“Is this it, ma’am?”
“There are but two books in the box. Has it an I and a V on the back?”
“V, O, L, I, V,” spelled out old Mildred, who was listening in a fever for the sounds of Charles Fairfield’s arrival.
“That’s it. That’s the book you should read. I take it in, and I hire all the others, and a French one, from the Hoxton library. I make Molly Jinks, the little, dirty, starving maid, read to me two hours a day. She’s got rather to like it. How are your eyes?”
“I can make out twelve or fourteen verses wi’ the glasses, but not more, at one bout.”
“Well, get on your glasses. This is the ‘Magazine of the Beau-Monde, and Court and Vashionable Gazette,’ and full of pictures. Turn over.”
“La, ma’am, ’tis beautiful, but what have I to do with the like?”
“Well, look out for the puce gros de Naples walking dress, about page twenty-nine, and I’ll show you the picture afterwards. Do be quick. I have had it four years, it’s quite good though, only I’m grown a little fuller since, and it don’t fit now. So read it, and you’ll see how I’ll dress you.”
And bending her head forward and knitting her brows, she listened absorbed, while old Mildred helped, or corrected, at every second word, by her blind patroness, babbled and stuttered on with her in duet recitation.
“Walking dress,” said Mildred —
“Go on,” said the lady, who, having this like other descriptions in that cherished work pretty well by heart, led off energetically with her lean old companion, and together they read —
“A pelisse of puce-coloured gros de Naples, the corsage made to sit close to the shape, with a large round pelerine which wraps across in front. The sleeve is excessively large at the upper part of the arm. The fulness of the lower is more moderate. It is confined in three places by bands and terminated by a broad wrist-band. The pelerine and bands of the sleeves are cased with satin to correspond, and three satin rouleaus are arranged en tablier on the front of the skirt. The bonnet is of rice straw of the cottage shape, trimmed under the brim on the right side, with a band and noeud of gold-coloured ribbon. The crown being also ornamented with gold-coloured ribbon, and a sprig of lilac, placed perpendicularly. Half-boots of black gros de Naples, tipped with black kid.”
Here they drew breath, and Mildred Tarnley was silent for a minute, thinking how much more like a lady her mother used to dress than she was able, and what fine presents of old clothes old Mrs. Fairfield used to send her now and then from Wyvern. For a moment an air of dignity, a sense of feminine vanity, showed itself in the face and mien of Mrs. Tarnley.
“That rice straw bonnet, with the gold-coloured noeud, of course I haven’t got, nor the gros de Naples boots — they’re gone, of course, long ago; but it reads best, altogether, and I hadn’t the heart to stop you, nor you to stop reading till we got to the end. And look at the pictures, you’ll easily find it; and I’ll write and have the pelisse sent here by the day-coach. It will be here on Sunday. Do you like it?”
“It is a bit too fine for me, I’m afraid,” said Mildred, smiling in spite of herself, with a grim elation; “my poor mother used to dress herself grand enough, in her day, and keep me handsome also when I was a young thing. But since the ladies come no more to Carwell the Grange has been a dull place, and gives a body enough to do to live, and little thought o’ fine dresses, and few to see them, except o’ Sundays, if ’twas here; not but ‘twould be more for the credit o’ the family if old Mildred Tarnley, that’s known down here for housekeeper at the Grange of Carwell, wasn’t turned out quite so poor and dowdy, and seeing them taking the wall o’ me, which their mothers used to courtesy to mine, at church and market, and come up here to the Grange as humble as you please, when money was stirring at Carwell, and I, young as I was, thought more on, a deal more, than the best o’ them.”
“I drink your health, Mildred; as you won’t pledge me, I do it alone.”
“I thank ye, ma’am.”
“Ha, yes, that does me good; I’m tired to death, Mildred.”
“There’s two on us so, ma’am; shall I get you to bed, please?”
“In a minute; give me your hand again, girl; come, come, come, — yes, I have it. I think you are more friendly, eh? I think so; but the little goodwill I ever show you now is nothing to what I mean for you when I come to Wyvern — nothing.”
