Books: The Poor Clare
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Elizabeth Gaskell >> The Poor Clare
"How came it to pass?" I asked.
"Nay, I know not. Old rumours there are, that were bruited through
the household at Skipford."
"Tell me," I demanded.
"They came from servants, who would fain account for every thing.
They say that, many years ago, Mr. Gisborne killed a dog belonging to
an old witch at Coldholme; that she cursed, with a dreadful and
mysterious curse, the creature, whatever it might be, that he should
love best; and that it struck so deeply into his heart that for years
he kept himself aloof from any temptation to love aught. But who
could help loving Lucy?"
"You never heard the witch's name?" I gasped.
"Yes--they called her Bridget: they said he would never go near the
spot again for terror of her. Yet he was a brave man!"
"Listen," said I, taking hold of her arm, the better to arrest her
full attention: "if what I suspect holds true, that man stole
Bridget's only child--the very Mary Fitzgerald who was Lucy's mother;
if so, Bridget cursed him in ignorance of the deeper wrong he had
done her. To this hour she yearns after her lost child, and
questions the saints whether she be living or not. The roots of that
curse lie deeper than she knows: she unwittingly banned him for a
deeper guilt than that of killing a dumb beast. The sins of the
fathers are indeed visited upon the children."
"But," said Mistress Clarke, eagerly, "she would never let evil rest
on her own grandchild? Surely, sir, if what you say be true, there
are hopes for Lucy. Let us go--go at once, and tell this fearful
woman all that you suspect, and beseech her to take off the spell she
has put upon her innocent grandchild."
It seemed to me, indeed, that something like this was the best course
we could pursue. But first it was necessary to ascertain more than
what mere rumour or careless hearsay could tell. My thoughts turned
to my uncle--he could advise me wisely--he ought to know all. I
resolved to go to him without delay; but I did not choose to tell
Mistress Clarke of all the visionary plans that flitted through my
mind. I simply declared my intention of proceeding straight to
London on Lucy's affairs. I bade her believe that my interest on the
young lady's behalf was greater than ever, and that my whole time
should be given up to her cause. I saw that Mistress Clarke
distrusted me, because my mind was too full of thoughts for my words
to flow freely. She sighed and shook her head, and said, "Well, it
is all right!" in such a tone that it was an implied reproach. But I
was firm and constant in my heart, and I took confidence from that.
I rode to London. I rode long days drawn out into the lovely summer
nights: I could not rest. I reached London. I told my uncle all,
though in the stir of the great city the horror had faded away, and I
could hardly imagine that he would believe the account I gave him of
the fearful double of Lucy which I had seen on the lonely moor-side.
But my uncle had lived many years, and learnt many things; and, in
the deep secrets of family history that had been confided to him, he
had heard of cases of innocent people bewitched and taken possession
of by evil spirits yet more fearful than Lucy's. For, as he said, to
judge from all I told him, that resemblance had no power over her--
she was too pure and good to be tainted by its evil, haunting
presence. It had, in all probability, so my uncle conceived, tried
to suggest wicked thoughts and to tempt to wicked actions but she, in
her saintly maidenhood, had passed on undefiled by evil thought or
deed. It could not touch her soul: but true, it set her apart from
all sweet love or common human intercourse. My uncle threw himself
with an energy more like six-and-twenty than sixty into the
consideration of the whole case. He undertook the proving Lucy's
descent, and volunteered to go and find out Mr. Gisborne, and obtain,
firstly, the legal proofs of her descent from the Fitzgeralds of
Kildoon, and, secondly, to try and hear all that he could respecting
the working of the curse, and whether any and what means had been
taken to exorcise that terrible appearance. For he told me of
instances where, by prayers and long fasting, the evil possessor had
been driven forth with howling and many cries from the body which it
had come to inhabit; he spoke of those strange New England cases
which had happened not so long before; of Mr. Defoe, who had written
a book, wherein he had named many modes of subduing apparitions, and
sending them back whence they came; and, lastly, he spoke low of
dreadful ways of compelling witches to undo their witchcraft. But I
could not endure to hear of those tortures and burnings. I said that
Bridget was rather a wild and savage woman than a malignant witch;
and, above all, that Lucy was of her kith and kin; and that, in
putting her to the trial, by water or by fire, we should be
torturing--it might be to the death--the ancestress of her we sought
to redeem.
My uncle thought awhile, and then said, that in this last matter I
was right--at any rate, it should not be tried, with his consent,
till all other modes of remedy had failed; and he assented to my
proposal that I should go myself and see Bridget, and tell her all.
