CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE LADIES ON GYLINGDEN HEATH.
Just at this moment they became aware of a timid little tapping which hadbeen going on at the window during the latter part of this conference,and looking up, the attorney and the vicar saw 'little Fairy's' violeteyes peering under his light hair, with its mild, golden shadow, and theodd, sensitive smile, at once shy and arch; his cheeks were wet withtears, and his pretty little nose red, though he was smiling; and he drewhis face aside among the jessamine, when he saw the gaunt attorneydirecting his patronising smile upon him.
'I beg pardon,' said the vicar, rising with a sudden smile, and going tothe window. 'It is my little man. Fairy! Fairy! What has brought youhere; my little man?'
Fairy glanced, still smiling, but very shamefacedly at the grandattorney, and in his little fist he held a pair of rather seedy gloves tothe window pane.
'So I did. I protest I forgot my gloves. Thank you, little man. Who iswith you? Oh! I see. That is right.'
The maid ducked a short courtesy.
'Indeed, Sir, please, Master Fairy was raising the roof (a nurseryphrase, which implied indescribable bellowing), and as naughty as couldbe, until missis allowed him to come after you.'
'Oh! my little man, you must not do that. Ask nicely, you know; alwaysquietly, like a little gentleman.'
'But, oh! Wapsie, your hands would be cold;' and he held the gloves tohim against the glass.
'Well, darling, thank you; you are a kind little man, and I'll be withyou in a moment,' said the vicar, smiling very lovingly on his naughtylittle man.
'Mr. Larkin,' said he, turning very gratefully to the attorney 'you canlay this Christian comfort to your kind heart, that you have made mine ahundredfold lighter since I entered this blessed room; indeed, you havelifted a mountain from it by the timely proffer of your invaluableassistance.'
Again the attorney waved off, with a benignant and humble smile, ratheroppressive to see, all idea of obligation, and accompanied his gratefulclient to the glass door of his little porch, where Fairy was alreadyawaiting him with the gloves in his hand.
'I do believe,' said the good vicar, as he walked down what Mr. Larkincalled 'the approach,' and looking up with irrepressible gratitude to theblue sky and the white clouds sailing over his head, 'if it be notpresumption, I must believe that I have been directed hither--yes,darling, yes, my hands are warm' (this was addressed to little Fairy, whowas clamouring for information on the point, and clinging to his arm ashe capered by his side). 'What immense relief;' and he murmured anotherthanksgiving, and then quite hilariously--
'If little man would like to come with his Wapsie, we'll take such a nicelittle walk together, and we'll go and see poor Widow Maddock; and we'llbuy three muffins on our way home, for a feast this evening; and we'lllook at the pictures in the old French "Josephus;" and Mamma and I willtell stories; and I have a halfpenny to buy apples for little Fairy.'
The attorney stood at his window with a shadow on his face, and his smalleyes a little contracted and snakelike, following the slim figure of thethreadbare vicar and his golden-haired, dancing little comrade; and thenhe mounted a chair, and took down successively four of his japannedboxes; two of them, in yellow letters, bore respectively the label'_Brandon, No. 1_,' and '_No. 2_;' the other '_Wylder, No. 1_,' and '_No.2_.'
He opened the 'Wylder' box first, and glanced through a neat little'statement of title,' prepared for counsel when draughting the deed ofsettlement for the marriage which was never to take place.
'The limitations, let me see, is not there something that one might besafe in advancing a trifle upon--eh?--h'm--yes.'
And, with his lip in his finger and thumb, he conned over thoseremainders and reversions with a skilled and rapid eye.
Rachel Lake was glad to see the slender and slightly-stooped figure ofthe vicar standing that morning--his bright little boy by the hand--inthe wicket of the tiny flower-garden of Redman's Farm. She went outquickly to greet him. The sick man likes the sound of his kind doctor'sstep on the stairs; and, be his skill much or little, trusts in him, andwill even joke a little asthmatic joke, and smile a feeble hectic smileabout his ailments, when he is present.
So they fell into discourse among the autumnal flowers and witheredleaves; and, as the day was still and genial, they remained standing inthe garden; and away went busy little 'Fairy,' smiling and chatting withMargery, to see the hens and chickens in the yard.
The physician, after a while, finds the leading features of most casespretty much alike. He knows when inflammation may be expected and feverwill supervene; he is not surprised if the patient's mind wanders alittle at times; expects the period of prostration and the return ofappetite; and has his measures and his palliatives ready for eachsuccessive phase of sickness and recovery. In like manner, too, the goodand skilful parson comes by experience to know the signs and stages ofthe moral ailments and recoveries which some of them know how so tenderlyand so wisely to care for. They, too, have ready--having often provedtheir consolatory efficacy--their febrifuges and their tonics, culledfrom that tree of life whose 'leaves are for the healing of the nations.'
