But when I entered the hall Madam Cavendish, having sent away the
slaves, even to the little wench who had been fanning her, with
verily I believe no more of consciousness as to what was going on
about her than a Jimson weed by the highway, called me to her in a
voice so tremulous that I scarce knew it for hers.
"Harry, Harry," she said, "I pray thee, come here." Then, when I
approached, hesitating, for I had a shrinking before some outburst
of feminine earnestness, which has always intimidated me by its fire
of helplessness and futility playing against some resolve of mine
which I could not, on account of my masculine understanding of the
requirements of circumstances, allow to melt, she reached up one
hand like a little nervous claw of ivory, and caught me by the
sleeve and pulled me down to a stool by her side. Then she looked at
me, and such love and even adoration were in her face as I never saw
surpassed in it, even when she regarded her granddaughter Mary, yet
withal a cruel distress and self-upbraiding and wrath at herself and
me. "Harry, Harry," she said, "I can bear no more of this." Then, to
my consternation, up went her silken apron with a fling to her old
face, and she was weeping under it as unrestrainedly as any child.
I did not know what to do nor say. "Madam," I ventured, finally, "if
you distress yourself in such wise for my sake, 'tis needless, I
assure, 'tis needless, and with as much truth as were you my own
mother."
"Oh, Harry, Harry," she sobbed out, "know you not that is why I
cannot bear it longer, because you yourself bear it with no
complaint?" Then she sobbed and even wailed with that piteousness of
the grief of age exceeding that of infancy, inasmuch as the weight
of all past griefs of a lifetime go to swell it, and it is enhanced
by memory as well as by the present and an unknown future. I knew
not what to do, but laid a hand somewhat timidly on one of her thin
silken arms, and strove to draw it gently from her face. "Madam
Cavendish," I said, "indeed you mistake if you weep for me. At this
moment I would change places with no man in Virginia."
"But I would have--I would have you!" she cried out, with the
ardour of a girl, and down went her apron, and her face, like an
aged mask of tragedy, not discoloured by her tears, as would have
happened with the tender skin of a maid, confronted me. "I would
have you the governor himself, Harry. I would have you--I would
have--" Then she stopped and looked at me with a red showing
through the yellow whiteness of her cheeks. "You know what I would
have, and I know what you would have, and all the rest of my old
life would I give could it be so, Harry," she said, and I saw that
she knew of my love for her granddaughter Mary. Then suddenly she
cried out, vehemently: "Not one word have I said to you about it
since that dreadful time, Harry Wingfield, for shame and that pride
as to my name, which is a fetter on the tongue, hath kept me still,
but at last I will speak, for I can bear it no longer. Harry, Harry,
I know that you are what you are, a convict and an exile, to shield
Catherine, to shield a granddaughter of mine, who should be in your
place. Harry Wingfield, I know that Catherine Cavendish is guilty of
the crime for which you are in punishment, and, woe is me, such is
my pride, such is my wicked pride, that I have let you suffer and
said never one word."