mrs. ryder uttered a little scream of dismay. the priest smiled, and said, sweetly, "forgive me, mistress, i fear i startled you."
"indeed you did, sir," said she. she looked furtively round, and saw leicester and his underling on the watch.
leicester, unaware of her treachery, made her a signal of intelligence.
she responded to it, to gain time.
it was a ticklish situation. some would have lost their heads. ryder was alarmed, but all the more able to defend her plans. her first move, as usual with such women, was—a lie.
"our dame is in the grove, sir," said she. "i am to bring you to her."
the priest bowed his head, gravely, and moved towards the grove with downcast eyes. ryder kept close to him for a few steps; then she ran to leicester, and whispered, hastily, "go you to the stable-gate: i'll bring him round that way: hide now; he suspects."
"ay, ay," said leicester; and the confiding pair slipped away round a corner to wait for their victim.
ryder hurried him into the grove, and, as soon as she had got him out of hearing, told him the truth.
he turned pale; for these delicate organizations do not generally excel in courage.
ryder pitied him, and something of womanly feeling began to mingle with her plans. "they 'shall not lay a finger on you, sir," said she. "i'll scratch and scream, and bring the whole parish out sooner; but the best way is not to give them the chance: please you follow me." and she hurried him through the grove, and then into an unfrequented path of the great wood.
when they were safe from pursuit she turned and looked at him. he was a good deal agitated; but the uppermost sentiment was gratitude. it soon found words, and, as usual, happy ones. he thanked her with dignity and tenderness for the service she had done him, and asked her if she was a catholic.
"no," said she.
at that his countenance fell, but only for a moment. "ah! would you were," he said, earnestly. so then added, sweetly, "to be sure i have all the more reason to be grateful to you."
"you are very welcome, reverend sir," said ryder, graciously. "religion is religion: and 'tis a barbarous thing that violence should be done to men of your cloth."
having thus won his heart, the artful woman began at one and the same time to please and to probe him. "sir," said she, "be of good heart; they have done you no harm, and themselves no good: my mistress will hate them for it, and love you all the more."
father leonard's pale cheek coloured all over at these words, though he said nothing.
"since they won't let you come to her, she will come to you."
"do you think so?" said he, faintly.
"nay, i am sure of it, sir. so would any woman. we still follow our hearts, and get our way by hook or by crook."
again the priest coloured either with pleasure or with shame, or with both; and the keen feminine eye perused him with microscopic power. she waited, to give him an opportunity of talking to her and laying bare his feelings; but he was either too delicate, too cautious, or too pure.
so then she suddenly affected to remember her mistress's letter. she produced it with an apology. he took it with unfeigned eagerness, and read it in silence; and, having read it, he stood patient, with the tears in his eyes. ryder eyed him with much curiosity and a little pity.
"don't you take on for that," said she. "why, she will be more at her ease when she visits you at your place than here; and she won't give you up, i promise."
the priest trembled, and ryder saw it.
"but, my daughter," said he, "i am perplexed and grieved. it seems that i make mischief in your house: that is an ill office; i fear it is my duty to retire from this place altogether, rather than cause dissension between those whom the church by holy sacrament hath bound together." so saying, he hung his head and sighed.
ryder eyed him with a little pity, but more contempt.
"why take other people's faults on your back?" said she. "my mistress is tied to a man she does not love; but that is not your fault; and he is jealous of you that never gave him cause. if i was a man he should not accuse me—for nothing: nor set his man on to drag me through a horse-pond—for nothing. i'd have the sweet as well as the bitter."
father leonard turned and looked at her with a face full of terror. some beautiful, honeyed fiend seemed to be entering his heart and tempting it.
"oh, hush! my daughter, hush!" he said; "what words are these for a virtuous woman to speak, and a priest to hear?"
"there, i have offended you by my blunt way," said the cajoling hussy, in soft and timid tones.
"nay, not so; but oh speak not so lightly of things that peril the immortal soul."
"well, i have done," said ryder. "you are out of danger now; so give you good day."
he stopped her. "what, before i have thanked you for your goodness? ah, mistress ryder, 'tis on these occasions a priest sins by longing for riches to reward his benefactors. i have nought to offer you but this ring: it was my mother's, my dear mother's."
he took it off his finger to give it her.
but the little bit of goodness that cleaves even to the heart of an intriguante revolted against her avarice.