In accordance with this, I went down once more to the wayside inn
near Coldholme. It was late at night when I arrived there; and,
while I supped, I inquired of the landlord more particulars as to
Bridget's ways. Solitary and savage had been her life for many
years. Wild and despotic were her words and manner to those few
people who came across her path. The country-folk did her imperious
bidding, because they feared to disobey. If they pleased her, they
prospered; if, on the contrary, they neglected or traversed her
behests, misfortune, small or great, fell on them and theirs. It was
not detestation so much as an indefinable terror that she excited.
In the morning I went to see her. She was standing on the green
outside her cottage, and received me with the sullen grandeur of a
throneless queen. I read in her face that she recognized me, and
that I was not unwelcome; but she stood silent till I had opened my
errand.
"I have news of your daughter," said I, resolved to speak straight to
all that I knew she felt of love, and not to spare her. "She is
dead!"
The stern figure scarcely trembled, but her hand sought the support
of the door-post.
"I knew that she was dead," said she, deep and low, and then was
silent for an instant. "My tears that should have flowed for her
were burnt up long years ago. Young man, tell me about her."
"Not yet," said I, having a strange power given me of confronting
one, whom, nevertheless, in my secret soul I dreaded.
"You had once a little dog," I continued. The words called out in
her more show of emotion than the intelligence of her daughter's
death. She broke in upon my speech:-
"I had! It was hers--the last thing I had of hers--and it was shot
for wantonness! It died in my arms. The man who killed that dog
rues it to this day. For that dumb beast's blood, his best-beloved
stands accursed."
Her eyes distended, as if she were in a trance and saw the working of
her curse. Again I spoke:-
"O, woman!" I said, "that best-beloved, standing accursed before men,
is your dead daughter's child."
The life, the energy, the passion, came back to the eyes with which
she pierced through me, to see if I spoke truth; then, without
another question or word, she threw herself on the ground with
fearful vehemence, and clutched at the innocent daisies with
convulsed hands.
"Bone of my bone! flesh of my flesh! have I cursed thee--and art thou
accursed?"
So she moaned, as she lay prostrate in her great agony. I stood
aghast at my own work. She did not hear my broken sentences; she
asked no more, but the dumb confirmation which my sad looks had given
that one fact, that her curse rested on her own daughter's child.
The fear grew on me lest she should die in her strife of body and
soul; and then might not Lucy remain under the spell as long as she
lived?
Even at this moment, I saw Lucy coming through the woodland path that
led to Bridget's cottage; Mistress Clarke was with her: I felt at my
heart that it was she, by the balmy peace which the look of her sent
over me, as she slowly advanced, a glad surprise shining out of her
soft quiet eyes. That was as her gaze met mine. As her looks fell
on the woman lying stiff, convulsed on the earth, they became full of
tender pity; and she came forward to try and lift her up. Seating
herself on the turf, she took Bridget's head into her lap; and, with
gentle touches, she arranged the dishevelled gray hair streaming
thick and wild from beneath her mutch.
"God help her!" murmured Lucy. "How she suffers!"
At her desire we sought for water; but when we returned, Bridget had
recovered her wandering senses, and was kneeling with clasped hands
before Lucy, gazing at that sweet sad face as though her troubled
nature drank in health and peace from every moment's contemplation.
A faint tinge on Lucy's pale cheeks showed me that she was aware of
our return; otherwise it appeared as if she was conscious of her
influence for good over the passionate and troubled woman kneeling
before her, and would not willingly avert her grave and loving eyes
from that wrinkled and careworn countenance.
Suddenly--in the twinkling of an eye--the creature appeared, there,
behind Lucy; fearfully the same as to outward semblance, but kneeling
exactly as Bridget knelt, and clasping her hands in jesting mimicry
as Bridget clasped hers in her ecstasy that was deepening into a
prayer. Mistress Clarke cried out--Bridget arose slowly, her gaze
fixed on the creature beyond: drawing her breath with a hissing
sound, never moving her terrible eyes, that were steady as stone, she
made a dart at the phantom, and caught, as I had done, a mere handful
of empty air. We saw no more of the creature--it vanished as
suddenly as it came, but Bridget looked slowly on, as if watching
some receding form. Lucy sat still, white, trembling, drooping--I
think she would have swooned if I had not been there to uphold her.
While I was attending to her, Bridget passed us, without a word to
any one, and, entering her cottage, she barred herself in, and left
us without.