Poor Rachel's hours were dark, and life had grown in some sort terrible,and death seemed now so real and near--aye, quite a fact--and, somehow,not unfriendly. But, oh! the immense futurity beyond, that could not beshirked, to which she was certainly going.
Death, and sleep so welcome! But, oh! that stupendous LIFE EVERLASTING,now first unveiled. She could only close her eyes and wring her hands.Oh! for some friendly voice and hand to stay her through the Valley ofthe Shadow of Death!
They talked a long while--Rachel chiefly a listener, and often quietlyweeping; and, at last, a very kindly parting, and a promise from thesimple and gentle vicar that he would often look in at Redman's Farm.
She watched his retreating figure as he and little Fairy walked down thetenebrose road to Gylingden, following them with a dismal gaze, as abenighted and wounded wayfarer in that 'Valley' would the pale lamp'sdisappearing that had for a few minutes, in a friendly hand, shone overhis dreadful darkness.
And when, in fitful reveries, fancy turned for a moment to an earthlypast and future, all there was a blank--the past saddened, the futurebleak. She did not know, or even suspect, that she had been living in anaerial castle, and worshipping an unreal image, until, on a sudden, allwas revealed in that chance gleam of cruel lightning, the line in thatletter, which she read so often, spelled over, and puzzled over soindustriously, though it was clear enough. How noble, how good, howbright and true, was that hero of her unconscious romance.
Well, no one else suspected that incipient madness--that was something;and brave Rachel would quite master it. Happy she had discovered it sosoon. Besides, it was, even if Chelford were at her feet, a wildimpossibility now; and it was well, though despair were in the pang, thatshe had, at last, quite explained this to herself.
As Rachel stood in her little garden, on the spot where she had biddenfarewell to the vicar, she was roused from her vague and dismal reverieby the sound of a carriage close at hand. She had just time to see thatit was a brougham, and to recognise the Brandon liveries, when it drew upat the garden wicket, and Dorcas called to her from the open window.
'I'm come, Rachel, expressly to take you with me; and I won't be denied.'
'You are very good, Dorcas; thank you, dear, very much; but I am not verywell, and a very dull companion to-day.'
'You think I am going to bore you with visits. No such thing, I assureyou. I have taken a fancy to walk on the common, that is all--a kind oflonging; and you must come with me; quite to ourselves, you and I. Youwon't refuse me, darling; I know you'll come.'
Well, Rachel did go. And away they drove through the quiet town ofGylingden together, and through the short street on the right, and soupon the still quieter common.
This plain of green turf broke gradually into a heath; and an irregularscreen of timber and underwood divided the common of Gylingden in sylvanfashion fro
m the moor. The wood passed, Dorcas stopped the carriage, andthe two young ladies descended. It was a sunny day, and the air still;and the open heath contrasted pleasantly with the sombre and confinedscenery of Redman's Dell; and altogether Rachel was glad now that she hadmade the effort, and come with her cousin.
'It was good of you to come, Rachel,' said Miss Brandon; 'and you looktired; but you sha'n't speak more than you like; and I'll tell you allthe news. Chelford is just returned from Brighton; he arrived thismorning; and he and Lady Chelford will stay for the Hunt Ball. I made ita point. And he called at Hockley, on his way back, to see Sir Julius. Doyou know him?'
'Sir Julius Hockley? No--I've heard of him only.'
'Well, they say he is wasting his property very fast; and I think himevery way very nearly a fool; but Chelford wanted to see him about Mr.Wylder. Mark Wylder, you know, of course, has turned up again in England.His letter to Chelford, six weeks ago, was from Boulogne; but his lastwas from Brighton; and Sir Julius Hockley witnessed--I think they callit--that letter of attorney which Mark sent about a week since to Mr.Larkin; and Chelford, who is most anxious to trace Mark Wylder, having tosurrender--I think they call it--a "trust" is not it--or something--Ireally don't understand these things--to him, and not being able to findout his address, Mr. Larkin wrote to Sir Julius, whom Chelford did notfind at home, to ask him for a description of Mark, to ascertain whetherhe had disguised himself; and Sir Julius wrote to Chelford such an absurddescription of poor Mark, in doggrel rhyme--so like--his odd walk, hisgreat whiskers, and everything. Chelford does not like personalities, buthe could not help laughing. Are you ill, darling?'
