CHAPTER XVIII.
“THE SHADOW PASSETH WHEN THE TREE SHALL FALL.”
What a happy honeymoon it was, along the porphyry walls of Western England; what joyous days that were so long and seemed so short! There never was a less costly honeymoon, for the bride’s tastes were simple to childishness, and the bridegroom was too deeply in love to care for anything she did not desire. To ramble in that romantic land, staying here a few days, and there a week, all along the wild north coast, from Tintagel to St. Ives, southward then to Penzance, and Falmouth, and Fowey, was more than enough for bliss. And yet in all Eve’s childish talk with her sisters of what she would do if ever she married a rich man, the honeymoon tour in Italy had been a leading feature in her programme; but in those girlish visions beside the schoolroom fire the husband had been a nonentity, a mere purse-bearer, and all her talk had been of the places she was to see. Now, with this very real husband, all earth was paradisaic, and Sorrento could not have seemed more like a dream of beauty than Penzance. She was exquisitely happy; and what can the human mind require beyond perfect bliss?
These wedded lovers lingered long over that summer holiday. It was an ideal summer—a summer of sunshine and cloudless skies, varied only by an occasional thunderstorm—tempest enjoyed by Vansittart and Eve, who loved Nature in her grand and awful as well as in her milder aspects—and a tempest from the heights above Boscastle, or from the grassy cliffs of the Lizard, is a spectacle to remember. They spun out the pleasures of that simple Cornish tour. There was nothing to call them home—no tie, no duty, only their own inclination; for the dowager Mrs. Vansittart was staying at Redwold, absorbed in worship of the third generation, and was to go from Redwold to Ireland for a round of visits to the friends of her early married life. The lovers were therefore free to prolong their wanderings, and it was only when the shortening days suggested fireside pleasures that Vansittart proposed going home.
“Going home,” cried Eve; “how sweet that sounds! To think that your home is to be my home for evermore; and the servants, your old, well-trained servants, will be bobbing to me as their mistress—I who never had any servant but dear old motherly Nancy, who treats me as if I were her own flesh and blood, and an untaught chit for a parlour-maid, a girl who was always dropping knives off her tray, or smashing the crockery, in a most distracting manner. We had only the cheapest things we could buy at Whiteley’ssales, with a few relics of former splendour; and it was generally the relics that suffered. I cannot imagine myself the mistress of a fine house, with a staff of capable servants. What an insignificant creature I shall seem among them!”
“You will seem a queen—a queen out of the great kingdom of poetry—a queen like Tennyson’s Maud, in a white frock, with roses in your hair, and an ostrich fan for a sceptre. Don’t worry about the house, Eve. It will govern itself. The servants are all old servants, and have been trained by my mother, whose laws are the laws of Draco. Everything will work by machinery, and you and I can live in the same happy idleness we have tasted here.”
“Can we? May we, do you think? Is it not a wicked life? We care only for ourselves; we think only of ourselves.”
“Oh, we can mend that in some wise. I’ll introduce you to all my cottage tenants; and you will find plenty of scope for your benevolence in helping them through their troubles and sicknesses. You can start a village reading-room; you can start—or revive—a working man’s club. You shall be Lady Bountiful—a young and blooming Bountiful—not dealing in herbs and medicines, but in tea, and wine, and sago puddings, and chicken broth; finding frocks for the children, and Sunday bonnets for the mothers—flashing across poverty’s threshold like a ray of sunshine.”
Life that seems like a happy dream seldom lasts very long. There is generally a rough awakening. Fate comes, like the servant bidden to call us of a morning, and shakes the sleeper by the shoulder. The dream vanishes through the ivory gate, and the waking world in all its harsh reality is there.
Eve’s awakening came in a most unexpected shape. It came one October morning in the first week of her residence at Merewood. It came in a letter from her old servant, a letter in a shabby envelope, lying hidden among that heap of letters, monogrammed,coroneted, fashionable, which lay beside Mrs. Vansittart’s plate when she took her seat at the breakfast table.
She left that letter for the last, not recognizing Nancy’s penmanship, an article of which the faithful servant had always been sparing. Eve read all those other trivial letters—invitations, acceptances, friendly little communications of no meaning—and commented upon them to her husband as he took his breakfast—and finally opened Nancy’s letter. It was October, and Vansittart was dressed for shooting. October, yet there was no house-party. Eve had pleaded for a little more of that dual solitude which husband and wife had found so delightful; and Vansittart had been nothing loth to indulge her whim. November would be time enough to invite his friends; and in the mean time they had their pine woodsand copses and common all to themselves; and Eve could tramp about the covers with him when he went after his pheasants, without feeling herself in anybody’s way. October had begun charmingly, with weather that was balmy and bright enough for August. They were breakfasting with windows open to the lawn and flower-beds, and the bees were buzzing among the dahlias, and the air was scented with the Dijon roses that covered the wall.