All our endeavours were now directed to get Lucy back to the house
where she had tarried the night before. Mistress Clarke told me
that, not hearing from me (some letter must have miscarried), she had
grown impatient and despairing, and had urged Lucy to the enterprise
of coming to seek her grandmother; not telling her, indeed, of the
dread reputation she possessed, or how we suspected her of having so
fearfully blighted that innocent girl; but, at the same time, hoping
much from the mysterious stirring of blood, which Mistress Clarke
trusted in for the removal of the curse. They had come, by a
different route from that which I had taken, to a village inn not far
from Coldholme, only the night before. This was the first interview
between ancestress and descendant.
All through the sultry noon I wandered along the tangled brush-wood
of the old neglected forest, thinking where to turn for remedy in a
matter so complicated and mysterious. Meeting a countryman, I asked
my way to the nearest clergyman, and went, hoping to obtain some
counsel from him. But he proved to be a coarse and common-minded
man, giving no time or attention to the intricacies of a case, but
dashing out a strong opinion involving immediate action. For
instance, as soon as I named Bridget Fitzgerald, he exclaimed:-
"The Coldholme witch! the Irish papist! I'd have had her ducked long
since but for that other papist, Sir Philip Tempest. He has had to
threaten honest folk about here over and over again, or they'd have
had her up before the justices for her black doings. And it's the
law of the land that witches should be burnt! Ay, and of Scripture,
too, sir! Yet you see a papist, if he's a rich squire, can overrule
both law and Scripture. I'd carry a faggot myself to rid the country
of her!"
Such a one could give me no help. I rather drew back what I had
already said; and tried to make the parson forget it, by treating him
to several pots of beer, in the village inn, to which we had
adjourned for our conference at his suggestion. I left him as soon
as I could, and returned to Coldholme, shaping my way past deserted
Starkey Manor-house, and coming upon it by the back. At that side
were the oblong remains of the old moat, the waters of which lay
placid and motionless under the crimson rays of the setting sun; with
the forest-trees lying straight along each side, and their deep-green
foliage mirrored to blackness in the burnished surface of the moat
below--and the broken sun-dial at the end nearest the hall--and the
heron, standing on one leg at the water's edge, lazily looking down
for fish--the lonely and desolate house scarce needed the broken
windows, the weeds on the door-sill, the broken shutter softly
flapping to and fro in the twilight breeze, to fill up the picture of
desertion and decay. I lingered about the place until the growing
darkness warned me on. And then I passed along the path, cut by the
orders of the last lady of Starkey Manor-House, that led me to
Bridget's cottage. I resolved at once to see her; and, in spite of
closed doors--it might be of resolved will--she should see me. So I
knocked at her door, gently, loudly, fiercely. I shook it so
vehemently that a length the old hinges gave way, and with a crash it
fell inwards, leaving me suddenly face to face with Bridget--I, red,
heated, agitated with my so long baffled efforts--she, stiff as any
stone, standing right facing me, her eyes dilated with terror, her
ashen lips trembling, but her body motionless. In her hands she held
her crucifix, as if by that holy symbol she sought to oppose my
entrance. At sight of me, her whole frame relaxed, and she sank back
upon a chair. Some mighty tension had given way. Still her eyes
looked fearfully into the gloom of the outer air, made more opaque by
the glimmer of the lamp inside, which she had placed before the
picture of the Virgin.
"Is she there?" asked Bridget, hoarsely.
"No! Who? I am alone. You remember me."
"Yes," replied she, still terror stricken. "But she--that creature--
has been looking in upon me through that window all day long. I
closed it up with my shawl; and then I saw her feet below the door,
as long as it was light, and I knew she heard my very breathing--nay,
worse, my very prayers; and I could not pray, for her listening
choked the words ere they rose to my lips. Tell me, who is she?--
what means that double girl I saw this morning? One had a look of my
dead Mary; but the other curdled my blood, and yet it was the same!"
She had taken hold of my arm, as if to secure herself some human
companionship. She shook all over with the slight, never-ceasing
tremor of intense terror. I told her my tale as I have told it you,
sparing none of the details.
How Mistress Clarke had informed me that the resemblance had driven
Lucy forth from her father's house--how I had disbelieved, until,
with mine own eyes, I had seen another Lucy standing behind my Lucy,
the same in form and feature, but with the demon-soul looking out of
the eyes. I told her all, I say, believing that she--whose curse was
working so upon the life of her innocent grandchild--was the only
person who could find the remedy and the redemption. When I had
done, she sat silent for many minutes.
