He had to return discomfited to Sylvia, who meanwhile had arranged her thoughts ready to return to the charge.
‘And say he’s sent to York, and say he’s tried theere, what’s t’ worst they can do again’ him?’ asked she, keeping down her agitation to look at Philip the more sharply. Her eyes never slackened their penetrating gaze at his countenance, until he replied, with the utmost unwillingness, and most apparent confusion, —
‘They may send him to Botany Bay.’
He knew that he held back a worse contingency, and he was mortally afraid that she would perceive this reserve. But what he did say was so much beyond her utmost apprehension, which had only reached to various terms of imprisonment, that she did not imagine the dark shadow lurking behind. What he had said was too much for her. Her eyes dilated, her lips blanched, her pale cheeks grew yet paler. After a minute’s look into his face, as if fascinated by some horror, she stumbled backwards into the chair in the chimney comer, and covered her face with her hands, moaning out some inarticulate words.
Philip was on his knees by her, dumb from excess of sympathy, kissing her dress, all unfelt by her; he murmured half-words, he began passionate sentences that died away upon his lips; and she — she thought of nothing but her father, and was possessed and rapt out of herself by the dread of losing him to that fearful country which was almost like the grave to her, so all but impassable was the gulf. But Philip knew that it was possible that the separation impending might be that of the dark, mysterious grave — that the gulf between the father and child might indeed be that which no living, breathing, warm human creature can ever cross.
‘Sylvie, Sylvie!’ said he, — and all their conversation had to be carried on in low tones and whispers, for fear of the listening ears above, — ’don’t, — don’t, thou’rt rending my heart. Oh, Sylvie, hearken. There’s not a thing I’ll not do; there’s not a penny I’ve got, — th’ last drop of blood that’s in me, — I’ll give up my life for his.’
‘Life,’ said she, putting down her hands, and looking at him as if her looks could pierce his soul; ‘who talks o’ touching his life? Thou’re going crazy, Philip, I think;’ but she did not think so, although she would fain have believed it. In her keen agony she read his thoughts as though they were an open page; she sate there, upright and stony, the conviction creeping over her face like the grey shadow of death. No more tears, no more trembling, almost no more breathing. He could not bear to see her, and yet she held his eyes, and he feared to make the effort necessary to move or to turn away, lest the shunning motion should carry conviction to her heart. Alas! conviction of the probable danger to her father’s life was already there: it was that that was calming her down, tightening her muscles, bracing her nerves. In that hour she lost all her early youth.
‘Then he may be hung,’ said she, low and solemnly, after a long pause. Philip turned away his face, and did not utter a word. Again deep silence, broken only by some homely sound in the kitchen. ‘Mother must not know on it,’ said Sylvia, in the same tone in which she had spoken before.
‘It’s t’ worst as can happen to him,’ said Philip. ‘More likely he’ll be transported: maybe he’ll be brought in innocent after all.’
‘No,’ said Sylvia, heavily, as one without hope — as if she were reading some dreadful doom in the tablets of the awful future. ‘They’ll hang him. Oh, feyther! feyther!’ she choked out, almost stuffing her apron into her mouth to deaden the sound, and catching at Philip’s hand, and wringing it with convulsive force, till the pain that he loved was nearly more than he could bear. No words of his could touch such agony; but irrepressibly, and as he would have done it to a wounded child, he bent over her, and kissed her with a tender, trembling kiss. She did not repulse it, probably she did not even perceive it.
At that moment Phoebe came in with the gruel. Philip saw her, and knew, in an instant, what the old woman’s conclusion must needs be; but Sylvia had to be shaken by the now standing Philip, before she could be brought back to the least consciousness of the present time. She lifted up her white face to understand his words, then she rose up like one who slowly comes to the use of her limbs.
‘I suppose I mun go,’ she said; ‘but I’d sooner face the dead. If she asks me, Philip, what mun I say?’
‘She’ll not ask yo’,’ said he, ‘if yo’ go about as common. She’s never asked yo’ all this time, an’ if she does, put her on to me. I’ll keep it from her as long as I can; I’ll manage better nor I’ve done wi’ thee, Sylvie,’ said he, with a sad, faint smile, looking with fond penitence at her altered countenance.
