“Mr. Thomas Sherwood,“Post Office,“Naunton.“To be called for.”
“Mr. Thomas Sherwood,“Post Office,“Naunton.“To be called for.”
“Mr. Thomas Sherwood,
“Post Office,
“Naunton.
“To be called for.”
“There’s evidence of the caution I’m obliged to practise in that part of the world. The world will never be without sin, poverty, and attorneys; and there is a cursed fellow there with eyes wide open and ears erect, and all sorts of poisoned arrows of the law to shoot at poor wayfarers like me; and that’s the reason why I’d rather buy our modest teacups in London, and not be so much as heard of in Naunton. Don’t look so frightened, little woman, every fellow has a dangerous dun or two, and I’m not half so much in peril as fifty I could name. Only my father’s angry, you know, and when that quarrel gets to be known it mayn’t help my credit, or make duns more patient. So I must keep well earthed here till the dogs are quiet again; and now, my wise little housekeeper will devise dinner enough for our hungry brother, who will arrive, in two hours’ time, with the appetite that Cressley Common gives every fellow with as little to trouble him as Harry has.”
Sixo’clock came, and seven, and not until half-past seven, when they had nearly given him up, did Henry Fairfield arrive at the Grange.
“How does Madam Fairfield?” bawled Master Harry, as he strode across the floor, and kissed Alice’s pretty cheek. “Odds bobbins!—as the man says in the playhouse—I believe I bussed ye, did I? But don’t let him be angry; I wasn’t thinkin’, Charlie, no more than the fellow that put farmer Gleeson’s fippun-note in his pocket last Trutbury fair. And how’s all wi’ ye, Charlie, hey? I’m glad to see the old house is standing still with a roof on since last gale. And how do ye like it, Alice? Rayther slow I used to think it; but you two wise heads are so in love wi’ one another ye’d put up in the pound, or the cow-house, or the horse-pond, for sake o’ each other’s company. ‘I loved her sweet company better than meat,’ as the song says; and that reminds me—can the house afford a hungry man a cut o’ beef or mutton and a mug of ale? I asked myself to dinner, ye know, and that’s a bargain there’s two words to, sometimes.”
Master Harry was a wag, after a clumsy rustic fashion—an habitual jester, and never joked more genially than when he was letting his companion in for what he called a “soft thing,” in the shape of an unsound horse or a foolish wager.
His jocularity was supposed to cover a great deal of shrewdness, and some dangerous qualities also.
While their homely dinner was being got upon the table, honest Harry quizzed the lord and lady of Carwell Grange in the same vein of delicate banter, upon all their domestic arrangements, and when he found that there was but one sitting-room in a condition to receive them, his merriment knew no bounds.
“Upon my soul, you beat the cobbler in the song that ‘lived in a stall, that served him for parlour, and kitchen, and hall,’ for there’s no mention of the cobbler’s wife, and he, being a single man, you know, you and your lady double the wonder, don’t ye, Alice, two faces under a hood, and a devilish pinched little hood, too, heh? ha, ha, ha!”
“When did you get to Wyvern?” asked Charles Fairfield, after a considerable pause.
“Last night,” answered his brother.
“You saw the old man?”
“Not till morning,” answered Henry, with a waggish leer, and a sly glance at Alice.
It was lost, however, for the young lady was looking dreamily and sadly away, thinking, perhaps, of the old Squire, not without self-upbraidings, and hearing nothing, I am sure, of all they said.
“Did you breakfast with him?”
“By Jove, I did, sir.”
“Well?”
“Well? Nothing particular, only let me see how long his stick—his—his stick and his arm, together—say five feet six. Well, I counsel you, brother, not to go within five foot six inches of the old gentleman till he cools down a bit, anyhow.”
“No, we’ll not try that,” said Charles, “and he may cool down, as you say, or nurse his wrath, as he pleases, it doesn’t much matter to me; hewasvery angry, but sometimes the thunder and flame blow off, you know, and the storm hurts no one.”
“I hope so,” said Henry, with a sort of laugh. “When I tell you to keep out of the way, mind, I’m advising you against myself. The more you and the old boy wool each other, the better for Hal.”
“He can’t unsettle the place, Harry—not that I want to see him—I never owed him much love, and I thinknowhe’d be glad to see me a beggar.”
Harry laughed again.
“Did you ever hear of a bear with a sore head?” said Harry. “Well, that’s him, at present, and I give you fair notice, I think he’ll leave all he can away from you.”
“So let him; if it’s to you, Harry, I don’t grudge it,” said the elder son.
“That’s a handsome speech, bless the speaker. Can you give me a glass of brandy? This claret I never could abide,” said Harry, with another laugh; “besides it will break you.”
“I’ve but two bottles, and they have been three years here. Yes, you can have brandy, it’s here.”
“I’ll get it,” said Alice, brightening up in the sense of her house-keeping importance. “It’s—Ithinkit’s in this, ain’t it?” she said, opening one of the presses inserted in the wainscot.
“Let me, darling, it’s there, I ought to know, I put it there myself,” said Charles, getting up, and taking the keys from her and opening another cupboard.
“I’m so stupid!” said Alice, blushing, as she surrendered them, “and so useless; but you’re always right, Charlie.”
“He’s a wonderful fellow, ain’t he?” said Harry, winking agreeably at Charles; “I never knew a bran new husband that wasn’t. Wait a bit and the gold rubs off the ginger-bread—Didn’t old Dulcibella—how’s she?—never buy you a ginger-bread husband down at Wyvern Fair? and they all went, I warrant, the same road; the gilding rubs away, and then off with his head, and eat him up slops! That’s not bad cognac—where do you get it?—don’t know, of course; well, itisgood.”
“Glad you like it, Harry,” said his brother. “It was very kind of you coming over here so soon; you must come often—won’t you?”
“Well, you know, I thought I might as well, just to tell you how things was—but, mind, is any one here?”
He looked over his shoulder to be sure that the old servant was not near.
“Mind you’re not to tell the folk over at Wyvern that I came here, because you know it wouldn’t serve me, noways, with the old chap up there, and there’s no use.”
“You may be very easy about that, Harry. I’m a banished man, you know. I shall never see the old man’s face again; and rely on it, I sha’n’t write.”
“I don’t mean him alone,” said Harry, replenishing his glass; “but don’t tell any of them Wyvern people, nor you, Alice. Mind—I’m going back to-night, as far as Barnsley, and from there I’ll go to Dawling, and round, d’ye mind, south, by Leigh Watton, up to Wyvern, and I’ll tell him a thumpin’ lie if he asks questions.”
“Don’t fear any such thing, Harry,” said Charles.
“Fear! I’m not afeard on him, nor never was.”
“Fancy, then,” said Charles.