"You love Mary's child?" she asked.
"I do, in spite of the fearful working of the curse--I love her. Yet
I shrink from her ever since that day on the moor-side. And men must
shrink from one so accompanied; friends and lovers must stand afar
off. Oh, Bridget Fitzgerald! loosen the curse! Set her free!"
"Where is she?"
I eagerly caught at the idea that her presence was needed, in order
that, by some strange prayer or exorcism, the spell might be
reversed.
"I will go and bring her to you," I exclaimed. Bridget tightened her
hold upon my arm.
"Not so," said she, in a low, hoarse voice. "It would kill me to see
her again as I saw her this morning. And I must live till I have
worked my work. Leave me!" said she, suddenly, and again taking up
the cross. "I defy the demon I have called up. Leave me to wrestle
with it!"
She stood up, as if in an ecstasy of inspiration, from which all fear
was banished. I lingered--why I can hardly tell--until once more she
bade me begone. As I went along the forest way, I looked back, and
saw her planting the cross in the empty threshold, where the door had
been.
The next morning Lucy and I went to seek her, to bid her join her
prayers with ours. The cottage stood open and wide to our gaze. No
human being was there: the cross remained on the threshold, but
Bridget was gone.
CHAPTER III.
What was to be done next? was the question that I asked myself. As
for Lucy, she would fain have submitted to the doom that lay upon
her. Her gentleness and piety, under the pressure of so horrible a
life, seemed over-passive to me. She never complained. Mrs. Clarke
complained more than ever. As for me, I was more in love with the
real Lucy than ever; but I shrunk from the false similitude with an
intensity proportioned to my love. I found out by instinct that Mrs.
Clarke had occasional temptations to leave Lucy. The good lady's
nerves were shaken, and, from what she said, I could almost have
concluded that the object of the Double was to drive away from Lucy
this last, and almost earliest friend. At times, I could scarcely
bear to own it, but I myself felt inclined to turn recreant; and I
would accuse Lucy of being too patient--too resigned. One after
another, she won the little children of Coldholme. (Mrs. Clarke and
she had resolved to stay there, for was it not as good a place as any
other, to such as they? and did not all our faint hopes rest on
Bridget--never seen or heard of now, but still we trusted to come
back, or give some token?) So, as I say, one after another, the
little children came about my Lucy, won by her soft tones, and her
gentle smiles, and kind actions. Alas! one after another they fell
away, and shrunk from her path with blanching terror; and we too
surely guessed the reason why. It was the last drop. I could bear
it no longer. I resolved no more to linger around the spot, but to
go back to my uncle, and among the learned divines of the city of
London, seek for some power whereby to annul the curse.
My uncle, meanwhile, had obtained all the requisite testimonials
relating to Lucy's descent and birth, from the Irish lawyers, and
from Mr. Gisborne. The latter gentleman had written from abroad (he
was again serving in the Austrian army), a letter alternately
passionately self-reproachful and stoically repellant. It was
evident that when he thought of Mary--her short life--how he had
wronged her, and of her violent death, he could hardly find words
severe enough for his own conduct; and from this point of view, the
curse that Bridget had laid upon him and his, was regarded by him as
a prophetic doom, to the utterance of which she was moved by a Higher
Power, working for the fulfilment of a deeper vengeance than for the
death of the poor dog. But then, again, when he came to speak of his
daughter, the repugnance which the conduct of the demoniac creature
had produced in his mind, was but ill-disguised under a show of
profound indifference as to Lucy's fate. One almost felt as if he
would have been as content to put her out of existence, as he would
have been to destroy some disgusting reptile that had invaded his
chamber or his couch.
The great Fitzgerald property was Lucy's; and that was all--was
nothing.
My uncle and I sat in the gloom of a London November evening, in our
house in Ormond Street. I was out of health, and felt as if I were
in an inextricable coil of misery. Lucy and I wrote to each other,
but that was little; and we dared not see each other for dread of the
fearful Third, who had more than once taken her place at our
meetings. My uncle had, on the day I speak of, bidden prayers to be
put up on the ensuing Sabbath in many a church and meeting-house in
London, for one grievously tormented by an evil spirit. He had faith
in prayers--I had none; I was fast losing faith in all things. So we
sat, he trying to interest me in the old talk of other days, I
oppressed by one thought--when our old servant, Anthony, opened the
door, and, without speaking, showed in a very gentlemanly and
prepossessing man, who had something remarkable about his dress,
betraying his profession to be that of the Roman Catholic priesthood.
