Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Carroll gave the signal agreed upon, that he saw somebody coming. Gerald had bid Carroll not call loudly to him, lest the suddenness of the certainty of her deliverance might be too much for her all at once. When he moved from her, though only a pace or two, to hear what was said from the opening in the roof, she caught hold of his coat, and held it clenched fast, as if in dread of his leaving her. He assured her that he would not desert her; that he was only going to see how best to get her out of this horrible place. His words seemed scarcely to reach her understanding; but she loosened her grasp, as if resigned. He stood upon the only piece of furniture in the house, an old stool, and could then hear Carroll tell him, in a low voice, that two men were coming across the field from the road, either with a hand-barrow or something of the kind. It proved to be the very door which Gerald had desired should be sent if nothing else was at hand. “And a good thought it was,” said the men, “for the hand-barrow had been lent to some person, and could not have been had unless we were to have waited an hour.” There was plenty of straw, and a blanket, moreover a bed, a chaff bed; all he required good Molly had sent, with her blessing for the sending home her boy, and a bed should be ready and warm for the poor woman, whoever she was. She would not let George come back with the men, which he wanted to do.

  While all this was saying, Gerald had lifted the kneeling girl from the floor. She was as helpless and cumbersome to lift as a child asleep. He purposed to stand upon the stool, to give her out of his arms to Carroll, who was waiting to take her, but as he sprang up on the stool, one of the legs gave way, and down he came with the child. An exclamation, the first she had uttered, burst from the mother, and she sprang forward. Gerald fell back against the wall, and held the child safe; it was a mercy that he did not fall upon it. He next took off the silk handkerchief that was round his neck; and, having tied it to his pocket handkerchief, he passed them under the arms of the child. Then calling to Carroll, he bid him let down to him one end of his leathern belt, and to hold fast the other. After fastening the end of the belt to the handkerchiefs, he called to Carroll again to draw up gently; and, guiding the child’s body up as high as he could reach, it was thus drawn out safely. The woman had a tattered blanket hanging over part of her, but she could not be wrapped in it; it was all rags, and would not hold. Gerald had the blanket old Molly had sent put down to him, and wrapping the woman in it with Carroll’s help, he having now jumped down into the hut, fastened the belt round her, and one of the men above drew her up with her infant in her arms. They laid her upon the bed, and found she had fainted. She looked so ghastly that Gerald thought she was dead. He took her infant from her powerless arm, and thought it was gone too. It seemed to have no weight; but the fresh air made it utter a sort of cry, and the mother opened her eyes, and came back from her fainting fit. Gerald laid her infant in her arms again, and she felt that he placed her girl beside her, and she gave him a look which he could never forget. But the expression of feeling and sense was gone in a moment. He wrapped the blanket round her and the children, and she lay motionless in a sort of stupor, as they lifted the board from the ground and moved on. He had little hope that she or the children could live till they reached the cottage. He had never seen any thing like such a sight before; but Carroll had, and he kept up his hopes with the prophecy, often repeated as they went along, that the woman would, as he’d see, do very well, and the childer would come to, all but the poor boy, who was gone quite. It lay at her feet, wrapped in the poor mother’s rag of a blanket, so as to be concealed from sight. Gerald had been unwilling to remove the corpse at first, thinking it might shock the mother fatally to see it when she returned to sense. But the men would not let him leave it, telling him that when she came to her sense, it would be the first thing she would ask for, and that it would shock her most that it should not be waked properly.

  They reached the cottage, where, to Gerald’s great joy, he found that his mother had sent the housekeeper, and all that could be wanted. Molly, dear good Molly, had the bed ready warm to put her into, and hot flannels for the childer, and warm drink, but to be given only in tea-spoonfuls. “Mind,” as the housekeeper said, “mind that for your life! And now, Master Gerald, my heart’s life,” continued she, “rest yourself. Oh dear! oh dear! what a way he is in! my own child — Oh dear! oh dear! he ought to be in his own bed — and has not eat one bit the day, barring the potatoes here.”

