CHAPTER XIX--SHADOW ON THE SUN-DIAL
Again Miss Twinkleton has delivered her valedictory address, with theaccompaniments of white-wine and pound-cake, and again the young ladieshave departed to their several homes. Helena Landless has left the Nuns'House to attend her brother's fortunes, and pretty Rosa is alone.
Cloisterham is so bright and sunny in these summer days, that theCathedral and the monastery-ruin show as if their strong walls weretransparent. A soft glow seems to shine from within them, rather thanupon them from without, such is their mellowness as they look forth onthe hot corn-fields and the smoking roads that distantly wind among them.The Cloisterham gardens blush with ripening fruit. Time was whentravel-stained pilgrims rode in clattering parties through the city'swelcome shades; time is when wayfarers, leading a gipsy life betweenhaymaking time and harvest, and looking as if they were just made of thedust of the earth, so very dusty are they, lounge about on cooldoor-steps, trying to mend their unmendable shoes, or giving them to thecity kennels as a hopeless job, and seeking others in the bundles thatthey carry, along with their yet unused sickles swathed in bands ofstraw. At all the more public pumps there is much cooling of bare feet,together with much bubbling and gurgling of drinking with hand to spouton the part of these Bedouins; the Cloisterham police meanwhile lookingaskant from their beats with suspicion, and manifest impatience that theintruders should depart from within the civic bounds, and once more frythemselves on the simmering high-roads.
On the afternoon of such a day, when the last Cathedral service is done,and when that side of the High Street on which the Nuns' House stands isin grateful shade, save where its quaint old garden opens to the westbetween the boughs of trees, a servant informs Rosa, to her terror, thatMr. Jasper desires to see her.
If he had chosen his time for finding her at a disadvantage, he couldhave done no better. Perhaps he has chosen it. Helena Landless is gone,Mrs. Tisher is absent on leave, Miss Twinkleton (in her amateur state ofexistence) has contributed herself and a veal pie to a picnic.
'O why, why, why, did you say I was at home!' cried Rosa, helplessly.
The maid replies, that Mr. Jasper never asked the question.
That he said he knew she was at home, and begged she might be told thathe asked to see her.
'What shall I do! what shall I do!' thinks Rosa, clasping her hands.
Possessed by a kind of desperation, she adds in the next breath, that shewill come to Mr. Jasper in the garden. She shudders at the thought ofbeing shut up with him in the house; but many of its windows command thegarden, and she can be seen as well as heard there, and can shriek in thefree air and run away. Such is the wild idea that flutters through hermind.
She has never seen him since the fatal night, except when she wasquestioned before the Mayor, and then he was present in gloomywatchfulness, as representing his lost nephew and burning to avenge him.She hangs her garden-hat on her arm, and goes out. The moment she seeshim from the porch, leaning on the sun-dial, the old horrible feeling ofbeing compelled by him, asserts its hold upon her. She feels that shewould even then go back, but that he draws her feet towards him. Shecannot resist, and sits down, with her head bent, on the garden-seatbeside the sun-dial. She cannot look up at him for abhorrence, but shehas perceived that he is dressed in deep mourning. So is she. It wasnot so at first; but the lost has long been given up, and mourned for, asdead.
He would begin by touching her hand. She feels the intention, and drawsher hand back. His eyes are then fixed upon her, she knows, though herown see nothing but the grass.
'I have been waiting,' he begins, 'for some time, to be summoned back tomy duty near you.'
After several times forming her lips, which she knows he is closelywatching, into the shape of some other hesitating reply, and then intonone, she answers: 'Duty, sir?'
'The duty of teaching you, serving you as your faithful music-master.'
'I have left off that study.'
'Not left off, I think. Discontinued. I was told by your guardian thatyou discontinued it under the shock that we have all felt so acutely.When will you resume?'
'Never, sir.'
'Never? You could have done no more if you had loved my dear boy.'
'I did love him!' cried Rosa, with a flash of anger.
'Yes; but not quite--not quite in the right way, shall I say? Not in theintended and expected way. Much as my dear boy was, unhappily, tooself-conscious and self-satisfied (I'll draw no parallel between him andyou in that respect) to love as he should have loved, or as any one inhis place would have loved--must have loved!'
She sits in the same still attitude, but shrinking a little more.
'Then, to be told that you discontinued your study with me, was to bepolitely told that you abandoned it altogether?' he suggested.