He glanced at my uncle first, then at me. It was to me he bowed.
"I did not give my name," said he, "because you would hardly have
recognised it; unless, sir, when, in the north, you heard of Father
Bernard, the chaplain at Stoney Hurst?"
I remembered afterwards that I had heard of him, but at the time I
had utterly forgotten it; so I professed myself a complete stranger
to him; while my ever-hospitable uncle, although hating a papist as
much as it was in his nature to hate anything, placed a chair for the
visitor, and bade Anthony bring glasses, and a fresh jug of claret.
Father Bernard received this courtesy with the graceful ease and
pleasant acknowledgement which belongs to a man of the world. Then
he turned to scan me with his keen glance. After some alight
conversation, entered into on his part, I am certain, with an
intention of discovering on what terms of confidence I stood with my
uncle, he paused, and said gravely -
"I am sent here with a message to you, sir, from a woman to whom you
have shown kindness, and who is one of my penitents, in Antwerp--one
Bridget Fitzgerald."
"Bridget Fitzgerald!" exclaimed I. "In Antwerp? Tell me, sir, all
that you can about her."
"There is much to be said," he replied. "But may I inquire if this
gentleman--if your uncle is acquainted with the particulars of which
you and I stand informed?"
"All that I know, he knows," said I, eagerly laying my hand on my
uncle's arm, as he made a motion as if to quit the room.
"Then I have to speak before two gentlemen who, however they may
differ from me in faith, are yet fully impressed with the fact that
there are evil powers going about continually to take cognizance of
our evil thoughts: and, if their Master gives them power, to bring
them into overt action. Such is my theory of the nature of that sin,
which I dare not disbelieve--as some sceptics would have us do--the
sin of witchcraft. Of this deadly sin, you and I are aware, Bridget
Fitzgerald has been guilty. Since you saw her last, many prayers
have been offered in our churches, many masses sung, many penances
undergone, in order that, if God and the holy saints so willed it,
her sin might be blotted out. But it has not been so willed."
"Explain to me," said I, "who you are, and how you come connected
with Bridget. Why is she at Antwerp? I pray you, sir, tell me more.
If I am impatient, excuse me; I am ill and feverish, and in
consequence bewildered."
There was something to me inexpressibly soothing in the tone of voice
with which he began to narrate, as it were from the beginning, his
acquaintance with Bridget.
"I had known Mr. and Mrs. Starkey during their residence abroad, and
so it fell out naturally that, when I came as chaplain to the
Sherburnes at Stoney Hurst, our acquaintance was renewed; and thus I
became the confessor of the whole family, isolated as they were from
the offices of the Church, Sherburne being their nearest neighbour
who professed the true faith. Of course, you are aware that facts
revealed in confession are sealed as in the grave; but I learnt
enough of Bridget's character to be convinced that I had to do with
no common woman; one powerful for good as for evil. I believe that I
was able to give her spiritual assistance from time to time, and that
she looked upon me as a servant of that Holy Church, which has such
wonderful power of moving men's hearts, and relieving them of the
burden of their sins. I have known her cross the moors on the
wildest nights of storm, to confess and be absolved; and then she
would return, calmed and subdued, to her daily work about her
mistress, no one witting where she had been during the hours that
most passed in sleep upon their beds. After her daughter's
departure--after Mary's mysterious disappearance--I had to impose
many a long penance, in order to wash away the sin of impatient
repining that was fast leading her into the deeper guilt of
blasphemy. She set out on that long journey of which you have
possibly heard--that fruitless journey in search of Mary--and during
her absence, my superiors ordered my return to my former duties at
Antwerp, and for many years I heard no more of Bridget.
"Not many months ago, as I was passing homewards in the evening,
along one of the streets near St. Jacques, leading into the Meer
Straet, I saw a woman sitting crouched up under the shrine of the
Holy Mother of Sorrows. Her hood was drawn over her head, so that
the shadow caused by the light of the lamp above fell deep over her
face; her hands were clasped round her knees. It was evident that
she was some one in hopeless trouble, and as such it was my duty to
stop and speak. I naturally addressed her first in Flemish,
believing her to be one of the lower class of inhabitants. She shook
her head, but did not look up. Then I tried French, and she replied
in that language, but speaking it so indifferently, that I was sure
she was either English or Irish, and consequently spoke to her in my
own native tongue. She recognized my voice; and, starting up, caught
at my robes, dragging me before the blessed shrine, and throwing
herself down, and forcing me, as much by her evident desire as by her
action, to kneel beside her, she exclaimed: