CHAPTER VIII
THE UNFOLDING OF THE SCROLL
When Alan reached the château he was at once accosted by old Matieu.
"Mme. la Marquise wishes to see you in her private room, M'sieu Alan, and without a moment's delay."
In a few seconds he was on the upper landing. At the door of the room known as the Blue Salon he met Yann the Dumb.
"What is it, Ian? Is there any thing wrong?"
In his haste he spoke in French. The old islander looked at him, but did not answer.
Alan repeated his question in Gaelic.
"Yes, Alan MacAlasdair, I fear there is gloom and darkness upon us all."
"Why?"
"By this an' by that. But I have seen the death-cloth about Lois nic Alasdair bronnach for weeks past. I saw it about her feet, and then about her knees, and then about her breast. Last night, when I looked at her, I saw it at her neck. And to-day, the shadow-shroud is risen to her eyes."
"But your second-sight is not always true, you know, Ian. Why, you told me when I was here last that I would soon be seeing my long dead father again, and, more than that, that I should see him, but he never see me. But of this and your other dark sayings, no more now. Can I go in at once and see my aunt?"
"I will be asking that, Alan-mo-caraid. But what you say is not true. I have never yet 'seen' any thing that has not come to pass; though I have had the sight but seldom, to Himself be the praise." With that Ian entered, exchanged a word or two, and ushered Alan into the room.
On a couch beside a great fireplace, across the iron brazier of which were flaming pine-logs, an elderly woman lay almost supine. That she had been a woman of great beauty was unmistakable, for all her gray hair and the ravages that time and suffering had wrought upon her face. Even now her face was beautiful; mainly from the expression of the passionate dusky eyes which were so like those of Annaik. Her long, inert body was covered with a fantastic Italian silk-cloth whose gay pattern emphasized her own helpless condition. Alan had not seen her for some months, and he was shocked at the change. Below the eyes, as flamelike as ever, were purplish shadows, and everywhere, through the habitual ivory of the delicate features, a gray ashiness had diffused. When she held out her hand to him, he saw it as transparent as a fan, and perceived within it the red gleam of the fire.
"Ah, Alan, it is you at last! How glad I am to see you!" The voice was one of singular sweetness, in tone and accent much like that of Ynys.
"Dear Aunt Lois, not more glad than I am to see you" – and, as he spoke, Alan kneeled at the couch and kissed the frail hand that had been held out to him.
"I would have so eagerly seen you at once on my arrival," he resumed, "but I was given your message – that you had one of your seasons of suffering, and could not see me. You have been in pain, Aunt Lois?"
"Yes, dear, I am dying."
"Dying! Oh, no, no, no! You don't mean that. And besides – "
"Why should I not mean it? Why should I fear it, Alan? Has life meant so much to me of late years that I should wish to prolong it?"
"But you have endured so long!"
"A bitter reason truly!.. and one too apt to a woman! Well, enough of this. Alan, I want to speak to you about yourself. But first tell me one thing. Do you love any woman?"
"Yes, with all my heart, with all my life, I love a woman."
"Have you told her so? Has she betrothed herself to you?"
"Yes."
"Is it Annaik?"
"Annaik … Annaik?"
"Why are you so surprised, Alan? Annaik is beautiful; she has long loved you, I am certain; and you, too, if I mistake not, care for her?"
"Of course, I do; of course I care for her, Aunt Lois. I love her. But I do not love her as you mean."
The Marquise looked at him steadily.
"I do not quite understand," she said gravely. "I must speak to you about Annaik, later. But now, will you tell me who the woman is?"
"Yes. It is Ynys."
"Ynys! But, Alan, do you not know that she is betrothed to Andrik de Morvan?"
"I know."
"And that such a betrothal is, in Brittany, almost as binding as a marriage?"
"I have heard that said."
"And that the Marquis de Kerival wishes that union to take place?"
"The Marquis Tristran's opinion, on any matter, does not in any way concern me."
"That may be, Alan; but it concerns Ynys. Do you know that I also wish her to marry Andrik; that his parents wish it; and that every one regards the union as all but an accomplished fact?"
"Yes, dear Aunt Lois, I have known or presumed all you tell me. But nothing of it can alter what is a vital part of my existence."
"Do you know that Ynys herself gave her pledge to Andrik de Morvan?"
"It was a conditional pledge. But, in any case, she will formally renounce it."
For a time there was silence.