“Only,” continued Harry, “I’m not like you—I han’t a house and a bit o’ land to fall back on; d’ye see? He’d have me on the ropes if I vexed him. He’d slap Wyvern door in my face, and stop my allowance, and sell my horses, and leave me to the ’sizes and the lawyers for my rights; and I couldn’t be comin’ here spongin’ on you, you know.”
“You’d always be welcome, Harry,” said Charles.
“Always,” echoed his wife, in whom every one who belonged to Charlie had a welcome claim.
But Harry went right on with his speech without diverging to thank them.
“And you’ll be snug enough here, you see, and I might go whistle, and dickins a chance I’ll ha’ left but to go list or break horses, or break stones, by jingo; and I ha’ run risks enough in this thing o’ yours—not but I’m willin’ to run more, if need be; but there’s no good in getting myself into pound, you know.”
“By me, Harry. You don’t imagine I could be such a fool,” exclaimed Charles.
“Well, I think ye’ll allow I stood to ye like a brick, and didn’t funk nothin’ that was needful—and I’d do it over again, I would.”
Charles took one hand of the generous fellow, and Alice took the other, and the modest benefactor smiled gruffly and flushed a little, and looked down as they poured forth in concert their acknowledgments.
“Why, see how you two thanks me. I always says to fellows, ‘keep your thanks to yourselves, and do me a good turn when it lies in your ways.’ There’s the sort o’ thanks that butters a fellow’s parsnips—and so—say no more.”
“I’dtip you a stave, only I’ve got a hoarseness since yesterday, and I’d ask Alice to play a bit, only there’s no piano here to kick up a gingle with, and Charlie never sang a note in his life, and”—standing before the fire, he yawned long and loud—“by Jove, that wasn’t over civil of me, but old friends need not be stiff, and I vote we yawn all round for company; and I’ll forgive ye, for my hour’s come, and I’ll be taking the road.”
“I wish so much I had a bed to offer you, Harry; but you know all about it—there hasn’t been time to arrange anything,” said Charles.
“Won’t you stay and take some tea?” urged Alice.
“I never could abide it, child; thank ye all the same,” said he, “I’d as soon drink a mug o’ whey.”
“And what about the gray hunter—you did not sell him yet?” asked Charles.
“I don’t well know what to do about him,” answered his brother. “I’d a sold him for fifty, only old Clinker wouldn’t pass him for sound. Clinker and me, we had words about that.”
“I want fifty pounds very much, if I could get it,” said Charles.
“I never knew a fellow that didn’t want fifty very bad, if he could get it,” laughed Harry; “but you’ll not be doin’ that bad, I’m afeard, if ye get half the money.”
“The devil!—do you really—why I thought, with luck, I might get seventy. I’m hard up, Harry, and I know you’ll do your best for me,” said Charles, to whom this was really a serious question.
“And with luck so you might; but chaps isn’t easy done these times; and though I swear it’s only his mouth, he steps short at the off side, and a fellow with an eye in his head won’t mistake his action.”
“You will do the best you can for me, Harry, I know,” said Charles, who knew nothing about horses, and was lazy in discussion. “But it’s rather a blow just now, when a poor devil wants every shilling he can get together, to find himself fifty pounds nearly out of pocket.”
Was it fancy, or did Alice’s pretty ear hear truly? It seemed to her that the tone in which Charlie spoke was a little more sour than need be, that it seemed to blame her as the cause of altered circumstances, and to hint, though very faintly, an unkind repentance. His eye met hers; full and sad it looked, and his heart smote him, for the intangible reproof was deserved.
“And here’s the best little wife in the world,” he said, “who would save a lazy man like me a little fortune in a year, and make that unlucky fifty pounds, if I could but get it, do as much as a hundred.”
And his hand was fondly placed on her shoulder, as he looked in her loving eyes.
“A good house-wife is she, that’s something,” said Harry, who was inspecting his spur. “Though by Jove it was hardly at Wyvern she learned thrift.”
“All the more merit,” said Charles, “it’s all her wise, good little self.”
“No, no; I can’t take all that praise; it’s your great kindness, Charlie. But I’ll try. I’ll learn all I can, and I’m sure the real secret is to be very anxious to do it well.”
“Ay, to be sure,” interrupted Harry, who, having completed his little arrangement, placed his foot again on the ground. “The more you like it the better you’ll do it—pare the cheeses, skin the flints, kill the fleas for the hide and tallow, pot the potato-skins, sweat the shillin’s and all that, and now I’ll be going. Good-night, Alice. Will you let Charlie see me down to the end o’ the lane, and I’ll send him safe back to you? Come along, Charlie. God bless you, girl, and I’ll look in again whenever I have a bit o’ news to tell ye.”
And with that elegant farewell, he shook Alice by the hand and clapped her on the shoulder, and “chucked” her under the chin.
“And don’t ye be faint-hearted, mind, ’twill all come right, and I didn’t think this place was so comfortable as it is. It is a snug old house with a bit o’ coal and a faggot o’ wood, and a pair o’ bright eyes, and a glass o’ that, a man might make shift for a while. I’d do it myself. I didn’t think it was so snug by half, and I’d rayther stay here to-night by a long chalk than ride to Barnsley, I can tell ye. Come, Charlie, it’s time I should be on the road; and she says, don’t you, Alice, you may see me a bit o’ the way.”
And so the leave-taking came to an end, and Charlie and Harry went out together; and Alice wondered what had induced Harry to come all that way for so short a visit, with so very little to tell. Perhaps, however, his own business, for he was always looking after horses, and thought nothing of five-and-thirty miles, had brought him to the verge of Cressley Common, and if so, he would have come on the few additional miles, if only to bait his horse and get his dinner.
Perhaps the old Squire at Wyvern had broken out more angrily, and was threatening something in which there was real danger to Charlie, which the brothers did not choose to tell her. A kindly secrecy and considerate, but seldom unsuspected, and being so often fifty-fold more torturing than downright ghastly frankness.
There had been a little chill and shadow over the party of three, she thought. Charlie thought his brother Harry the most thorough partisan that ever man had, and the most entirely sympathetic. If that were so, and should not he know best? Harry had certainly laughed and joked after his fashion, and enjoyed himself, and there could not be much wrong. But Charlie—was not there something more upon his mind than she quite knew? She stood too much in awe of her husband to follow them, as she would have wished, and implore of them if there was any new danger to let her hear it all. In her ear was the dismal iteration, as it were, of this little “death-watch” and sighing, she got up and opened the window-shutter and looked out upon the moonlighted scene.
A little platform of grass stood between the wall of the house and the precipitous edge of the vale of Marlow. Tall trees stood silent and lonely sentinels without the old gray walls, and a low ivied parapet guarded the sudden descent of the riven and wooded cliff. The broken screen of the solemn forest foreground showed in the distance the thicker masses of the wood that topped the summit of the further side of that sombre glen. Stiller, sadder scene fancy never painted.