“Why, it is from Nancy,” exclaimed Eve, looking at the signature. “Dear old Nancy. What can she have to write about?”
“Read, Eve, read,” cried Vansittart. “I believe Nancy’s letter will be more interesting than all those inanities you have been reading to me. There is sure to be some touch of originality, even if it is only in the spelling.”
Eve’s eyes had been hurrying over the letter while he spoke.
“Oh, Jack,” she exclaimed, in a piteous voice, “can there be any truth in this?”
The letter was as follows, in an orthography which need not be reproduced:—
“Honoured Madam,“I should not take the liberty to write to you about dear Miss Peggy, only at Miss Sophy’s and Miss Jenny’s age they can’t be expected to know anything about illness, and I’m afraid they may pass things over till it’s too late to mend matters, and then I know you would blame your old servant for not having spoken out.”
“Honoured Madam,
“I should not take the liberty to write to you about dear Miss Peggy, only at Miss Sophy’s and Miss Jenny’s age they can’t be expected to know anything about illness, and I’m afraid they may pass things over till it’s too late to mend matters, and then I know you would blame your old servant for not having spoken out.”
“What an alarming preamble!” said Jack. “What does it all mean?”
“It means that Peggy is very ill. Peggy, who seemed the strongest of all of us.”
She went on reading the letter.
“You know what beautiful weather we had after your marriage, honoured Madam. The young ladies enjoyed being out of doors all day long, and all the evening, sometimes till bedtime. They seldom had dinner indoors. It was ‘Picnic basket, Nancy,’ every morning, and I had to make them Cornish pasties—any scraps of meat was good enough so long as there was plenty of pie-crust—and fruit turnovers; and off they used to go to the copses and the hills directly after breakfast. They were all sunburnt, and they all looked so well, no one could have thought any harm would come of it. But Miss Peggy she used to run about more than her sisters, and she used to get into dreadful perspirations, as Miss Hetty told me afterwards, and then, standing or sitting about upon those windy hills, no doubt she got a chill. Even when she came home, with the perspiration teeming down her dear little face, she didn’t like the tew of changing all her clothes, and I was too busy in thekitchen—cooking, or cleaning, or washing—to look much after the poor dear child, and so it came upon me as a surprise in the middle of August when I found what a bad cold she had got. I did all I could to cure her. You know, dear Miss Eve, that I’m a pretty good nurse—indeed, I helped to nurse your poor dear ma every winter till she went abroad—but, in spite of all my mustard poultices and hot footbaths, this cough has been hanging about Miss Peggy for more than six weeks, and she doesn’t get the better of it. Miss Sophy sent for the doctor about a month ago, and he told her to keep the child warmly clad, and not to let her go out in an east wind, and he sent her a mixture, and he called two or three times, and then he didn’t call any more. But Miss Peggy’s cough is worse than it was when the doctor saw her, and the winter will be coming on soon, and I can’t forget that her poor ma died of consumption: so I thought the best thing I could do was to write freely to you.—Your faithful friend and servant,“Nancy.”
“You know what beautiful weather we had after your marriage, honoured Madam. The young ladies enjoyed being out of doors all day long, and all the evening, sometimes till bedtime. They seldom had dinner indoors. It was ‘Picnic basket, Nancy,’ every morning, and I had to make them Cornish pasties—any scraps of meat was good enough so long as there was plenty of pie-crust—and fruit turnovers; and off they used to go to the copses and the hills directly after breakfast. They were all sunburnt, and they all looked so well, no one could have thought any harm would come of it. But Miss Peggy she used to run about more than her sisters, and she used to get into dreadful perspirations, as Miss Hetty told me afterwards, and then, standing or sitting about upon those windy hills, no doubt she got a chill. Even when she came home, with the perspiration teeming down her dear little face, she didn’t like the tew of changing all her clothes, and I was too busy in thekitchen—cooking, or cleaning, or washing—to look much after the poor dear child, and so it came upon me as a surprise in the middle of August when I found what a bad cold she had got. I did all I could to cure her. You know, dear Miss Eve, that I’m a pretty good nurse—indeed, I helped to nurse your poor dear ma every winter till she went abroad—but, in spite of all my mustard poultices and hot footbaths, this cough has been hanging about Miss Peggy for more than six weeks, and she doesn’t get the better of it. Miss Sophy sent for the doctor about a month ago, and he told her to keep the child warmly clad, and not to let her go out in an east wind, and he sent her a mixture, and he called two or three times, and then he didn’t call any more. But Miss Peggy’s cough is worse than it was when the doctor saw her, and the winter will be coming on soon, and I can’t forget that her poor ma died of consumption: so I thought the best thing I could do was to write freely to you.—Your faithful friend and servant,
“Nancy.”