And she strengthened the present assurance with an oath, and grasped Mildred’s hard brown hand very tight.
“And you’ll be kind to me, Mildred, when I want it; and I shall want it, mind, and I’ll never forget it to you; ‘twill be the making of you. I’ll show you how much I trust you, for I’ll put myself in your power.”
And, hereupon, she shook her hand harder. Her face and manner were changed, and she looked horribly frightened for some minutes.
“I don’t blame you, Mildred, but, this thing must not go on — it must not be.”
Mildred in her own way looked disconcerted and even agitated at this odd speech. She screwed her mouth sharply to one side, and with her brow knit had turned a frightened gaze on her visitor.
“There’s things as can’t be undone, and things as can,” said she, after a pause oracularly; “best not meddle or make — worms that is, and dust that will be, and God over all.”
“God over all, why not?” repeated the old soldier vaguely, and stood up suddenly with a kind of terrified shudder, “take me, hold me, quick.”
“A fit? La bless us,” cried Tarnley, seizing her in her lean arms.
The lady answered nothing, but grasped her fast by the wrist and shoulder, and so she stood for a time shuddering and swaying. “Better at last,” she said, “a little — put me in the chair.”
And she made a great shuddering sigh or two, and called for water and “hartshorn” and the hysteria subsided. And now she seemed overpowered with languor, and answered faintly and in monosyllables to old Mrs. Tarnley’s uncomfortable inquiries.
“Now I shall get a sleep,” she said at last, in low drowsy tones, interrupted with heavy sighs, and she looked so ill that old Mildred more than ever wished her back again at Hoxton Old Town.
“Help me to my bed — support me — get off my things,” she moaned and mumbled, and at last lay down with a great groaning sigh.
“What am I to do with her now?” thought Mrs. Tarnley, who was doubtful whether in this state she could be safely left to herself.
But the patient set her at ease upon the point.
“Get your ear down,” she whispered, “near, near — you need not stay any longer — only — one thing — the closet with the long row of pegs and the three presses in it, that lies between her room and mine, I remember it well — it isn’t open — I shouldn’t like her to find me here.”
“No, ma’am, it ain’t open, the doors were papered over, this room and hers, as I told you, when the rooms was done up.”
The old soldier sighed and whispered —
“My head is very bad, make no noise, dear, don’t move the tray, don’t touch anything — leave me to myself, and I’ll sleep till eleven o’clock tomorrow morning; but go out softly, and then, no noise, for my sleep,” groaned this huge woman, “is a bird’s sleep — a bird’s sleep, and a pin dropping wakes me, a mouse stirring wakes me — oh — oh — oh. That’s all.” Glad to be dismissed on these easy terms, Mildred Tarnley bid her softly good night, having left her basket with her sal volatile, and all other comforts, on the table at her bedside.
And so, softly she stole on tiptoe out of the room, and closed her door, waiting for a moment to clear her head, and be quite sure that the “Dutchwoman,” whom they very much hated and feared, was actually established in her bedroom at Carwell Grange.
CHAPTER VIII.
NEWS FROM CRESSLEY COMMON.
A pretty medley was revolving in old Mildred’s brain as she stood outside this door, on the gallery. The epileptic old soldier, the puce gros de Naples, Tom on outpost duty on Cressle
y Common — had he come back? Charles Fairfield, perhaps, in the house, and that foolish poor young wife in her room, in the centre, and herself the object of all this maoeuvring and conspiring; quite unconscious. Mildred had a good many wires to her fingers just now; could she possibly work them all and keep the show going?
She was listening now, wondering whether Master Charles had arrived, wondering whether the young lady was asleep, and wondering, most of all, why she had been fool enough to meddle in other people’s affairs. “What the dickens was it to her if they was all in kingdom come? If Mildred was a roastin’ they wouldn’t, not one of ‘em, walk across the yard there, to take her off the spit — la, bless you, not a foot.”
Mildred was troubled about many things. Among others, what was the meaning of those oracular appeals of the Dutchwoman in which she had seemed to know something of the real state of things.