She had opened the shutter, uncertain whether the window commanded the point from which her husband and his brother might be expected to emerge, for the geography of this complicated house was still new to her, and disappointed, she lingered in contemplation of a view which so well accorded with the melancholy of her lonely misgivings.
How soon in the possession of our heart’s desire comes the sense of disappointment, and the presence of the worm, and promise of the blight among the flowers of our vernal days. Pitch the tent or drop the anchor where we may, always a new campaign opening, always a new voyage beginning—quiet nowhere.
“I dare say it is only my folly—that nothing has gone wrong, and that they have no secrets to hide from me. I have no one else; he would not shut me out from his confidence, and leave me quite alone. No, Ry, you could not.”
With a full heart she turned again from the window.
“He’ll come again in a minute; he’ll not walk far with Harry.”
She went to the door, and opening it, listened. She heard a step enter the passage from the stable-yard, and called to ask who was there. It was only Tom, who had let out Master Harry’s horse, and opened the gate for him. He led it out, and they walked together—Master Harry with the bridle in his hand, and Master Charles walking beside him. They took the narrow way along the little glen towards Cressley Common.
She knew that he would return probably in a few minutes; and more and more she wondered what those minutes might contain, she partly wondered at her own anxiety. So she returned to the room and waited there for him. But he remained longer away than she expected. The tea-things were on the table deserted. The fire flickered its genial invitation in vain, and she, growing more uncomfortable and lonely, and perhaps a little high at being thus forsaken, went upstairs to pay old Dulcibella Crane a visit.
Asshe reached the top of the stairs she called to the old servant, not, I think, caring to traverse the haunted flooring that intervened alone. She heard Dulcibella talking, and a moment after her old nurse appeared, and standing by her shoulder Mildred Tarnley.
“Oh, Mrs. Tarnley! I’m so glad to see you—you’ve been paying Dulcibella a visit. Pray, come back, and tell me some stories about this old house; you’ve been so long here, and know it so well, that you must have a great deal to tell.”
The old woman, with the unpleasant face, made a stiff courtesy.
“At your service, ma’am,” she said, ungraciously.
“That is if it don’t inconvenience you,” pleaded Alice, who was still a little afraid of her.
“’Tis as you please, ma’am,” said the old servant, with another dry courtesy.
“Well, I’m so glad you can come. Dulcibella, have we a little bit of fire? Oh, yes, I see—it looks so cheerful.”
So they entered the old-fashioned bedroom.
“I hope, Mrs. Tarnley, I’m not keeping you from your tea?”
“No, I thank ye, ma’am. I’ve ’ad my tea an hour agone,” answered the old woman.
“And you must sit down, Mrs. Tarnley,” urged Alice.
“I’ll stand, if ye please, ma’am,” said the withered figure perversely.
“I should be so much happier if you would sit down, Mildred,” urged her young mistress; “but if you prefer it—I only mean that whatever is most comfortable to you you should do. I wanted so much to hear something about this old house. You remember what happened when I was coming upstairs with you—when I was so startled.”
“I didn’t see it, miss—ma’am. I only heard you say summat,” answered Mildred Tarnley.
“Oh, yes, I know; but you spoke to-day of a warning, and you looked when it happened as if you had heard of it before.”
The old woman raised her chin, and with her hands folded together made another courtesy, which mutually seemed to say—
“If you have anything to ask, ask it.”
“Do you remember,” inquired Alice, “having ever heard of anything strange being seen at that passage near the head of the stairs?”
“I ought, ma’am,” answered the old woman discreetly.
“And what was it?” inquired Alice.
“I don’t know, ma’am, would the master be pleased if he was to hear I was talkin’ o’ such things to you,” suggested Mildred.
“He’d only laugh as I should, I assure you. I’m not the least a coward; so you need not be afraid of my making a fool of myself. Now, do tell me what it was!”
“Well, ma’am, you’ll be pleased to remember ’tis you orders me, in case Master Charles should turn on me about it; but, as you say, ma’am, there’s many thinks ’tis all nothin’ but old ’oman’s tales and fribble-frabble; and ’tisn’t for me to say——”
“I’ll take all the blame to myself,” said Alice.
“There’s no blame in’t as I’m aware on; and if there was I wouldn’t ask no one to take it on themselves more than their right share; and that I’d take leave to lay on them myself, without stoppin’ to ask whether they likes it or no; but only I told you, ma’am, that I should have your orders, and wi’ them I’ll comply.”
“Yes, certainly, Mrs. Tarnley—and now do kindly go on,” said Alice.
“Well, please, ma’am, you’ll tell me what you saw?”
“A heavy black drapery fell from the top of the arch through which we pass to the gallery outside the door, and for some seconds closed up the entire entrance,” answered the young lady.
“Ay, ay, no doubt that’s it; but there was no drapery there, ma’am, sich as this world’s loom ever wove. Them as weaves that web is light o’ hand and heavy o’ heart, and the de’el himself speeds the shuttle,” and as she said this the old woman smiled sourly. “I was talking o’ that very thing to Mrs. Crane here when you came up, ma’am.”
“Yes,” said old Dulcibella, quietly; “it was very strange, surely.”
“And there came quite a cloud of dust from it rolling along the floor,” continued Alice.
“Yes, so there would—so there does; ’tis always so,” said Mrs. Tarnley, with the same faint ugly smile; “not that there’s a grain o’ dust in all the gallery, for the child Lily Dogger and me washed it out and swept it clean. Dust ye saw; but that’s no real dust, like what the minister means when he says, ‘Dust to dust.’ No, no, a finer dust by far—the dust o’ death. No more clay in that than in yon smoke, or the mist in Carwell Glen below; no dust at all, but sich dust as a ghost might shake from its windin’ sheet—an appearance, ye understand; that’s all, ma’am—like the rest.”
Alice smiled, but old Mildred’s answering smile chilled her, and she turned to Dulcibella; but good Mrs. Crane looked in her face with round eyes of consternation and a very solemn countenance.
“I see, Dulcibella, if my courage fails I’m not to look to you for support. Well, Mrs. Tarnley, don’t mind—I shan’t need her help; and I’m not a bit afraid, so pray go on.”
“Well, ye see, ma’am, this place and the house came into the family, my grandmother used to say, more than a hundred years ago; and I was a little thing when I used to hear her say so, and there’s many a year added to the tale since then; but it was in the days o’ Sir Harry Fairfield. They called him Harry Boots in his day, for he was never seen except in his boots, and for the matter o’ that seldom out o’ the saddle; for there was troubles in them days, and militia and yeomanry, and dear knows what all—and the Fairfields was ever a bold, dare-devil stock, and them dangerous times answered them well—and what with dragooning, and what with the hunting-field, I do suppose his foot was seldom out o’ the stirrup. So my grandmother told me some called him Booted Fairfield and more called him Harry Boots—that was Sir Harry Fairfield o’ them days.”