Though she was walking on beside her companion, Rachel looked on thepoint of fainting.
'My darling, you must sit down; you do look very ill. I forgot my promiseabout Mark Wylder. How stupid I have been! and perhaps I have distressedyou.'
'No, Dorcas, I am pretty well; but I have been ill, and I am a littletired; and, Dorcas, I don't deny it, I _am_ amazed, you tell me suchthings. That letter of attorney, or whatever it is, must not be actedupon. It is incredible. It is all horrible wickedness. Mark Wylder's fateis dreadful, and Stanley is the mover of all this. Oh! Dorcas, darling, Iwish I could tell you everything. Some day I may be--I am sick andterrified.'
They had sat down, by this time, side by side, on the crisp bank. Eachlady looked down, the one in suffering, the other in thought.
'You are better, darling; are not you better?' said Dorcas, laying herhand on Rachel's, and looking on her with a melancholy gaze.
'Yes, dear, better--very well'--answered Rachel, looking up but withoutan answering glance at her cousin.
'You blame your brother, Rachel, in this affair.'
'Did I? Well--maybe--yes, he _is_ to blame--the miserable man--whom Ihate to think of, and yet am always thinking of--Stanley well knows isnot in a state to do it.'
'Don't you think, Rachel, remembering what I have confided to you, thatyou might be franker with me in this?'
'Oh, Dorcas! don't misunderstand me. If the secret were all myown--Heaven knows, hateful as it is, how boldly I would risk all, andthrow myself on your fidelity or your mercy--I know not how you mightview it; but it is different, Dorcas, at least for the present. You knowme--you know how I hate secrets; but this _is_ not mine--only inpart--that is, I dare not tell it--but may be soon free--and to us all,dear Dorcas, a woful, _woful_, day will it be.'
'I made you a promise, Rachel,' said her beautiful cousin, gravely, and alittle coldly and sadly, too; 'I will never break it again--it wasthoughtless. Let us each try to forget that there is anything hiddenbetween us.'
'If ever the time comes, dear Dorcas, when I may tell it to you, I don'tknow whether you will bless or hate me for having kept it so well; at allevents, I think you'll pity me, and at last understand your miserablecousin.'
'I said before, Rachel, that I liked you. You are one of us, Rachel. Youare beautiful, wayward, and daring, and one way or another, misfortunealways waylays us; and I have, I know it, calamity before me. Death comesto other women in its accustomed way; but we have a double death. Thereis not a beautiful portrait in Brandon that has not a sad and true story.Early death of the frail and fair tenement of clay--but a still earlierdeath of happiness. Come, Rachel, shall we escape from the spell and thedestiny into solitude? What do you think of my old plan of the valleysand lakes of Wales? a pretty foreign tongue spoken round us, and no onebut ourselves to commune with, and books, and music. It is not, Radie,altogether jest. I sometimes yearn for it, as they say foreign girls dofor convent life.'
'Poor Dorcas,' said Rachel, very softly, fixing her eyes upon her with alook of inexpressible sadness and pity.
'Rachel,' said Dorcas, 'I am a changeable being--violent, self-willed. Myfate may be quite a different one from that which _I_ suppose or _you_imagine. I may yet have to retract _my_ secret.'
'Oh! would it were so--would to Heaven it were so.'
'Suppose, Rachel, that I had been deceiving you--perhaps deceivingmyself--time will show.'
There was a wild smile on beautiful Dorcas's face as she said this, whichfaded soon into the proud serenity that was its usual character.
'Oh! Dorcas, if your good angel is near, listen to his warnings.'
'We have no good angels, my poor Rachel: what modern necromancers,conversing with tables, call "mocking spirits," have always usurped theirplace with us: singing in our drowsy ears, like Ariel--visiting ourreveries like angels of light--being really our evil genii--ah, yes!'
'Dorcas, dear,' said Rachel, after both had been silent for a time,speaking suddenly, and with a look of pale and keen entreaty--'Beware ofStanley--oh! beware, beware. I think I am beginning to grow afraid of himmyself.'
Dorcas was not given to sighing--but she sighed--gazing sadly across thewide, bleak moor, with her proud, apathetic look, which seemed passivelyto defy futurity--and then, for awhile, they were silent.
She turned, and caressingly smoothed the golden tresses over Rachel'sfrank, white forehead, and kissed them as she did so.
'You are better, darling; you are rested?' she said.
'Yes, dear Dorcas,' and she kissed the slender hand that smoothed herhair.
Each understood that the conversation on that theme was ended, andsomehow each was relieved.
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