"nay, poor soul, i'll not take it," said she; and put her hands before her eyes, not to see it, for she knew she could not look at it long and spare it.
with this she left him; but, ere she had gone far, her cunning and curiosity gained the upper hand again, and she whipped behind a great tree and crouched, invisible all but her nose and one piercing eye.
she saw the priest make a few steps homewards, then look around, then take mrs. gaunt's letter out of his pocket, press it passionately to his lips, and hide it tenderly in his bosom.
this done he went home with his eyes on the ground as usual, and measured steps. and to all who met him he seemed a creature in whom religion had conquered all human frailty.
caroline ryder hurried home with cruel exultation in her black eyes. but she soon found that the first thing she had to do was to defend herself. leicester and his man met her, and the former looked gloomy, and the latter reproached her bitterly; called her a double-faced jade, and said he would tell the squire of the trick she had played them. but ryder had her story ready in a moment. "'tis you i have saved, not him," said she. "he is something more than mortal: why, he told me of his own accord what you were there for; but, that if you were so unlucky as to lay hands on him, you would rot alive. it seems that has been tried out stanhope way; a man did but give him a blow, and his arm was stiff next day, and he never used it again; and next his hair fell off his head, and then his eyes they turned to water and ran all out of him, and he died within the twelve-month."
country folk were nearly, though not quite, as superstitious at that time as in the middle ages. "murrain on him," said leicester. "catch me laying a finger on him. i'm glad he is gone; and i hope he won't never come back no more."
"not likely, since he can read all our hearts. why, he told me something about you, tom leicester; he says you are in love."
"no! did he really now?" and leicester opened his eyes very wide. "and did he tell you who the lass is?"
"he did so; and surprised me properly." this with a haughty glance.
leicester held his tongue and turned red.
"who is it, mistress?" asked the helper.
"he didn't say i was to tell you, young man."
and with these two pricks of her needle she left them both more or less discomfited, and went to scrutinize and anatomize her mistress's heart with plenty of cunning, but no mercy. she related her own part in the affair very briefly, but dwelt with well-feigned sympathy on the priest's feelings. "he turned as white as a sheet, ma'am, when i told him, and offered me his very ring off his finger, he was so grateful; poor man!"
"you did not take it, i hope?" said mrs. gaunt, quickly.
"la, no, ma'am. i hadn't the heart."
mrs. gaunt was silent awhile. when she spoke again it was to inquire whether ryder had given him the letter.
"that i did: and it brought the tears into his poor eyes; and such beautiful eyes as he has, to be sure. you would have pitied him if you had seen him read it, and cry over it, and then kiss it and put it in his bosom he did."
mrs. gaunt said nothing, but turned her head away.
the operator shot a sly glance into the looking-glass, and saw a pearly tear trickling down her subject's fair cheek. so she went on, all sympathy outside, and remorselessness within. "to think of that face, more like an angel's than a man's, to be dragged through a nasty horse-pond. 'tis a shame of master to set his men on a clergyman." and so was proceeding, with well-acted and catching warmth, to dig as dangerous a pit for mrs. gaunt as ever was dug for any lady; for whatever mrs. gaunt had been betrayed into saying, this ryder would have used without mercy, and with diabolical skill.
yes it was a pit, and the lady's pure, but tender heart pushed her towards it, and her fiery temper drew her towards it.
yet she escaped it this time. the dignity, delicacy, and pride, that is oftener found in these old families than out of them, saved her from that peril. she did not see the trap; but she spurned the bait by native instinct.
she threw up her hand in a moment, with a queenly gesture, and stopped the tempter.
"not-one-word-from my servant against my husband in my hearing!" said she superbly.
and ryder shrank back into herself directly.
"child," said mrs. gaunt, "you have done me a great service, and my husband too; for, if this dastardly act had been done in his name, he would soon have been heartily ashamed of it and deplored it. such services can never be quite repaid; but you will find a purse in that drawer with five guineas; it is yours; and, my lavender silk dress, be pleased to wear that about me; to remind me of the good office you have done me. and now, all you can do for me is to leave me; for i am very, very unhappy."
ryder retired with the spoil, and mrs. gaunt leaned her head over her chair, and cried without stint.
after this, no angry words passed between mr. and mrs. gaunt; but something worse, a settled coolness sprung up.
as for griffith, his cook kept her place, and the priest came no more to the castle; so, having outwardly gained the day, he was ready to forget and forgive; but kate, though she would not let her servant speak ill of griffith, was deeply indignant and disgusted with him. she met his advances with such a stern coldness, that he turned sulky and bitter in his turn.
husband and wife saw little of each other, and hardly spoke.
both were unhappy; but kate was angriest, and griffith saddest.
in an evil hour he let out his grief to caroline ryder. she seized the opportunity and, by a show of affectionate sympathy and zeal, made herself almost necessary to him, and contrived to establish a very perilous relation between him and her. matters went so far as this, that the poor man's eye used to brighten when he saw her coming.
yet this victory cost her a sore heart and all the patient self-denial of her sex. to be welcome to griffith she had to speak to him of her rival, and to speak well of her. she tried talking of herself and her attachment; he yawned in her face: she tried smooth detraction and innuendo; he fired up directly and defended her, of whose conduct he had been complaining the very moment before.
then she saw that there was but one way to the man's heart. sore, and sick, and smiling, she took that way: resolving to bide her time; to worm herself in anyhow, and wait patiently till she could venture to thrust her mistress out.
if any of my readers need to be told why this she-machiavel threw her fellow conspirators over, the reason was simply this: on calm reflection she saw it was not her interest to get father leonard insulted. she looked on him as her mistress's lover, and her own best friend. "was i mad?" said she to herself. "my business is to keep him sweet upon her, till they can't live without one another: and then i'll tell him; and take your place in this house, my lady."