“I think I’ve seen his picture, haven’t I?—at Wyvern. It’s in the hall, at the far end from the door, near the window, with a long wig and lace cravat, and a great steel breast-plate?” inquired Alice.
“Like enough, miss—ma’am, I mean—I don’t know, I’m sure—but he was a great man in his time, and would have his picture took, no doubt. His wife was a Carwell—an heiress—there’s not a Carwell in this country now, nor for many a day has been. ’Twas she brought Carwell Grange and the Vale o’ Carwell to the Fairfields—poor thing—pretty she was. Her picture was never took to Wyvern, and much good her land, and houses, and good looks done her. The Fairfields was wild folk. I don’t say there wasn’t good among ’em, but whoever else they was good to, they was seldom kind to their wives. Hard, bad husbands they was—that’s sure.”
Alice smiled, and stirred the fire quietly, but did not interrupt, and as the story went on, she sighed.
“They said she was very lonesome here. Well, it is a lonesome place, you know—awful lonesome, and always the same. For old folk like me it doesn’t matter, but young blood’s different, you know, and they likes to see the world a bit, and talk and hear what’s a-foot, be it fun or change, or what not; and she was very lonesome, mopin’ about the old garden, plantin’ flowers, or pluckin’ roses—all to herself—or cryin’ in the window—while Harry Boots was away wi’ his excuses—now wi’ his sogerin’, and now wi’ the hounds, and truly wi’ worse matters, if all were out. So, not twice in a year was his face—handsome Harry Boots, they ca’d him—seen down here, and his pretty lady was sick and sore and forsaken, down in her own lonesome house, by the Vale of Carwell, where I’m telling you this.”
Alice smiled, and nodded in sign of attention, and the old woman went on.
“I often wonder they try to hide these things—’twould be better sometimes they were more out-spoken, for sooner or later all will out, and then there’s wild work, and mayhap it’s past ever makin’ up between them. So stories travel a’most without legs to carry ’em, and there’s no gainsaying the word o’ God that said, ‘let there be light,’ for, sooner or later, light ’twill be, and all will be cleared up, and the wicked doin’s of Harry Boots, far away, and cunning, as all was done, come clear to light, so as she could no longer have hope or doubt in the matter. Poor thing—she loved him better than life—better than her soul, mayhap, and that’s all she got by’t—a bad villain that was.”
“He was untrue to her?” said Alice.
“Lawk! to be sure he was,” replied Mrs. Tarnley, with a cynical scorn.
“And so she had that to think of all alone, along with the rest—for she might have had a greater match than Sir Harry—a lord he was. I forget his name, but he’d a given his eyes a’most to a got her. But a’ wouldn’t do, for she loved Booted Harry Fairfield, and him she’d have, and wouldn’t hear o’ no other, and so she had enough to think on here, in Carwell Grange. The house she had brought the Fairfields—poor bird alone, as we used to say—but the rest of her time wasn’t very long—it wasn’t to be—she used to walk out sometimes, but she talked to no one, and she cared for nothin’ after that; and there’s the long sheet o’ water, in the thick o’ the trees, with the black yew-hedge round it.”
“I know,” said Alice, “a very high hedge, and trees behind it—it is the darkest place I ever saw—beyond the garden. Isn’t that the place?”
“Yes, that’s it; she used to walk round it—sometimes cryin’—sometimes not; and there she was found drowned, poor thing. Some said ’twas by mischance, for the bank was very steep and slippery—it had been rainy weather—where she was found, and more said she made away wi’ herself, and that’s what was thought among the Carwell folk, as my grandmother heared; for what’s a young creature to do wi’ nothing more to look to, and all alone, wi’ no one ever to talk to, and the heart quite broke?”
“You said, I think, that there was a picture here?” inquired Alice.
“I said ’twasn’t took to Wyvern, ma’am; there was a picture here they said ’twas hers—my grandmother said so, and she should know. ’Twas the only picture I remember in the Grange.”
“And where is it?” inquired Alice.
“Dropped to pieces long ago. ’Twas in the room they called the gun-room, in my day. The wall was damp; ’twas gone very poor and rotten in my time, and so black you could scarce make it out. Many a time when I was a bit of a girl, some thirteen or fourteen years old, I stood on the table, for a long time together a-looking at it. But it was dropping away that time in flakes, and the canvas as rotten as tinder, and every time it got a stir it lost something, till ye couldn’t make nothing of it. It’s all gone long ago, and the frame broke up I do suppose.”
“What a pity!” said Alice. “Oh, what a pity! Can you, do you think, remember anything of it?”
“She was standin’—you could see the point o’ the shoe—white satin it looked like, wi’ a buckle that might be diamonds; there was a nosegay, I mind, in her fingers, wi’ small blue flowers, and a rose, but the face was all faded and dark, except just a bit o’ the mouth, red, and smilin’ at the corner—very pretty. But ’twas all gone very dark, you know, and a deal o’ the paintin’ gone; and that’s all I ever seen o’ the picture.”
“Well, and did anything more happen?” asked Alice.
“Hoo! yes, lots. Down comes Booted Fairfield, now there was no one left to care whether he came or went. The Carwell people didn’t love him, but ’twas best to keep a civil tongue, for the Fairfields were dangerous folk always, ’twas a word and a blow wi’ them, and no one cared to cross them, and he made a bother about it to be sure, and had the rooms hung wi’ black, and the staircase and the drapery hung over the arch in the gallery, outside, down to the floor, for she, poor thing, lay up here.”
“Not in this room!” said Alice, who even at that distance of time did not care to invade the sinister sanctity of the lady’s room.
“No, not this, the room at t’ other end o’ the gallery; ’t would require a deal o’ doing up, and plaster, and paper, before you could lie in’t. But Harry Boots made a woundy fuss about his dead wife. They was cunning after a sort, them Fairfields, and I suppose he thought ’twas best to make folk think he loved his wife, at least to give ’em something good to say o’ him if they liked, and he gave alms to the poor, and left a good lump o’ money they say for the parish, both at Cressley Church and at Carwell Priory—they call the vicarage so—and he had a grand funeral as ever was seen from the Grange, and she was buried down at the priory, which the Carwells used to be, in a new vault, where she was laid the first, and has been the last, for Booted Fairfield married again, and was buried with his second wife away at Wyvern. So the poor thing, living and dying, has been to herself.”
“But is there any story to account for what I saw as I came into the gallery with you?” asked Alice.