'Yes,' says Rosa, with sudden spirit, 'The politeness was my guardian's,not mine. I told him that I was resolved to leave off, and that I wasdetermined to stand by my resolution.'
'And you still are?'
'I still am, sir. And I beg not to be questioned any more about it. Atall events, I will not answer any more; I have that in my power.'
She is so conscious of his looking at her with a gloating admiration ofthe touch of anger on her, and the fire and animation it brings with it,that even as her spirit rises, it falls again, and she struggles with asense of shame, affront, and fear, much as she did that night at thepiano.
'I will not question you any more, since you object to it so much; I willconfess--'
'I do not wish to hear you, sir,' cries Rosa, rising.
This time he does touch her with his outstretched hand. In shrinkingfrom it, she shrinks into her seat again.
'We must sometimes act in opposition to our wishes,' he tells her in alow voice. 'You must do so now, or do more harm to others than you canever set right.'
'What harm?'
'Presently, presently. You question _me_, you see, and surely that's notfair when you forbid me to question you. Nevertheless, I will answer thequestion presently. Dearest Rosa! Charming Rosa!'
She starts up again.
This time he does not touch her. But his face looks so wicked andmenacing, as he stands leaning against the sun-dial-setting, as it were,his black mark upon the very face of day--that her flight is arrested byhorror as she looks at him.
'I do not forget how many windows command a view of us,' he says,glancing towards them. 'I will not touch you again; I will come nonearer to you than I am. Sit down, and there will be no mighty wonder inyour music-master's leaning idly against a pedestal and speaking withyou, remembering all that has happened, and our shares in it. Sit down,my beloved.'
She would have gone once more--was all but gone--and once more his face,darkly threatening what would follow if she went, has stopped her.Looking at him with the expression of the instant frozen on her face, shesits down on the seat again.
'Rosa, even when my dear boy was affianced to you, I loved you madly;even when I thought his happiness in having you for his wife was certain,I loved you madly; even when I strove to make him more ardently devotedto you, I loved you madly; even when he gave me the picture of yourlovely face so carelessly traduced by him, which I feigned to hang alwaysin my sight for his sake, but worshipped in torment for years, I lovedyou madly; in the distasteful work of the day, in the wakeful misery ofthe night, girded by sordid realities, or wandering through Paradises andHells of visions into which I rushed, carrying your image in my arms, Iloved you madly.'
If anything could make his words more hideous to her than they are inthemselves, it would be the contrast between the violence of his look anddelivery, and the composure of his assumed attitude.
'I endured it all in silence. So long as you were his, or so long as Isupposed you to be his, I hid my secret loyally. Did I not?'
This lie, so gross, while the mere words in which it is told are so true,is more than Rosa can endure. She answers with kindling indignation:'You were
as false throughout, sir, as you are now. You were false tohim, daily and hourly. You know that you made my life unhappy by yourpursuit of me. You know that you made me afraid to open his generouseyes, and that you forced me, for his own trusting, good, good sake, tokeep the truth from him, that you were a bad, bad man!'
His preservation of his easy attitude rendering his working features andhis convulsive hands absolutely diabolical, he returns, with a fierceextreme of admiration:
'How beautiful you are! You are more beautiful in anger than in repose.I don't ask you for your love; give me yourself and your hatred; give meyourself and that pretty rage; give me yourself and that enchantingscorn; it will be enough for me.'
Impatient tears rise to the eyes of the trembling little beauty, and herface flames; but as she again rises to leave him in indignation, and seekprotection within the house, he stretches out his hand towards the porch,as though he invited her to enter it.
'I told you, you rare charmer, you sweet witch, that you must stay andhear me, or do more harm than can ever be undone. You asked me whatharm. Stay, and I will tell you. Go, and I will do it!'
Again Rosa quails before his threatening face, though innocent of itsmeaning, and she remains. Her panting breathing comes and goes as if itwould choke her; but with a repressive hand upon her bosom, she remains.
'I have made my confession that my love is mad. It is so mad, that hadthe ties between me and my dear lost boy been one silken thread lessstrong, I might have swept even him from your side, when you favouredhim.'
A film comes over the eyes she raises for an instant, as though he hadturned her faint.
'Even him,' he repeats. 'Yes, even him! Rosa, you see me and you hearme. Judge for yourself whether any other admirer shall love you andlive, whose life is in my hand.'
