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?