‘Thou mustn’t blame thysel’,’ said Sylvia, seeing his regret. ‘I brought it on me mysel’; I thought I would ha’ t’ truth, whativer came on it, and now I’m not strong enough to stand it, God help me!’ she continued, piteously.
‘Oh, Sylvie, let me help yo’! I cannot do what God can, — I’m not meaning that, but I can do next to Him of any man. I have loved yo’ for years an’ years, in a way it’s terrible to think on, if my love can do nought now to comfort yo’ in your sore distress.’
‘Cousin Philip,’ she replied, in the same measured tone in which she had always spoken since she had learnt the extent of her father’s danger, and the slow stillness of her words was in harmony with the stony look of her face, ‘thou’s a comfort to me, I couldn’t bide my life without thee; but I cannot take in the thought o’ love, it seems beside me quite; I can think on nought but them that is quick and them that is dead.’
CHAPTER XXVII
GLOOMY DAYS
Philip had money in the Fosters’ bank, not so much as it might have been if he had not had to pay for the furniture in his house. Much of this furniture was old, and had belonged to the brothers Foster, and they had let Philip have it at a very reasonable rate; but still the purchase of it had diminished the amount of his savings. But on the sum which he possessed he drew largely — he drew all — nay, he overdrew his account somewhat, to his former masters’ dismay, although the kindness of their hearts overruled the harder arguments of their heads.
All was wanted to defend Daniel Robson at the approaching York assizes. His wife had handed over to Philip all the money or money’s worth she could lay her hands upon. Daniel himself was not one to be much beforehand with the world; but to Bell’s thrifty imagination the round golden guineas, tied up in the old stocking-foot against rent-day, seemed a mint of money on which Philip might draw infinitely. As yet she did not comprehend the extent of her husband’s danger. Sylvia went about like one in a dream, keeping back the hot tears that might interfere with the course of life she had prescribed for herself in that terrible hour when she first learnt all. Every penny of money either she or her mother could save went to Philip. Kester’s hoard, too, was placed in Hepburn’s hands at Sylvia’s earnest entreaty; for Kester had no great opinion of Philip’s judgment, and would rather have taken his money straight himself to Mr. Dawson, and begged him to use it for his master’s behoof.
Indeed, if anything, the noiseless breach between Kester and Philip had widened of late. It was seed-time, and Philip, in his great anxiety for every possible interest that might affect Sylvia, and also as some distraction from his extreme anxiety about her father, had taken to study agriculture of an evening in some old books which he had borrowed — The Farmer’s Complete Guide, and such like; and from time to time he came down upon the practical dogged Kester with directions gathered from the theories in his books. Of course the two fell out, but without many words. Kester persevered in his old ways, making light of Philip and his books in manner and action, till at length Philip withdrew from the contest. ‘Many a man may lead a horse to water, but there’s few can make him drink,’ and Philip certainly was not one of those few. Kester, indeed, looked upon him with jealous eyes on many accounts. He had favoured Charley Kinraid as a lover of Sylvia’s; and though he had no idea of the truth — though he believed in the drowning of the specksioneer as much as any one — yet the year wh
ich had elapsed since Kinraid’s supposed death was but a very short while to the middle-aged man, who forgot how slowly time passes with the young; and he could often have scolded Sylvia, if the poor girl had been a whit less heavy at heart than she was, for letting Philip come so much about her — come, though it was on her father’s business. For the darkness of their common dread drew them together, occasionally to the comparative exclusion of Bell and Kester, which the latter perceived and resented. Kester even allowed himself to go so far as to wonder what Philip could want with all the money, which to him seemed unaccountable; and once or twice the ugly thought crossed his mind, that shops conducted by young men were often not so profitable as when guided by older heads, and that some of the coin poured into Philip’s keeping might have another destination than the defence of his master. Poor Philip! and he was spending all his own, and more than all his own money, and no one ever knew it, as he had bound down his friendly bankers to secrecy.