Down went Mildred Tarnley, softly still, for she would not risk waking Alice, and at the foot of the second staircase she paused again.
All was quiet, she peeped into Tom’s little room, under the staircase. It was still empty. Into the kitchen she went, nothing had been stirred there.
From habit she trotted about, and settled and unsettled some of the scanty ironmongery and earthenware, and peeped, with her candle aloft, into this corner and that, and she removed the smoothing-iron that stood on the window-stool, holding the shutters close, and peeped into the paved yard, tufted with grass, high over which the solemn trees were drooping.
Then, candle in hand, the fidgety old woman visited the back door, the latch was in its place, and she turned about and visited the panelled sitting-room. The smell of flowers was there, and on the little spider-table was Alice’s work-box, and some little muslin clippings and bits of thread and tape, the relics of that evening’s solitary work over the little toilet on which her pretty fingers and sad eyes were now always employed.
Well, there was no sign of Master Charles here; so with a little more pottering and sniffing, out she went, and again to the back door, which softly she opened, and she toddled across the uneven pavement to the back-door and looked out, and walked forth upon the narrow road, that, darkened with thick trees, overhangs the edge of the ravine.
Here she listened, and listened in vain. There was nothing but the soft rush of the leaves overhead in the faint visitings of the night air, and across the glen at intervals came that ghastliest of sounds, between a long-drawn hiss and shiver, from a lonely owl.
Interrupted at intervals by this freezing sound, the old woman listened and muttered now and again a testy word or two. What was to be done, if by any mischance or blunder of Tom’s the master should thunder his summons at the hall-door? Down of course would fly his young wife to let him in, and be clasped in his arms, while from the low window of the Dutchwoman that evil tenant might overhear every word that passed, and almost touch their heads with her down-stretched hand.
A pretty scene it would lead to, and agreeable consequences to Mildred herself.
“The woman’s insane; she’s an evil spirit; many a time she would have brained me in a start of anger if I hadn’t been sharp. The mark of the cut glass decanter she flung at my head is in the door-case at the foot of the stairs this minute like the scar of a bill-hook, the mad beast. I thank God she’s blind, though there’s an end o’ them pranks, anyhow. But she’s a limb o’ the evil one, and where there’s a will there’s a way, and blind though she be, I would not trust her.”
She walked two or three steps slowly, toward Cressley Common, from which direction she expected the approach of Charles Fairfield.
No wonder Mildred was fidgeted, there were so many disasters on the cards. If she could but see Charles Fairfield something at least might be guarded against. This wiry old woman was by no means hard of hearing — rather sharp, on the contrary, was her ear. But she listened long in vain.
Fearful lest something might go wrong within doors during her absence, she was turning to go back, when she thought she heard the distant clink of a horseshoe on the road.
Her old heart throbbed suddenly, and frowning as she listened, with eyes directed towards the point of approach, softly she said “hush,” as if to quiet the faint rustle of the trees.
Stooping forward, she listened, with her lean arm extended, every wrinkled knuckle of her brown hand, and every black-rimmed nail distinct in the moonlight.
Yes, it was the clink of trotting horseshoes. She prayed heaven the blind woman might not hear it. There was a time when her more energetic misanthropy would possibly have enjoyed a fracas such as was now to be apprehended. But years teach us the value of quiet, the providential instincts of growing helplessness disarm our pugnacity, and all but quite reprobate spirits grow gentler and kinder as the hour of parting with earth approaches. Thus had old Mildred taken her part in this game, and as her stake became deeper and more dangerous her zeal burnt intensely.
Nearer and sharper came the clink, and old Mildred in her anxiety walked on, sometimes five steps, sometimes twenty, to meet the rider.
It was Tom who appeared, mounted on the mule. I think he took Mildred for a ghost, for he pulled up violently more than twenty yards away, and said, “Lord! who’s that?”
“It’s me, Tom, Mrs. Tarnley; and is he comin’?”
“I hardly knowed you, Mrs. Tarnley. No, I met him up near the stone.”
“Not a coming?” urged Mildred.
“No.”
“Thank God. Well, and what did you tell him?”