Alan had risen, and now stood by the side of the couch, with folded arms. The Marquise Lois looked up at him, with her steadfast, shadowy eyes. When she spoke again she averted them, and her voice was so low as almost to be a whisper.
"Finally, Alan, let me ask you one question. It is not about you and Ynys. I infer that both of you are at one in your determination to take every thing into your own hands. Presumably you can maintain her and yourself. Tristran – the Marquis de Kerival – will not contribute a franc toward her support. If he knew, he would turn her out of doors this very day."
"Well, Aunt Lois, I wait for your final question?"
"It is this. What about Annaik?"
Startled by her tone and sudden lifted glance, Alan stared in silence; then recollecting himself, he repeated dully:
"'What about Annaik?' … Annaik, Aunt Lois, why do you ask me about Annaik?"
"She loves you."
"As a brother; as the betrothed of Ynys; as a dear comrade and friend."
"Do not be a hypocrite, Alan. You know that she loves you. What of your feeling toward her?"
"I love her … as a brother loves a sister … as any old playmate and friend … as … as the sister of Ynys."
A faint, scornful smile came upon the white lips of the Marquise.
"Will you be good enough, then, to explain about last night?"
"About last night?"
"Come, be done with evasion. Yes, about last night. Alan, I know that you and Annaik were out together in the cypress avenue, and again, on the dunes, after midnight; that you were seen walking hand in hand; and that, stealthily, you entered the house together."
"Well?"
"Well! The inference is obvious. But I will let you see that I know more. Annaik went out of the house late. Old Matieu let her out. Shortly after that you went out of the château. Later, you and she came upon Judik Kerbastiou prowling about in the woods. It was more than an hour after he left you that you returned to the château. Where were you during that hour or more?"
Alan flushed. He unfolded his arms; hesitated; then refolded them.
"How do you know this?" he asked simply.
"I know it, because…"
But before she finished what she was about to say, the door opened and Yann entered.
"What is it, Ian?"
"I would be speaking to you alone for a minute, Bantighearna."
"Alan, go to the alcove yonder, please. I must hear in private what Yann has to say to me."
As soon as the young man was out of hearing, Yann stooped and spoke in low tones. The Marquise Lois grew whiter and whiter, till not a vestige of color remained in her face, and the only sign of life was in the eyes. Suddenly she made an exclamation.
Alan turned and looked at her. He caught her agonized whisper: "Oh, my God!"
"What is it – oh, what is it, dear Aunt Lois?" he cried, as he advanced to her side.
He expected to be waved back, but to his surprise the Marquise made no sign to him to withdraw. Instead, she whispered some instructions to Yann and then bade him go.
When they were alone once more, she took a small silver flagon from beneath her coverlet and poured a few drops upon some sugar.
Having taken this, she seemed to breathe more easily. It was evident, at the same time, that she had received some terrible shock.
"Alan, come closer. I cannot speak loud. I have no time to say more to you about Annaik. I must leave that to you and to her. But lest I die, let me say at once that I forbid you to marry Ynys, and that I enjoin you to marry Annaik, and that without delay."
A spasm of pain crossed the speaker's face. She stopped, and gasped for breath. When at last she resumed, it was clear she considered as settled the matter on which she had spoken.
"Alan, I am so unwell that I must be very brief. And now listen. You are twenty-five to-day. Such small fortune as is yours comes now into your possession. It has been administered for you by a firm of lawyers in Edinburgh. See, here is the address. Can you read it? Yes?.. Well, keep the slip. This fortune is not much. To many, possibly to you, it may not seem enough to provide more than the bare necessities of life, not enough for its needs. Nevertheless, it is your own, and you will be glad. It will, at least, suffice to keep you free from need if ever you fulfil your great wish to go back to the land of your fathers, to your own place."
"That is still my wish and my hope."
"So be it! You will have also an old sea castle, not much more than a keep, on a remote island. It will at any rate be your own. It is on an island where few people are; a wild and precipitous isle far out in the Atlantic at the extreme of the Southern Hebrides."
"Is it called Rona?" Alan interrupted eagerly.
Without noticing, or heeding, his eagerness, she assented.
"Yes, it is called Rona. Near it are the isles of Mingulay and Borosay. These three islands were once populous, and it was there that for hundreds of years your father's clan, of which he was hereditary chief, lived and prospered. After the evil days, the days when the young King was hunted in the west as though a royal head were the world's desire, and when our brave kinswoman, Flora Macdonald, proved that women as well as men could dare all for a good cause – after those evil days the people melted away. Soon the last remaining handful were upon Borosay; and there, too, till the great fire that swept the island a score of years ago, stood the castle of my ancestors, the Macdonalds of Borosay.