and now it is time to visit that extraordinary man, who was the cause of all this mischief; whom gaunt called a villain, and mrs. gaunt a saint; and, as usual, he was neither one nor the other.
father leonard was a pious, pure, and noble-minded man, who had undertaken to defy nature with religion's aid; and, after years of successful warfare, now sustained one of those defeats to which such warriors have been liable in every age. if his heart was pure, it was tender; and nature never intended him to live all his days alone. after years of prudent coldness to the other sex, he fell in with a creature that put him off his guard at first, she seemed so angelic. "at wisdom's gate suspicion slept;" and, by degrees, which have been already indicated in this narrative, she whom the church had committed to his spiritual care, became his idol. could he have foreseen this, it would never have happened; he would have steeled himself, or left the country that contained this sweet temptation. but love stole on him, masked with religious zeal, and robed in a garment of light that seemed celestial.
when the mask fell, it was too late: the power to resist the soft and thrilling enchantment was gone. the solitary man was too deep in love.
yet he clung still to that self-deception, without which he never could have been entrapped into an earthly passion: he never breathed a word of love to her. it would have alarmed her; it would have alarmed himself. every syllable that passed between these two might have been published without scandal. but the heart does not speak by words alone: there are looks, and there are tones of voice that belong to love, and are his signs, his weapons; and it was in these very tones the priest murmured to his gentle listener about "the angelic life" between spirits still lingering on earth, but purged from earthly dross; and even about other topics less captivating to the religious imagination. he had persuaded her to found a school in this dark parish, and in it he taught the poor with exemplary and touching patience. well, when he spoke to her about this school, it was in words of practical good sense, but in tones of love; and she, being one of those feminine women who catch the tone they are addressed in, and instinctively answer in tune, and, moreover, seeing no ill but good in the subject of their conversation, replied sometimes, unguardedly enough, in accents almost as tender.
in truth, if love was really a personage, as the heathens feigned, he must have often perched on a tree, in that quiet grove, and chuckled and mocked, when this man and woman sat and murmured together, in the soft seducing twilight, about the love of god.
and now things had come to a crisis. husband and wife went about the house silent and gloomy, the ghosts of their former selves; and the priest sat solitary, benighted, bereaved of the one human creature he cared for. day succeeded to day, and still she never came. every morning he said, "she will come to-day," and brightened with the hope. but the leaden hours crept by and still she came not.
three sorrowful weeks went by; and he fell into deep dejection. he used to wander out at night, and come and stand where he could see her windows with the moon shining on them: then go slowly home, cold in body, and with his heart aching, lonely, deserted, and perhaps forgotten. oh, never till now had he known the utter aching sense of being quite alone in this weary world.
one day, as he sat, drooping and listless, there came a light foot along the passage, a light tap at the door, and, the next moment, she stood before him, a little paler than usual, but lovelier than ever, for celestial pity softened her noble features.
the priest started up with a cry of joy that ought to have warned her; but it only brought a faint blush of pleasure to her cheek and the brimming tears to her eyes.
"dear father and friend," said she. "what! have you missed me? think, then, how i have missed you. but 'twas best for us both to let their vile passions cool first."
leonard could not immediately reply. the emotion of seeing her again so suddenly almost choked him.
he needed all the self-possession he had been years acquiring not to throw himself at her knees and declare his passion to her.
mrs. gaunt saw his agitation, but did not interpret it aright.
she came eagerly and sat on a stool beside him. "dear father," she said, "do not let their insolence grieve you. they have smarted for it, and shall smart till they make their submission to you, and beg and entreat you to come to us again. meantime, since you cannot visit me, i visit you. confess me, father, and then direct me with your counsels. ah! if you could but give me the christian temper to carry them out firmly but meekly! 'tis my ungoverned spirit hath wrought all this mischief, mea culpa! mea culpa!"
by this time leonard had recovered his self-possession, and he spent an hour of strange intoxication, confessing his idol, sentencing his idol to light penances, directing and advising his idol, and all in the soft murmurs of a lover.
she left him and the room seemed to darken.
two days only elapsed, and she came again. visit succeeded to visit: and her affection seemed boundless.
the insult he had received was to be avenged in one place, and healed in another, and if possible, effaced with tender hand.
so she kept all her sweetness for that little cottage, and all her acidity for hernshaw castle.
it was an evil hour when griffith attacked her saint with violence. the woman was too high-spirited, and too sure of her own rectitude, to endure that: so, instead of crushing her, it drove her to retaliation; and to imprudence.
these visits to console father leonard were quietly watched by ryder, for one thing. but, worse than that, they placed mrs. gaunt in a new position with leonard, and one that melts the female heart. she was now the protectress and the consoler of a man she admired and revered. i say if any thing on earth can breed love in a grand female bosom, this will.
she had put her foot on a sunny slope clad with innocent-looking flowers; but more and more precipitous at every step, and perdition at the bottom.