“I told you, miss, it was hung with black, as I heard my grandmother say, and thereupon the story came, for there was three ladies of the Fairfield family at different times before you, ma’am, as saw the same thing. Well, ma’am, at the funeral, as I’ve heard say, the young lord that liked her well, if she’d a had him—and liked her still in spite of all—gave Sir Harry a lick or two wi’ the rough side o’ his tongue, and a duel came out o’ them words more than a year afterwards, and Harry Boots was killed, and he’s buried away down at Wyvern.”
“Well, see there! Ain’t it a wonder how gentlemen that has all this world can give, will throw away their lives at a word, like that,” moralized Dulcibella Crane—“and not knowing what’s to become o’ them, when they’ve lost all here—all in the snap of a pistol. If it was a poor body, ’twould be another matter, but—well it does make a body stare.”
“You mentioned, Mrs. Tarnley, that something had occurred about some ladies of the Fairfield family; what was it?” inquired Alice.
“Well, they say Sir Harry—that’s Booted Fairfield, you know—brought his second wife down here, only twelve months after the first one died, and she saw, at the very same place, when she was setting her first step on the gallery, the same thing ye seen yourself; and two months after he was in his grave, and she in a madhouse.”
“Well, I think, Mrs. Tarnley, ye needn’t be tellin’ all that to frighten the young lady.”
“Frighten the young lady? And why not, if she’s frighted wi’ truth. She has asked for the truth, and she’s got it. Better to fright the young lady than fool her,” answered Mildred Tarnley, coldly and sternly.
“I don’t say you should fool her, by no chance,” answered honest Dulcibella; “but there’s no need to be filling her head wi’ them frightful fancies. Ye ha’ scared her, and ye saw her turn pale.”
“Ay, and so well she ought. There was three other women o’ the Fairfields seen the same thing, in the self-same place, and every one to her sorrow. One fell over the pixie’s cliff; another died in fits, poor thing, wi’ her first baby; and the last was flung beside the quarry in Cressley Common, ridin’ out to see the hunt, and was never the better o’t in brain or bone after. Don’t tell me, woman. I know rightly what I’m doin’.”
“Pray, Dulcibella, don’t. I assure you, Mrs. Tarnley, I’m very much obliged,” interposed Alice Fairfield, frighted at the malignant vehemence of the old woman.
“Obliged! Not you; why should you?” retorted Mildred Tarnley. “Ye’re not obliged; ye’re frightened, I dare say. But ’tis all true; and no Fairfield has any business bringing his wife to Carwell Grange; and Master Charles knows that as well as me; and, now, the long and the short o’t ’s this, ma’am—ye’ve got your warning, and ye had better quit this without letting grass grow under your feet. You’ve seen your warnin’, ma’am, and I a’ told you, stark enough, the meanin’ o’t. My conscience is clear, and ye’ll do as ye like; and if, after this, ye expect me to spy for you, and fetch and carry stories, and run myself into trouble with other people, to keep you out of it, ye’re clean out o’ your reckoning. Ye’ll have no more warnings, mayhap—none from me—and so ye may take it, ma’am, or leave it, as ye see fit; and now Mildred Tarnley’s said her say. Ye have my story, and ye have my counsel; and if ye despise both one and t’other, and your own eyesight beside, ye’ll even take what’s coming.”
“Yeshouldn’tbe frightening Miss Alice like that, I tell you, you should not. Don’t grow frightened at any such a story, dear. I say it’s a shame. Don’t you see how ye have her as white as a handkercher, in a reg’lar state.”
“No, Dulcibella, indeed,” said Alice, smiling, very pale, and her eyes filled up with tears.
“I’ll frighten her no more; and that you may be sure on; and if what I told her be frightful, ’tisn’t me as made it so. Thankless work it be; but ’tisn’t her nor you I sought to please, but just to take it off my shoulders, and leave her none to blame but herself if she turns a deaf ear. It’s ill offering counsel to a wilful lass. Ye’ll excuse me, ma’am, for speaking so plain, but better now than too late,” she added, recollecting herself a little. “And can I do anything, please, ma’am, below stairs? I should be going, for who knows what that child may be a-doing all this time?”
“Thanks, very much; no, not anything,” said Alice.
And Mildred Tarnley, with a hard, dark glance at her, dropped another stiff little courtesy, and withdrew.
“Well, I never see such a one as that,” said old Dulcibella, gazing after her, as it were through the panel of the door. “You must not let her talk that way to you, my darling. She’s no business to talk up to her mistress that way. I don’t know what sort o’ manners people has in these here out o’ the way places, I’m sure; but I think ye’ll do well, my dear, to keep that one at arm’s length, and make her know her place. Nothing else but encroaching and impudence, and domineering from such as her, and no thanks for any condescension, only the more affable you’ll be, the more saucy and conceited she’ll grow, and I don’t think she likes you, Miss Alice, no more I do.”
It pains young people, and some persons always, to hear from an impartial observer such a conclusion. There is much mortification, and often some alarm.
“Well, it doesn’t much matter,” said Alice. “I don’t think she can harm me much. I don’t suppose she would if she could, and I don’t mind such stories.”
“Why should you, my dear? No one minds the like now-a-days.”
“But I wish she liked me; there are so few of us here. It is such a little world, and I have never done anything to vex her. I can’t think what good it can do her hating me.”
“No good, dear; but she’s bin here so long—the only hen in the house, and she doesn’t like to be drove off the roost, I suppose; and I don’t know why she told you all that, if it wasn’t to make your mind uneasy; and, dear knows, there’s enough to trouble it in this moping place without her riggamarolin’ sich a yarn.”
“Hush, Dulcibella; isn’t that a horse? Perhaps Charles is coming home.”
She opened the window, which commanded a view of the stable-yard.
“And is he gone a-riding?” asked old Dulcibella.
“No; there’s nothing,” said Alice, gently. “Besides, you remind me he did not take a horse; he only walked a little way with Mr. Henry; and he’ll soon be back. Nothing is going wrong, I hope.”
And, with a weary sigh, she threw herself into a great chair by the fire; and thought, and listened, and dreamed away a long time, before Charlie’s step and voice were heard again in the old house.
Whenthe host and his guest had gone out together, to the paved yard, it was already night, and the moon was shining brilliantly.
Tom had saddled the horse, and at the first summons led him out; and Harry, with a nod and a grin, for he was more prodigal of his smiles than of his shillings, took the bridle from his fingers, and with Charlie by his side, walked forth silently from the yard gate, upon that dark and rude track which followed for some distance the precipitous edge of the ravine which opens upon the deeper glen of Carwell.
Very dark was this narrow road, overhung and crossed by towering trees, through whose boughs only here and there an angular gleam or minute mottling of moonlight hovered and floated on the white and stony road, with the uneasy motion of the branches, like little flights of quivering wings.
There was a silence corresponding with this darkness. The clank of the horse’s hoof, and their own more muffled tread were the only sounds that mingled with the sigh and rustle of the boughs above them. The one was expecting, the other meditating, no very pleasant topic, and it was not the business of either to begin, for a little.