  Molly followed Gerald about, while he helped in all the arrangements that were making in bringing in his charge, and carrying them to the inner room; and whenever she could find an opportunity, popped a bit of something into his mouth, which, to oblige her, he swallowed, though he did not well know what it was. All being now done by him in which he could be useful, he prepared to go home, the housekeeper and Molly urging that his own family must be anxious to see him. Away he went, but not before he had asked for George, to rejoice with him in their success. George was in his bed fast asleep; it would be a sin, his grandmother said, to waken him, and it would do better next morning, for he was tired out of his sense, stupid-tired. “He is never very ‘cute, my poor Georgy, but as kind a heart as can be, asleep or awake.”

  It was dusk in the evening before Gerald reached home. Candles were lighted at Castle Gerald, as he saw through the windows. As he approached, the lights flitted from the drawing-room windows along the corridor, as he went up the avenue, and the hall-door opened before he reached it. Cecilia, his dear little sister, ran down the steps to meet him, and his father and mother were in the hall. The comfortable happy appearance of every thing at home, being in sudden contrast with all he had just seen and felt, struck him forcibly. The common dinner seemed to him uncommonly good; every thing a luxury. Cecilia could not help laughing; he seemed to wonder, as if he was in a dream — and so, in truth, he felt. They wisely let him eat and rest before they asked him any questions. Even Cecilia refrained, though her eyes, as plainly as they could speak, and very plainly that was, spoke her curiosity, or rather her sympathy. His after-dinner story, however, was provokingly short — quite an unvarnished tale, and not unfolded regularly, but opened in the middle, and finished abruptly with “That’s all.” Whether it was that he did not like to make much of what he had done himself, to make little i the hero of his tale, or whether he was, as old Molly said of George, stupid-tired, he certainly was in an unusual hurry to take his mother’s advice that night, and go to bed early. After thanking God that the woman was saved, he threw himself into his bed, thinking that he would be asleep the very instant his head should be on the pillow. But in vain he snugged himself up; he found that the going to sleep did not depend on his will. Whenever he closed his eyes, the images of the starved woman and her dead and living child were before him, the whole scene going on over and over again, but more and more confusedly, till at last, after the hundredth turning to the other side, he lay still, and by the time his mother came to look at him, before she went to bed, he was sound asleep — so fast that the light of her lamp, even when she no longer shaded it by her hand, never made eyelid shrink or eyelash twinkle.

  The next morning, he wakened as fresh and lively as ever, and jumped up to see what sort of a day it was. Pouring rain! — all the snow gone, or going — impossible to reach the cottage before breakfast. But the housekeeper had brought word late last night, after he was asleep, that the woman and her children were likely to do well. The gamekeeper (bless his old bones for it!) was up, and at Mrs. Crofton’s by the flight of night, and his report at breakfast time said that “the woman was wonderful — for so great a skeleton — a perfect ‘atomy — a very shadow of a creatur — such as never was seen afore alive on God’s earth. The childer too! no weight, if you’d take ’em in your arms, it would frighten you to hold them — so unnatural-like as if they had been changed by the fairies. Howsome-ever the housekeeper says they’ll come to, and get weighty enough in time, ma’am, and that all will live, no doubt, if they don’t get food too plenty; I mean if old Molly (Mrs. Crofton, I ax her
pardon) wouldn’t be in too great a hurry to feed ’em up — and if the mother, who is cautious enough not to infringe against the orders she got, as far as her own fasting is concerned, would not, as I dread, be too tender in regard to the childer — the baby, more especially.”

  Gerald’s report in the middle of the day was good. He could not, however, see the poor woman, she and her children being in bed. It was settled that they should all walk to the cottage next morning; but the next morning and the next day, rain — rain — rain. How provoking! Yet such things will be in Ireland. Little Cecilia stood at the window, saying, “Rain, rain, go to Spain;” yet not till the fourth day did it go, and then the ground was so wet; even on the gravel walks before the window there were such puddles of yellow water, that it was vain for Cecilia to hope she could reach the cottage. But the next day was dry; a frost came, not a bitter frost, but a fine sunshiny day; and before the ground was softened by the sun, they accomplished their walk.