"My father was a man well known in his day. The name of Sir Kenneth Macdonald was as familiar in London as in Edinburgh; and in Paris he was known to all the military and diplomatic world, for in his youth he had served in the French army with distinction, and held the honorary rank of general.
"Not long before my mother's death he came back to our lonely home in Borosay, bringing with him a kinsman of another surname, who owned the old castle of Rona on the Isle of the Sea-caves, as Rona is often called by the people of the Hebrides. Also there came with him a young French officer of high rank. After a time I was asked to marry this man. I did not love him, did not even care for him, and I refused. In truth … already, though unknowingly, I loved your father – he that was our kinsman and owned Rona and its old castle. But Alasdair did not speak; and, because of that, we each came to sorrow.
"My father told me he was ruined. If I did not marry Tristran de Kerival, he would lose all. Moreover, my dying mother begged me to save the man she had loved so well and truly, though he had left her so much alone.
"Well, to be brief, I agreed. My kinsman Alasdair was away at the time. He returned on the eve of the very day on which I was suddenly married by Father Somerled Macdonald. We were to remain a few weeks in Borosay because of my mother's health.
"When Alasdair learned what had happened he was furious. I believe he even drew a riding whip across the face of Tristran de Kerival. Fierce words passed between them, and a cruel taunt that rankled. Nor would Alasdair have any word with me at all. He sent me a bitter message, but the bitterest word he could send was that which came to me: that he and my sister Silis had gone away together.
"From that day I never saw Silis again, till the time of her death. Soon afterward our mother died, and while the island-funeral was being arranged our father had a stroke, and himself died, in time to be buried along with his wife. It was only then that I realized how more than true had been his statements as to his ruin. He died penniless. I was reminded of this unpleasant fact at the time, by the Marquis de Kerival; and I have had ample opportunity since for bearing it in vivid remembrance.
"As soon as possible we settled all that could be settled, and left for Brittany. I have sometimes thought my husband's love was killed when he discovered that Alasdair had loved me. He forbade me even to mention his name, unless he introduced it; and he was wont to swear that a day would come when he would repay in full what he believed to be the damning insult he had received.
"We took with us only one person from Borosay, an islander of Rona. He is, in fact, a clansman both of you and me. It is of Ian I speak, of course; him that soon came to be called here Yann the Dumb. My husband and I had at least this to unite us: that we were both Celtic, and had all our racial sympathies in common.
"I heard from Silis that she was married and was happy. I am afraid this did not add to my happiness. She wrote to me, too, when she was about to bear her child. Strangely enough, Alasdair, who, like his father before him, was an officer in the French army, was then stationed not far from Kerival, though my husband knew nothing of this at first. My own boy and Silis's were born about the same time. My child died; that of Silis and Alasdair lived. You are that child. No … wait, Alan … I will tell you his name shortly… You, I say, are that child. Soon afterward, Silis had a dangerous relapse. In her delirium she said some wild things; among them, words to the effect that the child which had died was hers, and that the survivor was mine – that, somehow or other, they had been changed. Then, too, she cried out in her waywardness – and, poor girl, she must have known then that Alasdair had loved me before he loved her – that the child who lived, he who had been christened Alan, was the child of Alasdair and myself.
"All this poor delirium at the gate of death meant nothing. But in some way it came to Tristran's ears, and he believed. After Silis's death I had brought you home, Alan, and had announced that I would adopt you. I promised Silis this, in her last hour, when she was in her right mind again; also that the child, you, should be brought up to speak and think in our own ancient language, and that in all ways you should grow up a true Gael. I have done my best, Alan?"
"Indeed, indeed you have. I shall never, never forget that you have been my mother to me."
"Well, my husband never forgave that. He acquiesced, but he never forgave. For long, and I fear to this day, he persists in his belief that you are really my illegitimate child, and that Silis was right in thinking that I had succeeded in having my own new-born babe transferred to her arms, while her dead offspring was brought to me, and, as my own, interred. It has created a bitter feud, and that is why he hates the sight of you. That, too, Alan, is why he would never consent to your marriage with either Ynys or Annaik."
"But you yourself urged me a little ago to … to … marry Annaik."
"I had a special reason. Besides, I of course know the truth. In his heart, God knows, my husband cannot doubt it."
"Then tell me this: is my father dead also, as I have long surmised?"
"No … yes, yes, Alan, he is dead."