They were not walking fast. The horse seemed to feel that the human wayfarers were in a sauntering mood, and fell accommodatingly into a lounging gait like theirs.
If there were eyes there constructed to see in the dark, they would have seen two countenances, one sincere, the other adjusted to that sort of sham sympathy and regret which Hogarth, with all his delicacy and power, portrays in the paternal alderman who figures in the last picture of “Marriage à la Mode.”
There was much anxiety in Charles’ face, and a certain brooding shame and constraint which would have accounted for his silence. In that jolly dog, Harry, was discoverable, as I have said, quite another light and form of countenance. There was a face that seemed to have discharged a smile, that still would not quite go. The eyelids drooped, the eyebrows raised, a simulated condolence, such as we all have seen.
In our moral reviews of ourselves we practise optical delusions even upon our own self-scrutiny, and paint and mask our motives, and fill our ears with excuses and with downright lies. So inveterate is the habit of deceiving, and even in the dark we form our features by hypocrisy, and scarcely know all this.
“Here’s the turn at last to Cressley Common; there’s no talking comfortably among these trees; it’s so dark, any one might be at your elbow and you know nothing about it—and so the old man is very angry.”
“Never saw a fellow so riled,” answered Harry; “you know what he is when he is riled, and I never saw him so angry before. If he knew I was here—but you’ll take care of me?”
“It’s very kind of you, old fellow; I won’t forget it, indeed I won’t, but I ought to have thought twice: I ought not to have brought poor Alice into this fix; for d—— me, if I know how we are to get on.”
“Well, you know, it’s only just a pinch, an ugly corner, and you are all right—it can’t last.”
“It may last ten years, or twenty, for that matter,” said Charlie. “I was a fool to sell out. I don’t know what we are to do; do you?”
“You’re too down in the mouth; can’t ye wait and see? there’s nothing yet, and it won’t cost ye much carrying on down here.”
“Do you think, Harry, it would be well to take up John Wauling’s farm, and try whether I could not make something of it in my own hands?” asked Charles.
Harry shook his head.
“You don’t?” said Charlie.
“Well, no, I don’t; you’d never make the rent of it,” answered Harry; “besides, if you begin upsetting things here, the people will begin to talk, and that would not answer; you’ll need to be d——d quiet.”
There was here a pause, and they walked on in silence until the thick shadows of the trees began to break a little before them, and the woods grew more scattered; whole trees were shadowed in distinct outline, and the wide common of Cressley, with its furze and fern, and broad undulations, stretched mistily before them.
“About money—you know, Charlie, there’s money enough at present and no debts to signify; I mean, if you don’t make them you needn’t. You and Alice, with the house and garden, can get along on a trifle. The tenants give you three hundred a year, and you can manage with two.”
“Two hundred a year!” exclaimed Charlie, opening his eyes.
“Ay, two hundred a year!—that girl don’t eat sixpenn’orth in a day,” said Harry.
“Alice is the best little thing in the world, and will look after everything, I know; but there are other things beside dinner and breakfast,” said Charles, who did not care to hear his wife called “that girl.”
“Needs must when the Devil drives, my boy; you’ll want a hundred every year for contingencies,” said Harry.
“Well, I suppose so,” Charles winced, “and all the more need for a few more hundreds; for I don’t see how any one could manage to exist on such a pittance.”
“You’ll have to contrive though, my lad, unless they’ll manage apost obitfor you,” said Harry.
“There is some trouble about that, and people are such d——d screws,” said Charles, with a darkening face.
“Al’ays was and ever will be,” said Harry, with a laugh.
“And it’s all very fine talking of a ‘hundred a year,’ butyouknow andIknow that won’t do, and never did,” exclaimed Charles, breaking forth bitterly, and then looking hurriedly over his shoulder.
“Upon my soul, Charlie, I don’t know a curse about it,” answered Harry, good-humouredly; “but if it won’t do, it won’t, that’s certain.”
“Quite certain,” said Charles, and sighed very heavily; and again there was a little silence.
“I wish I was as sharp a fellow as you are, Harry,” said Charles, regretfully.
“Do you really think I’m a sharp chap—do you though? I al’ays took myself for a bit of a muff, except about cattle—I did, upon my soul,” said Harry, with an innocent laugh.
“You are a long way a cleverer fellow than I am, and you are not half so lazy; and tell me what you’d do if you were in my situation?”
“What would I do if I was in your place?” said Harry, looking up at the stars, and whistling low for a minute.
“Well, I couldn’t tell you off hand; ’twould puzzle a better man’s head for a bit to answer that question—only I can tell you one thing, I’d never agone into that situation, as ye call it, at no price; ’twouldn’t ’av answered me by no chance. But don’t you be putting your finger in your eye yet a bit; there’s nothing to cry about now that I knows of; time enough to hang your mouth yet, only I thought I might as well come over and tell you.”
“I knew, Harry, there was something to tell,” said Charles.
“Not over much—only a trifle when all’s told,” answered Harry; “but you are right, for it was that brought me over here. I was in Lon’on last week, and I looked in at the place at Hoxton, and found just the usual thing, and came away pretty much as wise as I went in.”
“Not more reasonable?” asked Charles.
“Not a bit,” said Harry.
“Tell me what you said,” asked Charles.
“Just what we agreed,” he answered.
“Well, there was nothing in that that was not kind and conciliatory, and common sense—was there?” pleaded Charles.
“It did not so seem to strike the plenipotentiary,” said Harry.
“You seem to think it very pleasant,” said Charles.
“I wish it was pleasanter,” said Harry; “but pleasant or no, I must tell my story straight. I ran in in a hurry, you know, as if I only wanted to pay over the twenty pounds—you mind.”
“Ay,” said Charles, “I wish to heaven I had it back again.”
“Well, I don’t think it made much difference in the matter of love and liking, I’ll not deny; but I looked round, and I swore I wondered any one would live in such a place when there were so many nice places where money would go three times as far in foreign countries; and I wondered you did not think of it, and take more interest yourself, and upon that I could see the old soger was thinking of fifty things, suspecting poor me of foul play among the number; and I was afraid for a minute I was going to have half a dozen claws in my smeller; but I turned it off, and I coaxed and wheedled a bit. You’d a laughed yourself black, till I had us both a purring like a pair of old maid’s cats.”
“I tell you what, Harry, there’s madness there—literal madness,” said Charles, grasping his arm as he stopped and turned towards him, so that Harry had to come also to a standstill. “Don’t you know it—as mad as Bedlam? Just think!”
Harry laughed.
“Mad enough, by jingo,” said he.
“But don’t you think so—actually mad?” repeated Charles.