“I told him your message. He first asked all about the young lady, and then I told him how she was, and then I told him your message — — “
“Ay?”
“Word for word, and he drew bridle and stood a while, thinkin’, and he wished to know whether the mistress had spoke with her — Mr. Harry’s friend, I mean — and I said I didn’t know; and he asked was the house quiet, and no high words going, nor the new comer giving any trouble, and I said no, so far as I knowed. Then, says he, I think, Tom, I had best let Master Harry settle it his own way, so I’ll ride back again to Darwynd, and you can come over to the old place for the horse tomorrow; and tell Mildred I thank her for her care of us, and she shall hear from me in a day or two, and tell no one else, mind, that you have seen me. Well, I asked was there anything more, and he paused a bit, and says he, no, not at present. And then again, says he, tell Mildred Tarnley I’ll write to her, and let her know where I am, and mind, Tom, you go yourself to the Post Office, and be sure the letters go only to the persons they are directed to, your mistress’s to her, and Mildred’s to her, and don’t you talk with that person that I hear has come to the Grange, and if by any chance she should get into talk with you, you must be wide awake and tell her nothing, and get away from her as quick as you can. It’s easy to escape her, for she’s blind.”
“So she is,” affirmed Mildred, “as that wall. Go on.”
“‘Then,’ says he, ‘good night, Tom, get ye home again.’ So I wished him God speed, and I rode away, and when I was on a bit I threw a look back again over my shoulder, and I saw him still in the same spot, no more stirring than the stone at the roadside, thinking, I do suppose.”
“And that’s all?” said Mildred.
“That’s all.”
“Bring in the beast very quiet, Tom, unless you leave him in the field for the night, and don’t be clappin’ o’ doors or jinglin’ o’ bridle bits. That one has an ear like a hare, and she’ll be askin’ questions; and when you’ve done in the stable come you in this way, and I’ll let you in softly, and don’t you be talkin’ within doors above a whisper. Your voice is rough, and her ear is as sharp as a needle’s point.”
Tom gave her a little nod and a great wink, and got off the mule, and led him on the grass toward the stableyard, and old Mildred at the same time got in softly by the other entrance, and in the kitchen awaited the return of Tom.
She sat by the fire, troubled in mind, with her eyes turned askance on the windows. What a
small thing is a human body, and what a gigantic moral sphere surrounds that little centre! That blind woman lay still as death, on a six foot long bedstead, in a remote chamber. But the direful circuit of that sphere which radiated thence enveloped old Mildred Tarnley go where she would, and outspread even the bourn of the road which Charles Fairfield was to travel that night. For Mildred Tarnley, something of molestation and horror was in it, which forbid her to rest.
Tom came into the yard, and Mildred was at the door, and opened it before he could place his hand on the latch.
“Put off them big shoes, and not a word above your breath, and not a stir, but get ye in again to your bed as still as a mouse,” said Mrs. Tarnley, in a hard whisper, giving him a shake of the shoulder.
“Ye’ll gi’e me a mug o’ beer, Mrs. Tarnley, and a lump o’ bread, and a cut o’ cheese wouldn’t hurt me; I’m a bit hungry. If you won’t I must even take a smoke, for I can’t sleep as I am.”
“Well, I will give ye a drink and a bit o’ bread and cheese. Did ye lock the yard-door?”
“No,” said Tom.
“Well, no, never you mind; I’ll do it,” said Mildred, stopping him, “and go you straight to your room, and here’s the lantern for you; and now get ye in, and not a sound, mind, you gi’e me your pipe here, for you shan’t be stinkin’ the house wi’ your nasty tobaccy.”
So Tom was got quick to his bed.
And Mildred sat down again by the kitchen fire, to rest for a little, feeling too tired to undress.
“Well, I do thank God of his mercy he’s not a comin’; I do. Who can tell what would be if he was? And now, if only Master Harry was sure to keep away all might go right — yes, all — all might go right. Oh, ho, ho! I wish it was, and my old head at rest, for I’m worked worse than a horse, and wore off my feet altogether.”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 498