  Every thing is for the best — that’s certain — even the rain. These three days’ delay had given time for much to pass which it was well should be over. The dead child was buried; the living had now some appearance of life; the horrible ghastliness was gone; the livid purple was now only deadly pale. Cecilia thought it very shocking still, but nothing to what it was, Gerald said. He was quite astonished at the difference; he should not have known the woman to be the same, except by her skeleton hands and arms. But she was now clean, decently clothed, a great handkerchief of Molly’s pinned so as to cover her wasted form, and a smile on those lips that he thought never could smile again — but they smiled on him, and then she burst into tears — the first she had shed — and a great relief they were to her, for she could not cry when the boy was buried — not a tear. Gerald looked about for the other child — the girl — she was behind him. Though she had been quite insensible, as he thought, to all that had happened, she now seemed perfectly to recognise him. When her mother drew her forward, she remained willingly fixed close beside him, and stood staring up with grateful loving eyes. She smelled his coat; the mother reproved her, but Cecilia said, “Let her alone;” and the child, heeding neither of them, proceeded to smell his hand, took it, and kissed it again and again. Then, turning to the mother, said, “Mammy! that’s the hand — the good hand.”

  Then she pointed to a bit of biscuit which lay upon the table, and her mother said, “The child recollects, sir, the bit you put into her mouth. She could eat that biscuit all day long, I believe, if we would let her.”

  “And it is hard to deny her,” said Molly, putting a piece within her reach. She devoured it eagerly, yet seemed as if she had half a mind to take the last bit from her mouth, and put it into Gerald’s.

  He turned to shake hands with George, who now came in; and inquired if he had heard any news of his lost sheep?

  “Answer, George, dear,” said Molly to the boy, who was a little bashful, or, as she expressed it, “a little daunted before the ladies. But speak out, Georgy, love, can’t ye, so as to be heard, and not with that voice of a mouse. You can speak out well enough when you please.”

  The snow-woman observed that she knew better than any body how well he could speak out. “I never in my born days heard a voice so pleasant as his’n sounded to me the first time I heard it, when he answered to my call for help.”

  George smiled through his blush; and then answering Master Gerald, thanked him kindly, and said that he had heard of his sheep — he had got him — and he was dead — frozen dead under the snow — standing — not half a perch from where they had been shovelling. When the thaw came, there he was found quite ready; so he brought him home and skinned him. There was his skin hanging up to the fore on the stable wall. And his father was very good too, and was not mad with him at all at all, but quite considerate, and did not give him a stroke nor a word; and so he (George) had promised to make up the differ, by not rising out of his father’s hands the price of the new shuit which he was to get at Easter for herding the other sheep and cattle through the winter. “There’s the bargain I made with him, and all’s well as afore.”

  Cecilia, who was listening, did not at first understand this bargain; but when the new shuit was explained to mean a new suit of clothes, and making up the differ, making up the difference to the father between the value of the lost live sheep and his remaining skin, Cecilia thought it was rather a hard bargain for George, but he was quite satisfied.

  Molly whispered, “Never heed, miss; the father will not be as hard upon him as he thinks. But,” added she aloud, “why should not he, miss, be at the loss of his own carelessness? — Not but what, barring the giddiness, he’s as good a natured lad as ever lived — only not over-burthened with sense. — Kind gran’mother for him!” concluded she, half laughing at herself, half at him.

  Then, drawing Gerald aside, she changed her tone, and with a serious look, in a mysterious whisper, said, “You were right, dear, from first to last, concerning the poor cratur’s dead child; she did not want to have it waked at all, for she is not that way — not an Irishwoman at all — an Englishwoman all over, as I knew by her speech the first word ever I heard her speak in her own nat’ral tongue when she came to her voice. But hush’t! there she is telling her own story to the master and mistress.”

  “Yes, madam, I bees an Englishwoman, though so low now and untidy like — it’s a shame to think of it — a Manchester woman, ma’am — and my people was once in a bettermost sort of way — but sore pinched latterly.” She sighed, and paused.

  “I married an Irishman, madam,” continued she, and sighed again.

  “I hope he gave you no reason to sigh,” said Gerald’s father.