“Well, it is near the word, maybe, but I would not say quite mad—worse than mad, I dare say, by chalks; but I wouldn’t place the old soger there,” said Harry.
“Where?” said Charles.
“I mean exactly among the mad ’uns. No, I wouldn’t say mad, but as vicious—and worse, mayhap.”
“It does not matter much what we think, either of us; but I know what another fellow would have done long ago, but I could not bring myself to do that. I have thought it over often, but I couldn’t—Icouldn’t.”
“Well, then, it ain’t no great consequence,” said Harry, and he tightened his saddle-girth a hole or two—“no great consequence; but I couldn’t a’ put a finger to that—mind; for I think the upperworks is as sound as any, only there’s many a devil beside mad ’uns. I give it in to you there.”
“And what do you advise me to do?—this sort of thing is dreadful,” said Charles.
“I was going to say, I think the best thing to be done is just to leave all that business, d’ye mind, to me.”
Harry mounted, and leaning on his knee, he said—
“I think I have a knack, if you leave it to me. Old Pipeclay doesn’t think I have any reason to play false.”
“Rather the contrary,” said Charles, who was attentively listening.
“No interest at all,” pursued Harry, turning his eyes towards the distant knoll of Torston, and going on without minding Charles’ suggestion—
“Look, now, that beast ’ll follow my hand as sweet as sugary-candy, when you’d have nothing but bolting and baulking, and rearin’, or worse. There’s plenty o’ them little French towns or German—and don’t you be botherin’ your head about it; only do just as I tell ye, and I’ll take all in hands.”
“You’re an awfully good fellow, Harry; for, upon my soul, I was at my wit’s end almost; having no one to talk to, and not knowing what any one might be thinking of; and I feel safe in your hands, Harry, for I think you understand that sort of work so much better than I do—you understand people so much better—and I never was good at managing any one, or anything for that matter; and—and when will business bring you to town again?”
“Three weeks or so, I wouldn’t wonder,” said Harry.
“And I know, Harry, you won’t forget me. I’m afraid to write to you almost; but if you’d think of any place we could meet and have a talk, I’d be ever so glad. You have no idea how fidgety and miserable a fellow grows that doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“Ay, to be sure; well, I’ve no objection. My book’s made for ten days or so—a lot of places to go to—but I’ll be coming round again, and I’ll tip you a stave.”
“That’s a good fellow; I know you won’t forget me,” said Charles, placing his hand on his brother’s arm.
“No—of course. Good-night, and take care of yourself, and give my love to Ally.”
“And—and Harry?”
“Well?” answered Harry, backing his restless horse a little bit.
“I believe that’s all.”
“Good-night, then.”
“Good-night,” echoed Charles.
Harry touched his hat with a smile, and was away the next moment, flying at a ringing trot over the narrow unfenced road that traverses the common, and dwindling in the distant moonlight.
“There he goes—light of heart; nothing to trouble him—life a holiday—the world a toy.”
He walked a little bit slowly in the direction of the disappearing horseman, and paused again, and watched him moodily till he was fairly out of sight.
“I hope he won’t forget; he’s always so busy about those stupid horses—a lot of money he makes, I dare say. I wish I knew something about them. I must beat about for some way of turning a penny. Poor little Alice! I hope I have not made a mull of it! I’ll save every way I can—of course that’s due to her; but when you come to think of it, and go over it all, there’s very little youcangive up. You can lay down your horses, if you have them, except one. You must haveonein a place like this—you’d run a risk of starving, or never getting your letters, or dying for want of the doctor. And—I won’t drink wine; brandy, or Old Tom does just as well, and I’ll give up smokingtotally. A fellow must make sacrifices. I’ll just work through this one box slowly, and order no more: it’s all a habit, and I’ll give it up.”
So he took a cigar from his case and lighted it.
“I’ll not spend another pound on them, and the sooner these are out the better.”
He sauntered slowly away with his hands in his pockets to a little eminence about a hundred yards to the right, and mounted it, and looked all around, smoking. I don’t think he saw much of that extensive view; but you would have fancied him an artist in search of the picturesque.
His head was full of ideas of selling Carwell Grange; but he was not quite sure that he had power, and did not half like asking his attorney, to whom he already owed something. He thought how snug and pleasant they might be comparatively in one of those quaint little toy towns in Germany, where dull human nature bursts its cerements, and floats and flutters away into a butterfly life of gold and colour—where the punter and the croupier assist at the worship of the brilliant and fickle goddess, and bands play sweetly, and people ain’t buried alive in deserts and forests among dogs and “chawbacons”—where little Alice would be all wonder and delight. Was it quite fair to bring her down here to immure her in the mouldering cloister of Carwell Grange?
He had begun now to re-enter the wooded ascent toward that melancholy mansion; his cigar was burnt out, and he said, looking toward his home through the darkness—
“Poor little Alice! she does love me, I think—and that’s something.”
Whenat last her husband entered the room where she awaited him that night—
“Oh! Charlie, it is very late,” said Alice, a little reproachfully.
“Not very, is it, darling?” said he, glancing at his watch. “By Jove! it is. My poor little woman, I had not an idea.”
“I suppose I am very foolish, but I love you so much, Charlie, that I grow quite miserable when I am out of your sight.”
“I’m sorry, my darling, but I fancied he had a great deal more to tell me than he really had. I don’t think I’m likely, at least for a little time, to be pressed by my duns—and—I wanted to make out exactly what money he’s likely to get me for a horse he is going to sell, and I’m afraid, from what he says, it won’t be very much; really, twenty pounds, one way or other, seems ridiculous, but it does make a very serious difference just now, and if I hadn’t such a clever, careful little woman as you, I don’t really know what I should do.”
He added this little complimentary qualification with an instinctive commiseration for the pain he thought he saw in her pretty face.
“These troubles won’t last very long, Charlie,perhaps. Something, I’m sure, will turn up, and you’ll see how careful I will be. I’ll learn everything old Mildred can teach me, ever so much, and you’ll see what a manager I will be.”
“You are my own little treasure. You always talk as if you were in the way, somehow, I don’t know how. A wife like you is a greater help to me than one with two thousand a year and the reckless habits of a fine lady. Your wise little head and loving heart, my darling, are worth whole fortunes to me without them, and I do believe you are the first really good wife that ever a Fairfield married. You are the only creature I have on earth, that I’m quite sure of—the only creature.”
And so saying he kissed her, folding her in his arms, and, with a big tear filling each eye, she looked up, smiling unutterable affection, in his face. As they stood together in that embrace his eyes also filled with tears and his smile met hers, and they seemed wrapt for a moment in one angelic glory, and she felt the strain of his arm draw her closer.
Such moments come suddenly and are gone; but, remaining in memory, they are the lights that illuminate a dark and troublous retrospect for ever.