“Died of consumption!” The words came upon Vansittart like the icy hand of Death himself, taking hold of his heart.
“Is that true, Eve?” he asked. “Did your mother die of consumption?”
“I never heard exactly what her complaint was. She was far away from us when she died. I remember she always had a cough in the winter, and she had to be very careful of herself—or, at least, people told her she ought to be careful. She seemed to fade away, and I have always fancied that her grief about Harold had a good deal to do with her death.”
“Ah, that was it, no doubt. It was grief killed her. Her son’s exile, her change of fortune, were enough to kill a sensitive woman. She died of a broken heart.”
Anything! He would believe anything rather than accept the idea of that silent impalpable enemy threatening his beloved—the horror of hereditary consumption—the shadow that walketh in noonday.
“My sweet Peggy!” cried Eve, with brimming eyes. “I have been home a week, and I have not been to see my sisters—only an hour’s journey by road and rail! It is nearly three months since I saw them, and we were never parted before in all our lives. May I go to-day—at once, Jack? I shall be miserable——”
“Till you have discovered a mare’s nest, which I hope and believe Nancy’s letter will prove,” her husband interjected soothingly. “Yes, dear, we’ll go to Haslemere by the first train that will carry us, and we’ll telegraph for a fly to take us on to Fernhurst. There shall not be a minute lost. You shall havePeggy in your arms before lunch-time. Dear young Peggy! Do you suppose she is not precious to me, as well as to you? I promised I would be to her as a brother. Your sisters are my sisters, Eve.”
He rang the bell at the beginning of his speech, and ordered the dog-cart at the end.
“We must catch the London train, at 10.15,” he told the footman. “Let them bring round the cart as soon as it can be got ready. And now, dearest, your hat and jacket, and I am with you.”
There was comfort in this prompt action. Eve rushed upstairs, threw on the first hat she could find, too eager to ring for her maid, with whose attendance she was always willing to dispense, as a novel and not always pleasant sensation. She came flying down to the hall ten minutes before the cart drove round, and she and Vansittart walked up and down in front of the porch, talking of the sisters, she breathless and with fast-beating heart, protesting more than once at the slowness of the grooms.
“My dearest, for pity’s sake be calm. Why should you think the very worst, only because Nancy is an alarmist? These people are always full of ghoulish imaginings. Peasants gloat over the idea of sickness and death. They will stab one to the heart unwittingly; they will look at one’s nearest and dearest, and say, ‘Poor Miss So-and-so does not look as if she was long for this world.’ Long for this world, forsooth! Thank Heaven the threatened life often outlasts the prophet’s. Come, here is the cart. Jump in, Eve. The drive through the fresh air will revive your spirits.”
She was certainly in better spirits by the time the cart drew up at the railway station, and in better spirits all the way to Haslemere; but it was her husband’s hopefulness rather than the crisp autumn air which revived her. Yes, she would take comfort. Jack was right. Nancy was the best of creatures, but very apt to dwell upon the darker aspects of life, and to prophesy evil.
Yes, Jack was right; for scarcely had the fly stopped at the little gate when Peggy came dancing down the steep garden path, with outstretched arms, and wild hair flying in the wind, and legs much too long for her short petticoats—that very Peggy whom Eve’s fearful imaginings had depicted stretched on a sick-bed, faint almost to speechlessness. No speechlessness about this Peggy, the real flesh and blood Peggy, whose arms were round Eve’s neck before she had begun the ascent of the pathway, whose voice was greeting her vociferously, and who talked unintermittingly, without so much as a comma, till they were in the schoolroom. The arms that clung so lovingly were very skinny, and the voice was somewhat hoarse; but the hoarseness was no doubt only the consequence of running fast, and the skinnyness was the normal condition of a growing girl. Yes, Peggy had grown during her sister’s longhoneymoon. There was decidedly an inch or so more leg under the short skirt.
