CHAPTER XLIV.
IN WHICH OLD TAMAR LIFTS UP HER VOICE IN PROPHECY.
Certainly Stanley Lake was right about Redman's Dell. Once the sun hadgone down behind the distant hills, it was the darkest, the most silent,and the most solitary of nooks.
It was not, indeed, quite dark yet. The upper sky had still a faint graytwilight halo, and the stars looked wan and faint. But the narrow walkthat turned from Redman's Dell was always dark in Stanley's memory; andSadducees, although they believe neither in the resurrection nor thejudgment, are no more proof than other men against the resurrections ofmemory and the penalties of association and of fear.
Captain Lake had many things to think of. Some pleasant enough as hemeasured pleasure, others troublesome. But as he mounted the stone stepsthat conducted the passenger up the steep acclivity to the upper level ofthe dark and narrow walk he was pursuing, one black sorrow met him andblotted out all the rest.
Captain Lake knew very well and gracefully practised the art of notseeing inconvenient acquaintances in the street. But here in this narrowway there met him full a hated shadow whom he would fain have 'cut,' bylooking to right or left, or up or down, but which was not to beevaded--would not only have his salutation but his arm, and walked--ahorror of great darkness, by his side--through this solitude.
Committed to a dreadful game, in which the stakes had come to exceedanything his wildest fears could have anticipated, from which he couldnot, according to his own canons, by any imaginable means recede--_here_was the spot where the dreadful battle had been joined, and his covenantwith futurity sealed.
The young captain stood for a moment still on reaching the upperplatform. A tiny brook that makes its way among briars and shingle to themore considerable mill-stream of Redman's Dell, sent up a hoarse babblingfrom the darkness beneath. Why exactly he halted there he could not havesaid. He glanced over his shoulder down the steps he had just scaled. Hadthere been light his pale face would have shown just then a malignanxiety, such as the face of an ill-conditioned man might wear, whoapprehends danger of treading on a snake.
He walked on, however, without quickening his pace, waving very slightlyfrom side to side his ebony walking-cane--thin as a pencil--as if it werea wand to beckon away the unseen things that haunt the darkness; and nowhe came upon the wider plateau, from which, the close copse receding,admitted something more of the light, faint as it was, that lingered inthe heavens.
A tall gray stone stands in the centre of this space. There had once beena boundary and a stile there. Stanley knew it very well, and was notstartled as the attorney was the other night when he saw it. As heapproached this, some one said close in his ear,
'I beg your pardon, Master Stanley.'
He cowered down with a spring, as I can fancy a man ducking under around-shot, and glanced speechlessly, and still in his attitude ofrecoil, upon the speaker.
'It's only me, Master Stanley--your poor old Tamar. Don't be afraid,dear.'
'I'm _not_ afraid--woman. Tamar to be sure--why, of course, I know you;but what the devil brings you here?' he said.
Tamar was dressed just as she used to be when sitting in the open air ather knitting, except that over her shoulders she had a thin gray shawl.On her head was the same close linen nightcap, borderless and skull-like,and she laid her shrivelled, freckled hand upon his arm, and looking withan earnest and fearful gaze in his face she said--
'It has been on my mind this many a day to speak to you, Master Stanley;but whenever I meant to, summat came over me, and I couldn't.'
'Well, well, well,' said Lake, uneasily; 'I mean to call to-morrow, ornext day, or some day soon, at Redman's Farm. I'll hear it then; this isno place, you know, Tamar, to talk in; besides I'm pressed for time, andcan't stay now to listen.'
'There's no place like this, Master Stanley; it's so awful secret,' shesaid, with her hand still upon his arm.
'Secret! Why one place is as well as another; and what the devil have Ito do with secrets? I tell you, Tamar, I'm in haste and can't stay. I_won't_ stay. There!'
'Master Stanley, for the love of Heaven--you know what I'm going to speakof; my old bones have carried me here--'tis years since I walked so far.I'd walk till I dropped to reach you--but I'd say what's on my mind, 'tislike a message from heaven--and I _must_ speak--aye, dear, I must.'
'But I say I can't stay. Who made you a prophet? You used not to be afool, Tamar; when I tell you I can't, that's enough.'
Tamar did not move her fingers from the sleeve of his coat, on which theyrested, and that thin pressure mysteriously detained him.
'See, Master Stanley, if I don't say it to _you_, I must to another,' shesaid.
'You mean to threaten me, woman,' said he with a pale, malevolent look.
'I'm threatening nothing but the wrath of God, who hears us.'
'Unless you mean to do me an injury, Tamar, I don't know what else youmean,' he answered, in a changed tone.