'What do you mean, sir?'
'I mean to show you how mad my love is. It was hawked through the lateinquiries by Mr. Crisparkle, that young Landless had confessed to himthat he was a rival of my lost boy. That is an inexpiable offence in myeyes. The same Mr. Crisparkle knows under my hand that I have devotedmyself to the murderer's discovery and destruction, be he whom he might,and that I determined to discuss the mystery with no one until I shouldhold the clue in which to entangle the murderer as in a net. I havesince worked patiently to wind and wind it round him; and it is slowlywinding as I speak.'
[Picture: Jasper's sacrifices]
'Your belief, if you believe in the criminality of Mr. Landless, is notMr. Crisparkle's belief, and he is a good man,' Rosa retorts.
'My belief is my own; and I reserve it, worshipped of my soul!Circumstances may accumulate so strongly _even against an innocent man_,that directed, sharpened, and pointed, they may slay him. One wantinglink discovered by perseverance against a guilty man, proves his guilt,however slight its evidence before, and he dies. Young Landless standsin deadly peril either way.'
'If you really suppose,' Rosa pleads with him, turning paler, 'that Ifavour Mr. Landless, or that Mr. Landless has ever in any way addressedhimself to me, you are wrong.'
He puts that from him with a slighting action of his hand and a curledlip.
'I was going to show you how madly I love you. More madly now than ever,for I am willing to renounce the second object that has arisen in my lifeto divide it with you; and henceforth to have no object in existence butyou only. Miss Landless has become your bosom friend. You care for herpeace of mind?'
'I love her dearly.'
'You care for her good name?'
'I have said, sir, I love her dearly.'
'I am unconsciously,' he observes with a smile, as he folds his handsupon the sun-dial and leans his chin upon them, so that his talk wouldseem from the windows (faces occasionally come and go there) to be of theairiest and playfullest--'I am unconsciously giving offence byquestioning again. I will simply make statements, therefore, and not putquestions. You do care for your bosom friend's good name, and you docare for her peace of mind. Then remove the shadow of the gallows fromher, dear one!'
'You dare propose to me to--'
'Darling, I dare propose to you. Stop there. If it be bad to idoliseyou, I am the worst of men; if it be good, I am the best. My love foryou is above all other love, and my truth to you is above all othertruth. Let me have hope and favour, and I am a forsworn man for yoursake.'
Rosa puts her hands to her temples, and, pushing back her hair, lookswildly and abhorrently at him, as though she were trying to piecetogether what it is his deep purpose to present to her only in fragments.
'Reckon up nothing at this moment, angel, but the sacrifices that I layat those dear feet, which I could fall down among the vilest ashes andkiss, and put upon my head as a poor savage might. There is my fidelityto my dear boy after death. Tread upon it!'
With an action of his hands, as though he cast down something precious.
'There is the inexpiable offence against my adoration of you. Spurn it!'
With a similar action.
'There are my labours in the cause of a just vengeance for six toilingmonths. Crush them!'
With another repetition of the action.
'There is my past and my present wasted life. There is the desolation ofmy heart and my soul. There is my peace; there is my despair. Stampthem into the dust; so that you take me, were it even mortally hatingme!'
The frightful vehemence of the man, now reaching its full height, soadditionally terrifies her as to break the spell that has held her to thespot. She swiftly moves towards the porch; but in an instant he is ather side, and speaking in her ear.
'Rosa, I am self-repressed again. I am walking calmly beside you to thehouse. I shall wait for some encouragement and hope. I shall not striketoo soon. Give me a sign that you attend to me.'
She slightly and constrainedly moves her hand.
'Not a word of this to any one, or it will bring down the blow, ascertainly as night follows day. Another sign that you attend to me.'
She moves her hand once more.
'I love you, love you, love you! If you were to cast me off now--but youwill not--you would never be rid of me. No one should come between us.I would pursue you to the death.'
The handmaid coming out to open the gate for him, he quietly pulls offhis hat as a parting salute, and goes away with no greater show ofagitation than is visible in the effigy of Mr. Sapsea's father opposite.Rosa faints in going up-stairs, and is carefully carried to her room andlaid down on her bed. A thunderstorm is coming on, the maids say, andthe hot and stifling air has overset the pretty dear: no wonder; theyhave felt their own knees all of a tremble all day long.