Moondyne/After Nine Years
So the state of Alice Walmsley was not changed by the zeal of Mr. Haggett, indeed, no change had resulted from it except the increased hatred of the Chief Director for Mr. Wyville, and the sleuth-dog errand on which Haggett had sailed for Australia.
Alice did not know nor think of the causes that had kept her from transportation. One day she was quietly informed by the warder that the ship had sailed. She hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry, for her own sake; but of late she had not been quite alone in the world. Her eyes filled with tears, and she clasped her hands before her.
"You are sorry, Number Four," said the warder.
"She was so good—she made me so happy," answered Alice, with streaming eyes.
"Who?"
"Sister Cecilia."
"She has not gone," said the warder, smiling; "see, she is coming here. Good day, Sister; somebody was crying for you."
The joy of Alice was unbounded, as she held the serge dress of Sister Cecilia, and looked in her kind and pleasant face. The change in Alice's character was more marked in this scene than in any circumstance since the gleam of the flower had caught her eye in the cell. The strong will seemed to have departed; the self-reliance, born of wrong and anguish, had disappeared; she was a simple and impulsive girl again.
Between the innocent happiness of her young life and the fresh tenderness now springing in her heart, there lay an awful gulf of sorrow and despair. But she was on the high bank—she looked across the gloom and saw the sunny fields beyond, and, as she looked, the far shore drew nearer to her, and the dismal strait between grew narrower.
"Alice," said Sister Cecilia, gravely, when the happy greeting was over, "it is now time that something were done for your release."
The light faded from Alice's face, and after a long look, full of sadness, at the Sister, she bent her face into her hands, remaining silent.
"Would you not like to be free, Alice?"
"I am happy here—I do not think of it—why do you ask me?" she said, wistfully.
"Because it is not right that an innocent person should remain here. Tell me the whole sad story, child, and let me see what can be done."
"O, Sister Cecilia, I cannot—I cannot!" sobbed Alice.
"O, do not ask me—do not make me think of my sweet little baby—I cannot think of it dead—indeed, I cannot speak of that!"
"Alice," said the nun, "your baby is with God, saved from the stains and sorrows of life. This woman," and the voice of Sister Cecilia grew almost severe, "this terrible woman—I have heard that she is a bad and wretched woman, Alice—deserves nothing from you but justice. God demands justice to ourselves as well as to others."
I cannot accuse her," answered Alice, in a low voice, gradually returning to its old firmness. "She has suffered more than I—God pardon her! And I know that she suffered first."
"Well, poor child," said the nun, deeply affected, "we must ask for a pardon, then, for you."
Alice arose from her low seat, and stood before the window, looking upward, with her hands clasped before her—an attitude grown familiar to her of late.
"My dead mother knows I am innocent of crime," she said slowly, as if speaking to her own heart; "no one else knows it, though some may believe it. I cannot be pardoned for a crime I have not committed. That were to accept the crime. I shall not accuse her, though my own word should set me free. Do not ask me to speak of it any more, Sister Cecilia. I shall remain here—and I shall be happier here."
Sister Cecilia dropped the subject, and never returned to it again. From that day she treated Alice Walmsley in another manner than of old. She spoke with her of all the crosses that came in her path, either to herself or others. By this means the latent sympathies of Alice were touched and exercised. She entered with interest into every story of the sorrow or suffering of the unfortunate, related to her by the kind little Sister.
In this communion, which, if not happy, was at least peaceful, the months grew into years, and the years followed each other, until four summers more bad passed through Alice's cell.
During those years she had developed her true nature, saddened though it was by her surroundings. It seemed that her youth had been too thoughtless, too unstable, too happy, even to indicate her future. That bright girlhood was the rich fallow ground. The five dark years of her agony and unbelief were the season of ploughing and harrowing the fertile soil and sowing the fruitful seed. The four years of succeeding peace were the springtime and the early summer of her full life, during which the strong shoots grew forward towards the harvest of ripe womanhood.
Towards the end of these four years a word of change came to her cell—she was once more selected among the fifty female prisoners to be sent on the annual convict ship to west Australia.
It was during the preparation for this voyage that Will Sheridan returned, a rich man, to find the shattered pieces of his love and happiness. It was during one of these quiet days within Alice's cell that he without had wandered through London, a heart-stricken man, vainly seeking for interest in the picture galleries and churches. It was during one of these peaceful nights within the cell that he, without, led by the magnetism of strong love, found himself beneath the gloomy walls of Millbank, round which he wandered through the night, and which he could not leave until he had pressed his feverish lips against the icy stone of the prison.
On the day when William Sheridan at last stood before the door of Alice Walmsley's cell, and read her beloved name on the card, she sat within, patiently sewing the coarse cloth of her transport dress. When the door opened, and his yearning sight was blessed with that which it had longed for, she stood before him, calm and white and beautiful, with downcast eyes, according to her own modesty and the prison discipline.
When he passed her door a few weeks later, and saw within the sweet-faced Sister Cecilia, and heard, after so many years, the voice of her he loved, in one short sentence, which sent him away very happy, she dreamt not that a loving heart had drunk up her words as a parched field drinks the refreshing rain.
So strong and so futile are the outreachings of the soul. They must be mutual, or they are impotent and vain. Reciprocal, they draw together through the density of a planet. Single, the one reaches for the other weakly, as a shadow touches the precipice, hopelessly as death.
That which we desire, we may feel; but that which we neither know nor think, might just as well be non-existent.