'Old Tamar will soon be in her coffin, and this night far in the past,like many another, and 'twill be everything to you, one day, for weal orwoe, to hearken to her words _now_, Master Stanley.'
'Why, Tamar, haven't I told you I'm ready to listen to you. I'll go andsee you--upon my honour I will--to-morrow, or next day, at the Dell;what's the good of stopping me here?'
'Because, Master Stanley, something told me 'tis the best place; we'requiet, and you're more like to weigh my words here--and you'll be alonefor a while after you leave me, and can ponder my advice as you walk homeby the path.'
'Well, whatever it is, I suppose it won't take very long to say--let uswalk on to the stone there, and then I'll stop and hear it--but you mustnot keep me all night,' he said, very peevishly.
It was only twenty steps further on, and the woods receded round it, soas to leave an irregular amphitheatre of some sixty yards across; andCaptain Lake, glancing from the corners of his eyes, this way and that,without raising or turning his face, stopped listlessly at the time-wornwhite stone, and turning to the old crone, who was by his side, he said,
'Well, then, you have your way; but speak low, please, if you haveanything unpleasant to say.'
Tamar laid her hand upon his arm again; and the old woman's face affordedStanley Lake no clue to the coming theme. Its expression was quite asusual--not actually discontent or peevishness, but crimped and puckeredall over with unchanging lines of anxiety and suffering. Neither wasthere any flurry in her manner--her bony arm and discoloured hand, onceher fingers lay upon his sleeve, did not move--only she looked veryearnestly in his face as she spoke.
'You'll not be angry, Master Stanley, dear? though if you be, I can'thelp it, for I must speak. I've heard it all--I heard you and Miss Radiespeak on the night you first came to see her, after your sickness; and Iheard you speak again, by my room door, only a week before your marriage,when you thought I was asleep. So I've heard it all--and though I mayn'tunderstand all the ins and outs on't, I know it well in the main. Oh,Master Stanley, Master Stanley! How can you go on with it?'
'Come, Tamar, what do you want of me? What do you mean? What the d-- isit all about?'
'Oh! well you know, Master Stanley, what it's about.'
'Well, there _is_ something unpleasant, and I suppose you have heard asmattering of it in your muddled way; but it is quite plain you don't inthe least understand it, when you fancy I can do anything to serve anyonein the smallest degree connected with that disagreeable business--or thatI am personally in the least to blame in it; and I can't conceive whatbusiness you had listening at the keyhole to your mistress and me, norwhy I am wasting my time talking to an old woman about my affairs, whichshe can neither understand nor take part in.'
'Master Stanley, it won't do. I heard it--I could not help hearing. Ilittle thought you had any such matter to speak--and you spoke so suddenlike, I could not help it. You were angry, and raised your voice. Whatcould old Tamar do? I heard it all before I knew where I was.'
'I really think, Tamar, you've taken leave of your wits-
-you are quite inthe clouds. Come, Tamar, tell me, once for all--only drop your voice alittle, if you please--what the plague has got into your old head. Come,I say, what is it?'
He stooped and leaned his ear to Tamar; and when she had done, helaughed. The laugh, though low, sounded wild and hollow in that darksolitude.
'Really, dear Tamar, you must excuse my laughing. You dear old witch, howthe plague could you take any such frightful nonsense into your head? Ido assure you, upon my honour, I never heard of so ridiculous a blunder.Only that I know you are really fond of us, I should never speak to youagain. I forgive you. But listen no more to other people's conversation.I could tell you how it really stands now, only I have not time; butyou'll take my word of honour for it, you have made the most absurdmistake that ever an old fool tumbled into. No, Tamar, I can't stay anylonger now; but I'll tell you the whole truth when next I go down toRedman's Farm. In the meantime, you must not plague poor Miss Radie withyour nonsense. She has too much already to trouble her, though of quiteanother sort. Good-night, foolish old Tamar.'
'Oh, Master Stanley, it will take a deal to shake my mind; and if it beso, as I say, what's to be done next--what's to be done--oh, what _is_ tobe done?'
'I say good-night, old Tamar; and hold your tongue, do you see?'
'Oh, Master Stanley, Master Stanley! my poor child--my child that Inursed!--anything would be better than this. Sooner or later judgmentwill overtake you, so sure as you persist in it. I heard what Miss Radiesaid; and is not it true--is not it cruel--is not it frightful to go on?'
'You don't seem to be aware, my good Tamar, that you have been talkingslander all this while, and might be sent to gaol for it. There, I'm notangry--only you're a fool. Good-night.'
He shook her hand, and jerked it from him with suppressed fury, passingon with a quickened pace. And as he glided through the dark, towardssplendid old Brandon, he ground his teeth, and uttered two or threesentences which no respectable publisher would like to print.
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