Once only Kester ventured to speak to Sylvia on the subject of Philip. She had followed her cousin to the field just in front of their house, just outside the porch, to ask him some question she dared not put in her mother’s presence — (Bell, indeed, in her anxiety, usually absorbed all the questions when Philip came) — and stood, after Philip had bid her good-by, hardly thinking about him at all, but looking unconsciously after him as he ascended the brow; and at the top he had turned to take a last glance at the place his love inhabited, and, seeing her, he had waved his hat in gratified farewell. She, meanwhile, was roused from far other thoughts than of him, and of his now acknowledged love, by the motion against the sky, and was turning back into the house when she heard Kester’s low hoarse call, and saw him standing at the shippen door.
‘Come hither, wench,’ said he, indignantly; ‘is this a time for courtin’?’
‘Courting?’ said she, drawing up her head, and looking back at him with proud defiance.
‘Ay, courtin’! what other mak’ o’ thing is’t when thou’s gazin’ after yon meddlesome chap, as if thou’d send thy eyes after him, and he making marlocks back at thee? It’s what we ca’ed courtin’ i’ my young days anyhow. And it’s noane a time for a wench to go courtin’ when her feyther’s i’ prison,’ said he, with a consciousness as he uttered these last words that he was cruel and unjust and going too far, yet carried on to say them by his hot jealousy against Philip.
Sylvia continued looking at him without speaking: she was too much offended for expression.
‘Thou may glower an’ thou may look, lass,’ said he, ‘but a’d thought better on thee. It’s like last week thy last sweetheart were drowned; but thou’s not one to waste time i’ rememberin’ them as is gone — if, indeed, thou iver cared a button for yon Kinraid — if it wasn’t a make-believe.’
Her lips were contracted and drawn up, showing her small glittering teeth, which were scarcely apart as she breathed out —
‘Thou thinks so, does thou, that I’ve forgetten him? Thou’d better have a care o’ thy tongue.’
Then, as if fearful that her self-command might give way, she turned into the house; and going through the kitchen like a blind person, she went up to her now unused chamber, and threw herself, face downwards, flat on her bed, almost smothering herself.
Ever since Daniel’s committal, the decay that had imperceptibly begun in his wife’s bodily and mental strength during her illness of the previous winter, had been making quicker progress. She lost her reticence of speech, and often talked to herself. She had not so much forethought as of old; slight differences, it is true, but which, with some others of the same description, gave foundation for the homely expression which some now applied to Bell, ‘She’ll never be t’ same woman again.
This afternoon she had cried herself to sleep in her chair after Philip’s departure. She had not heard Sylvia’s sweeping passage through the kitchen; but half an hour afterwards she was startled up by Kester’s abrupt entry.
‘Where’s Sylvie?’ asked he.
‘I don’t know,’ said Bell, looking scared, and as if she was ready to cry. ‘It’s no news about him?’ said she, standing up, and supporting herself on the stick she was now accustomed to use.
‘Bless yo’, no, dunnot be afeared, missus; it’s only as a spoke hasty to t’ wench, an’ a want t’ tell her as a’m sorry,’ said Kester, advancing into the kitchen, and looking round for Sylvia.
‘Sylvie, Sylvie!’ shouted he; ‘she mun be i’ t’ house.’
Sylvia came slowly down the stairs, and stood before him. Her face was pale, her mouth set and determined; the light of her eyes veiled in gloom. Kester shrank from her look, and even more from her silence.
‘A’m come to ax pardon,’ said he, after a little pause.
She was still silent.
‘A’m noane above axing pardon, though a’m fifty and more, and thee’s but a silly wench, as a’ve nursed i’ my arms. A’ll say before thy mother as a ought niver to ha’ used them words, and as how a’m sorry for ‘t.’
‘I don’t understand it all,’ said Bell, in a hurried and perplexed tone. ‘What has Kester been saying, my lass?’ she added, turning to Sylvia.