Alan noticed his aunt's confusion, and regarded her steadily.
"Why do you first say 'no' and then 'yes'?"
"Because…"
But here again an interruption occurred. The portière moved back, and then the wide doors disparted. Into the salon was wheeled a chair, in which sat the Marquis de Kerival. Behind him was his attendant; at his side, Kermorvan the steward. The face of the seigneur was still deathly pale, and the features were curiously drawn. The silky hair, too, seemed whiter than ever, and white as foam-drift on a dark wave were the long thin hands which lay on the lap of the black velvet shooting jacket he wore.
"Ah, Lois, is this a prepared scene?" he exclaimed in a cold and sneering voice, "or, has the young man known all along?"
"Tristan, I have not yet told him what I now know. Be merciful."
"Alan MacAlasdair, as the Marquise here calls you, – and she ought to know, – have you learned yet the name and rank of your father?"
"No."
"Tell him, Lois."
"Tristran, listen. All is over now. Soon I, too, shall be gone. In the name of God I pray you to relent from this long cruelty, this remorseless infamy. You know as well as I do that our first-born is dead twenty-five years ago, and that this man here is truly the son of Silis, my sister. And here is one overwhelming proof for you: I have just been urging him to marry Annaik."
At that Tristran the Silent was no longer silent. With a fierce laugh he turned to the steward.
"I call you to witness, Raif Kermorvan, that I would kill Annaik, or Ynys either for that matter, before I would allow such an unnatural union. Once and for all I absolutely ban it. Besides… Listen, you there with your father's eyes! You are sufficiently a Gael to feel that you would not marry the daughter of a man who killed your father?"
"God forbid!"
"Well, then, God does forbid. Lois, tell this man what you know."
"Alan," began the Marquise quaveringly, her voice fluttering like a dying bird, "the name of your father is … is … Alasdair … Alasdair Carmichael!"
"Carmichael!"
For a moment he was dazed, bewildered. When, recently, had he heard that name?
Then it flashed upon him. He turned with flaming eyes to where the Marquis sat, quietly watching him.
"Oh, my God!" That was all. He could say no more. His heart was in his throat.
Then, hoarse and trembling, he put out his hands.
"Tell me it is not true! Tell me it is not true!"
"What is not true, Alan Carmichael?"
"That that was he who died in the wood yonder."
"That was General Alasdair Carmichael."
"My father?"
"Your father!"
"But, you devil, you murdered him! I saw you do it! You knew it was he – and you killed him. You knew he would not try to kill you, and you waited; then, when he had fired, you took careful aim and killed him!"
"You reiterate, my friend. These are facts with which I am familiar."
The cool, sneering tone stung Alan to madness. He advanced menacingly.
"Murderer, you shall not escape!"
"A fitting sentiment, truly, from a man who wants to marry my daughter!"
"Marry your daughter! Marry the daughter of my father's murderer! I would sooner never see the face of woman again than do this thing."
"Good! I am well content. And now, young man, you are of age; you have come into your patrimony, including your ruined keep on the island of Rona; and I will trouble you to go – to leave Kerival for good and all."
Suddenly, without a word, Alan moved rapidly forward. With a light touch he laid his hand for a moment on the brow of the motionless man in the wheeled chair.
"There! I lay upon you, Tristran de Kerival, the curse of the newly dead and of the living! May the evil that you have done corrode your brain, and may your life silt away as sand, and may your soul know the second death!"
As he turned to leave the room he saw Kerbastiou standing in the doorway.
"Who are you, to be standing there, Judik Kerbastiou?" demanded the steward angrily.
"I am Rohan de Kerival. Ask this man here if I am not his son. Three days ago the woman who was my mother died. She died a vagrant, in the forest. But, nigh upon thirty years ago, she was legally married to the young Marquis Tristran de Kerival. I am their child."
Alan glanced at the man he had cursed. A strange look had come into his ashy face.
"Her name?" was all Tristran the Silent said.
"Annora Brizeux."
"You have proofs?"
"I have all the proofs."
"You are only a peasant, I disown you. I know nothing of you or of the wanton that was your mother."
Without a word Judik strode forward and struck him full in the face. At that moment the miraculous happened. The Marquise, who had not stood erect for years, rose to her full height.
She, too, crossed the room.
"Alan," she cried, "see! He has killed me as well as your father," and with that she swayed, and fell dead, at the feet of the man who had trampled her soul in the dust and made of her blossoming life a drear and sterile wilderness.