Eve wept aloud for very joy, as she sat on the sofa with Peggy on her lap—the dear old Yorkshire sofa—the sofa that had been a ship, an express train, a smart barouche, an opera-box, and ever so many other things, years ago, in their childish play. She could not restrain her tears as she thought of that terrible vision of a dying Peggy, and then clasped this warm, joyous, living Peggy closer and closer to her heart. The other sisters had gone to a morning service. She had this youngest all to herself for a little while.
“I don’t go to church on weekdays now,” said Peggy, “only on Sundays. It makes my chest ache to sit so long.”
Ah, that was like the dull sudden sound of the death-bell.
“That’s because you’re growing so fast, Peg,” said Vansittart’s cheery voice. “Growing girls are apt to be weak. I shall send you some port which will soon make you sit up straight.”
“You needn’t trouble,” said Peggy. “I could swim in port if I liked. Sir Hubert sent a lot for me—the finest old wine in his cellar—just because Lady Hartley happened to say I was growing too fast. And they have sent grapes, and game, and all sorts of delicious things from Redwold, only because I grow too fast. It’s a fine thing for all of us that I grow so fast—ain’t it, Eve?—for, of course, I can’t eat all the grapes or the game.”
Peggy looked from wife to husband, with a joyous laugh. She had red spots on her hollow cheeks, and her eyes were very bright. Vansittart heard the death-bell as he looked at her.
The sisters came trooping in, having seen the fly at the door and guessed its meaning. They were rapturous in their greetings, had worlds to say about themselves and their neighbours, and were more eager to talk of their own experiences than to hear about Eve’s Cornish wanderings.
“You should just see how the people suck up to us, now you are Lady Hartley’s sister-in-law,” said Hetty, and was immediately silenced for vulgarity, and to make way for her elder sisters.
Vansittart left them all clustered about Eve, and all talking together. He went out into the garden—the homely garden of shrubs and fruit and flowers and vegetables, garden which now wore its autumnal aspect of over-ripeness verging on decay, rosy-red tomatoes hanging low upon the fence, with flabby yellowing leaves, vegetable marrows grown out of knowledge, and cucumbers that prophesied bitterness, cabbage stumps, withering bean-stalks—a wilderness of fennel: everywhere the growth that presages the end of all growing, and the long winter death-sleep.
It was not to muse upon decaying Nature that Vansittart had come out among the rose and carnation borders, the patches ofparsley and mint. He had a purpose in his sauntering, and made his way to the back of the straggling cottage, where the long-tiled roof of the kitchen and offices jutted out from under the thatch. Here through the open casement he saw Yorkshire Nancy bustling about in the bright little kitchen, her pupil and slave busy cleaning vegetables at the sink, and a shoulder of lamb slowly revolving before the ruddy coal fire—an honest, open fireplace. “None of your kitcheners for me,” Nancy was wont to say, with a scornful emphasis which recalled the fox in his condemnation of unattainable grapes.
Vansittart looked in at the window.
“May I have a few words with you, Nancy?” he asked politely.
“Lor, sir, how you did startle me to be sure. Sarah, look to lamb and put pastry to rise,” cried Nancy, whisking off her apron, and darting out to the garden. “You see, sir, you and Miss Eve have took us by surprise, and it’s as much as we shall have a bit of lunch ready for you at half-past one.”
“Never mind lunch, my good soul. A crust of bread and cheese would be enough.”
“Oh, it won’t be quite so bad as that. Miss Eve likes my chiss-cakes, and she shall have a matrimony cake to her afternoon tea.”
“Nancy, I want a little serious talk with you,” Vansittart began gravely, when they had walked a little way from the house, and were standing side by side in front of the untidy patch where the vegetable marrows had swollen to huge orange-coloured gourds. “I am full of fear about Miss Peggy.”
“Oh, sir, so am I, so am I,” cried Nancy, bursting into tears. “I didn’t want to frighten dear Miss Eve—I beg pardon, sir, I never can think of her as Mrs. Vansittart.”
“Never mind, Nancy. You were saying——”
“I didn’t want to frighten your sweet young lady in the midst of her happiness; but when I saw that dear child beginning to go off just like her poor mother——”
“Oh, Nancy!” cried Vansittart, despairingly, with his hand on the Yorkshirewoman’s rough red arm. “Is that a sure thing? Did Mrs. Marchant die of consumption?”
“As sure as you and I are standing here, sir. It was a slow decline, but it was consumption, and nothing else. I’ve heard the doctors say so.”