“We’ll make ourselves happy here, little Ally, and I—in spite of everything, my darling!—and I don’t know how it happened that I stayed away so long; but I walked with Harry further than I intended, and when he left me I loitered on Cressley Common for a time with my head full of business; and so, without knowing it, I was filling my poor little wife’s head with alarms and condemning her to solitude. Well, all I can do is to promise to be a good boy and to keep better hours for the future.”
“That’s so like you, you are so good to your poor, foolish little wife,” said Alice.
“I wish I could be, darling,” said he; “I wish I could prove one-half my love; but the time will come yet. I sha’n’t be so poor or powerless always.”
“But you’re not to speak so—you’re not to think that. It is while we are poor that I can be of any use,” she said, eagerly; “very little, very miserable my poor attempts, but nothing makes me so happy as trying to deserve ever so little of all the kind things my Ry says of me; and I’m sure, Charlie, although there may be cares and troubles, we will make our time pass here very happily, and perhaps we shall always look back on our days at Carwell as the happiest of our lives.”
“Yes, darling, I am determined we shall be very happy,” said he.
“And Ry will tell me everything that troubles him?”
Her full eyes were gazing sadly up in his face. He averted his eyes, and said—
“Of course I will, darling.”
“Oh! Ry, if you knew how happy that makes me!” she exclaimed. But there was that in the exclamation which seemed to say, “If only I could be sure that you meant it.”
“Of course I will—that is, everything that could possibly interest you, for there are very small worries as well as great ones; and you know I really can’t undertake to remember everything.”
“Of course, darling,” she answered; “I only meant that if anything were really—any great anxiety—upon your mind, you would not be afraid to tell me. I’m not such a coward as I seem. You must not think me so foolish; and really, Ry, it pains me more to think that there is any anxiety weighing upon you, and concealed from me, than any disclosure could; and so Iknow—won’t you?”
“Haven’t I told you, darling, I really will,” he said, a little pettishly. “What an odd way you women have of making a fellow say the same thing over and over again. I wonder it does not tire you, I know it doesusawfully. Now, there, see, I really do believe you are going to cry.”
“Oh, no, indeed!” she said, brightening up, and smiling with a sad, little effort.
“And now, kiss me, my poor, good little woman,—you’re not vexed with me?—no, I’m sure you’re not,” said he.
She smiled a very affectionate assurance.
“And really, you poor little thing, it is awfully late, and you must be tired, and I’ve been—no,notlecturing, I’ll never lecture, I hate it—but boring or teasing; I’m an odious dog, and I hate myself.”
So this little dialogue ended happily, and for a time Charles Fairfield forgot his anxieties, and a hundred pleasanter cares filled his young wife’s head.
In such monastic solitudes as Carwell Grange the days pass slowly, but the retrospect of a month or a year is marvellously short. Twelve hours without an event is very slow to get over. But that very monotony, which is the soul of tediousness, robs the background of all the irregularities and objects which arrest the eye and measure distance in review, and thus it cheats the eye.
An active woman may be well content with an existence of monotony which would all but stifle even an indolent man. So long as there is a household—ever so frugal—to be managed, and the more frugal the more difficult and harassing—the female energies are tasked, and healthily because usefully exercised. But in this indoor administration the man is incompetent and in the way. His ordained activities are out of doors; and if these are denied him, he mopes away his days and feels that he cumbers the ground.
With little resource but his fishing-rod, and sometimes, when a fit of unwonted energy inspired him, his walking-stick, and a lonely march over the breezy expanse of Cressley Common, days, weeks, and months, loitered their drowsy way into the past.
There were reasons why he did not care to court observation. Under other circumstances he would have ridden into the neighbouring towns and heard the news, and lunched with a friend here or there. But he did not want any one to know that he was at the Grange; and if it should come out that he had been seen there, he would have had it thought that it was but a desultory visit.
A man less indolent, and perhaps not much more unscrupulous, would have depended upon a few offhand lies to account for his appearance, and would not have denied himself an occasional excursion into human society in those rustic haunts within his reach. But Charles Fairfield had not decision to try it, nor resource for a system of fibbing, and the easiest and dullest course he took.
In Paradise the man had his business—“to dress and to keep” the garden, and, no doubt, the woman hers, suitable to her sex. It is a mistake to fancy that it is either a sign of love or conducive to its longevity that the happy pair should always pass the entire four-and-twenty hours in each other’s company, or get over them in anywise without variety or usefulness.
Charles Fairfield loved his pretty wife. She made his inactive solitude more endurable than any man could have imagined. Still it was a dull existence, and being also darkened with an ever-present anxiety, was a morbid one.
Small matters harassed him now. He brooded over trifles, and the one care, which was really serious, grew and grew in his perpetual contemplation until it became tremendous, and darkened his entire sky.
I can’t say that Charles grew morose. It was not his temper, but his spirits that failed—care-worn and gloomy—his habitual melancholy depressed and even alarmed his poor little wife, who yet concealed her anxieties, and exerted her music and her invention—sang songs—told him old stories of the Wyvern folk, touched him with such tragedy and comedy as may be found in such miniature centres of rural life, and played backgammon with him, and sometimes écarté, and, in fact, nursed his sick spirits, as such angelic natures will.
Now and then came Harry Fairfield, but his visits were short and seldom, and what was worse, Charles always seemed more harassed or gloomy after one of his calls. There was something going on, and by no means prosperously, she was sure, from all knowledge of which, however it might ultimately concern her, and did immediately concern her husband, she was jealously excluded.
Sometimes she felt angry—oftener pained—always troubled with untold fears and surmises. Poor little Alice! It was in the midst of these secret misgivings that a new care and hope visited her—a trembling, delightful hope, that hovers between life and death—sometimes in sad and mortal fear—sometimes in delightful anticipation of a new and already beloved life, coming so helplessly into this great world—unknown, to be her little comrade, all dependent on that beautiful love with which her young heart was already overflowing.
So almost trembling—hesitating—she told her little story with smiles and tears, in a pleading, beseeching, almost apologetic way, that melted the better nature of Charles, who told her how welcome to him, and how beloved for her dear sake the coming treasure should be, and held her beating heart to his in a long, loving embrace, and more than all, the old love revived, and he felt how lonely he would be if his adoring little wife were gone, and how gladly he would have given his life for hers.
And now came all the little cares and preparations that so mercifully and delightfully beguile the period of suspense.
What is there so helpless as a new-born babe entering this great, rude, cruel world? Yet we see how the beautiful and tender instincts which are radiated from the sublime love of God, provide everything for the unconscious comer. Let us, then, take heart of grace when, the sad journey ended, we, children of dust, who have entered so, are about to make the dread exit, and remembering what we have seen, and knowing that we go in the keeping of the same “faithful Creator,” be sure that His love and tender forecast have provided with equal care for our entrance into another life.