile faded from his lips. He raised his head and gazed up into the face bending over him.

'I dreamed,' he faltered; 'I dreamed I saw my _mother_--my _mother_.' He repeated the word with a feeble cry--_my mother_; 'but it's only a dream. I have no mother but the blessed Virgin, and she--she is so far, far away, up in Heaven.'

'Ambrose, my sweetheart, my son!' Mary said gently. 'I am not far away; I am here! Your own mother.'