Sylvia went a step or two nearer to her mother, and took hold of her hand as if to quieten her; then facing once more round, she said deliberately to Kester, —
‘If thou wasn’t Kester, I’d niver forgive thee. Niver,’ she added, with bitterness, as the words he had used recurred to her mind. ‘It’s in me to hate thee now, for saying what thou did; but thou’re dear old Kester after all, and I can’t help mysel’, I mun needs forgive thee,’ and she went towards him. He took her little head between his horny hands and kissed it. She looked up with tears in her eyes, saying softly, —
‘Niver say things like them again. Niver speak on — — ’
‘A’ll bite my tongue off first,’ he interrupted.
He kept his word.
In all Philip’s comings and goings to and from Haytersbank Farm at this time, he never spoke again of his love. In look, words, manner, he was like a thoughtful, tender brother; nothing more. He could be nothing more in the presence of the great dread which loomed larger upon him after every conversation with the lawyer.
For Mr. Donkin had been right in his prognostication. Government took up the attack on the Rendezvous with a high and heavy hand. It was necessary to assert authority which had been of late too often braved. An example must be made, to strike dismay into those who opposed and defied the press-gang; and all the minor authorities who held their powers from Government were in a similar manner severe and relentless in the execution of their duty. So the attorney, who went over to see the prisoner in York Castle, told Philip. He added that Daniel still retained his pride in his achievement, and could not be brought to understand the dangerous position in which he was placed; that when pressed and questioned as to circumstances that might possibly be used in his defence, he always wandered off to accounts of previous outrages committed by the press-gang, or to passionate abuse of the trick by which men had been lured from their homes on the night in question to assist in putting out an imaginary fire, and then seized and carried off. Some of this very natural indignation might possibly have some effect on the jury; and this seemed the only ground of hope, and was indeed a slight one, as the judge was likely to warn the jury against allowing their natural sympathy in such a case to divert their minds from the real question.
Such was the substance of what Philip heard, and heard repeatedly, during his many visits to Mr. Dawson. And now the time of trial drew near; for the York assizes opened on March the twelfth; not much above three weeks since the offence was committed which took Daniel from his home and placed him in peril of death.
Philip was glad that, the extremity of his danger never having been hinted to Bell, and travelling some forty miles being a most unusual exertion at that time to persons of her class, the idea of going to see her husband at York had never suggested itself to Bell’s mind. Her increasing feeble
ness made this seem a step only to be taken in case of the fatal extreme necessity; such was the conclusion that both Sylvia and he had come to; and it was the knowledge of this that made Sylvia strangle her own daily longing to see her father. Not but that her hopes were stronger than her fears. Philip never told her the causes for despondency; she was young, and she, like her father, could not understand how fearful sometimes is the necessity for prompt and severe punishment of rebellion against authority.
Philip was to be in York during the time of the assizes; and it was understood, almost without words, that if the terrible worst occurred, the wife and daughter were to come to York as soon as might be. For this end Philip silently made all the necessary arrangements before leaving Monkshaven. The sympathy of all men was with him; it was too large an occasion for Coulson to be anything but magnanimous. He urged Philip to take all the time requisite; to leave all business cares to him. And as Philip went about pale and sad, there was another cheek that grew paler still, another eye that filled with quiet tears as his heaviness of heart became more and more apparent. The day for opening the assizes came on. Philip was in York Minster, watching the solemn antique procession in which the highest authority in the county accompanies the judges to the House of the Lord, to be there admonished as to the nature of their duties. As Philip listened to the sermon with a strained and beating heart, his hopes rose higher than his fears for the first time, and that evening he wrote his first letter to Sylvia.
‘DEAR SYLVIA,
‘It will be longer first than I thought for. Mr. Dawson says Tuesday in next week. But keep up your heart. I have been hearing the sermon to-day which is preached to the judges; and the clergyman said so much in it about mercy and forgiveness, I think they cannot fail to be lenient this assize. I have seen uncle, who looks but thin, but is in good heart: only he will keep saying he would do it over again if he had the chance, which neither Mr. Dawson nor I think is wise in him, in especial as the gaoler is by and hears every word as is said. He was very fain of hearing all about home; and wants you to rear Daisy’s calf, as he thinks she will prove a good one. He bade me give his best love to you and my aunt, and his kind duty to Kester.
Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell Page 203