  “Ah! no, sir, never!” answered the Englishwoman, with a faint sweet smile: “Brian Dermody is a good man, and was always a koind husband to me, as far and as long as ever he could, I will say that — but my friends misliked him — no help for it. He is a soldier, sir, — of the forty-fifth. So I followed my husband’s fortins, as nat’ral, through the world, till he was ordered to Ireland. Then he brought the children over, and settled us down there at Bogafin in a little shop with his mother — a widow. She was very koind too. But no need to tire you with telling all. She married again, ma’am, a man young enough to be her son — a nice man he was to look at too — a gentleman’s servant he had been. Then they set up in a public-house. Then the whiskey, ma’am, that they bees all so fond of — he took to drinking it in the morning even, ma’am — and that was bad to my thinking.”

  “Ay, indeed!” said Molly, with a groan of sympathy; “Oh the whiskey! if men could keep from it!”

  “And if women could!” said Mr. Crofton in a low voice.

  The Englishwoman looked up at him, and then looked down, refraining from assent to his smile.

  “My mother-in-law,” continued she, “was very koind to me all along, as far as she could. But one thing she could not do; that was, to pay me back the money of husband’s and mine that I lent her. I thought this odd of her — and hard. But then I did not know the ways of the country in regard to never paying debts.”

  “Sure it’s not the ways of all Ireland, my dear,” said Molly; “and it’s only them that has not that can’t pay — how can they?”

  “I don’t know — it is not for me to say,” said the Englishwoman, reservedly; “I am a stranger. But I thought if they could not pay me, they need not have kept a jaunting-car.”

  “Is it a jaunting-car?” cried Molly. She pushed from her the chair on which she was leaning—”Jaunting-car bodies! and not to pay you! — I give them up entirely. Ill used you were, my poor Mrs. Dermody — and a shame! and you a stranger! — But them were Connaught people. I ask your pardon — finish your story.”

  “It is finished, ma’am. They were ruined, and all sold; and I could not stay with my children to be a burthen. I wrote to husband, and he wrote me word to make my way to Dublin, if I could, to a cousin of his in Pill Lane — here’s the direction — and that if he can get
leave from his colonel, who is a good gentleman, he will be over to settle me somewhere, to get my bread honest in a little shop, or some way. I am used to work and hardship; so I don’t mind. Brian was very koind in his letter, and sent me all he had — a pound, ma’am — and I set out on my journey on foot, with the three children. The people on the road were very koind and hospitable indeed; I have nothing to say against the Irish for that; they are more hospitabler a deal than in England, though not always so honest. Stranger as I was, I got on very well till I came to the little village here hard by, where my poor boy that is gone first fell sick of the measles. His sickness, and the ‘pot’ecary’ stuff and all, and the lodging and living, ran me very low. But I paid all, every farthing; and let none know how poor I was, for I was ashamed, yon know, ma’am, or I am sure they would have helped me, for they are a koind people, I will say that for them, and ought so to do, I am sure. Well, I pawned some of my things, my cloak even, and my silk bonnet, to pay honest; and as I could not do no otherwise, I left them in pawn, and, with the little money I raised, I set out forwards on my road to Dublin again, so soon as I thought my boy was able to travel. I reckoned too much upon his strength. We had got but a few miles from the village when he drooped, and could not get on; and I was unwilling and ashamed to turn back, having so little to pay for lodgings. I saw a kind of hut, or shed, by the side of a hill. There was nobody in it. It was empty of every thing but some straw, and a few turf, the remains of a fire. I thought there would be no harm in taking shelter in it for my children and myself for the night. The people never came back to whom it belonged, and the next day my poor boy was worse; he had a fever this time. Then the snow came on. We had some little store of provisions that had been made up for us for the journey to Dublin, else we must have perished when we were snowed up. I am sure the people in the village never know’d that we were in that hut, or they would have come to help us, for they bees very koind people. There must have been a day and a night that passed, I think, of which I know nothing. It was all a dream. When I got up from my illness, I found my boy dead — and the others with famished looks. Then I had to see them faint with hunger.”