‘Sylvia, will you try and forget how I used to scold you about your writing and spelling, and just write me two or three lines. I think I would rather have them badly spelt than not, because then I shall be sure they are yours. And never mind about capitals; I was a fool to say such a deal about them, for a man does just as well without them. A letter from you would do a vast to keep me patient all these days till Tuesday. Direct —
‘Mr. Philip Hepburn,
‘Care of Mr. Fraser, Draper,
‘Micklegate, York.
‘My affectionate duty to my aunt.
‘Your respectful cousin and servant,
‘PHILIP HEPBURN.
‘P.S. The sermon was grand. The text was Zechariah vii. 9, “Execute true judgment and show mercy.” God grant it may have put mercy into the judge’s heart as is to try my uncle.’
Heavily the days passed over. On Sunday Bell and Sylvia went to church, with a strange, half-superstitious feeling, as if they could propitiate the Most High to order the events in their favour by paying Him the compliment of attending to duties in their time of sorrow which they had too often neglected in their prosperous days.
But He ‘who knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust,’ took pity upon His children, and sent some of His blessed peace into their hearts, else they could scarce have endured the agony of suspense of those next hours. For as they came slowly and wearily home from church, Sylvia could no longer bear her secret, but told her mother of the peril in which Daniel stood. Cold as the March wind blew, they had not felt it, and had sate down on a hedge bank for Bell to rest. And then Sylvia spoke, trembling and sick for fear, yet utterly unable to keep silence any longer. Bell heaved up her hands, and let them fall down on her knees before she replied.
‘The Lord is above us,’ said she, solemnly. ‘He has sent a fear o’ this into my heart afore now. I niver breathed it to thee, my lass — — ’
‘And I niver spoke on it to thee, mother, because — — ’
Sylvia choked with crying, and laid her head on her mother’s lap, feeling that she was no longer the strong one, and the protector, but the protected. Bell went on, stroking her head,
‘The Lord is like a tender nurse as weans a child to look on and to like what it lothed once. He has sent me dreams as has prepared me for this, if so be it comes to pass.
‘Philip is hopeful,’ said Sylvia, raising her head and looking through her tears at her mother.
‘Ay, he is. And I cannot tell, but I think it’s not for nought as the Lord has ta’en away all fear o’ death out o’ my heart. I think He means as Daniel and me is to go hand-in-hand through the valley — like as we walked up to our wedding in Crosthwaite Church. I could never guide th’ house without Daniel, and I should be feared he’d take a deal more nor is good for him without me.’
‘But me, mother, thou’s forgetting me,’ moaned out Sylvia. ‘Oh, mother, mother, think on me!’
‘Nay, my lass, I’m noane forgetting yo’. I’d a sore heart a’ last winter a-thinking on thee, when that chap Kinraid were hanging about thee. I’ll noane speak ill on the dead, but I were uneasylike. But sin’ Philip and thee seem to ha’ made it up — — ’
Sylvia shivered, and opened her mouth to speak, but did not say a word.
‘And sin’ the Lord has been comforting me, and talking to me many a time when thou’s thought I were asleep, things has seemed to redd theirselves up, and if Daniel goes, I’m ready to follow. I could niver stand living to hear folks say he’d been hung; it seems so unnatural and shameful.’
‘But, mother, he won’t! — he shan’t be hung!’ said Sylvia, springing to her feet. ‘Philip says he won’t.’
Bell shook her head. They walked on, Sylvia both disheartened and almost irritated at her mother’s despondency. But before they went to bed at night Bell said things which seemed as though the morning’s feelings had been but temporary, and as if she was referring every decision to the period of her husband’s return. ‘When father comes home,’ seemed a sort of burden at the beginning or end of every sentence, and this reliance on his certain coming back to them was almost as great a trial to Sylvia as the absence of all hope had been in the morning. But that instinct told her that her mother was becoming incapable of argument, she would have asked her why her views were so essentially changed in so few hours. This inability of reason in poor Bell made Sylvia feel very desolate.
Monday passed over — how, neither of them knew, for neither spoke of what was filling the thoughts of both. Before it was light on Tuesday morning, Bell was astir.
‘It’s very early, mother,’ said weary, sleepy Sylvia, dreading returning consciousness.
‘Ay, lass!’ said Bell, in a brisk, cheerful tone; ‘but he’ll, maybe, be home to-night, and I’se bound to have all things ready for him.’
‘Anyhow,’ said Sylvia, sitting up in bed, ‘he couldn’t come home to-night.’
‘Tut, lass! thou doesn’t know how quick a man comes home to wife and child. I’ll be a’ ready at any rate.’
She hurried about in a way which Sylvia wondered to see; till at length she fancied that perhaps her mother did so to drive away thought. Every place was cleaned; there was scarce time allowed for breakfast; till at last, long before mid-day, all the work was done, and the two sat down to their spinning-wheels. Sylvia’s spirits sank lower and lower at each speech of her mother’s, from whose mind all fear seemed to have disappeared, leaving only a strange restless kind of excitement.
‘It’s time for t’ potatoes,’ said Bell, after her wool had snapped many a time from her uneven tread.
‘Mother,’ said Sylvia, ‘it’s but just gone ten!’
‘Put ‘em on,’ said Bell, without attending to the full meaning of her daughter’s words. ‘It’ll, maybe, hasten t’ day on if we get dinner done betimes.’
‘But Kester is in t’ Far Acre field, and he’ll not be home till noon.’
This seemed to settle matters for a while; but then Bell pushed her wheel away, and began searching for her hood and cloak. Sylvia found them for her, and then asked sadly —
‘What does ta want ‘em for, mother?’
‘I’ll go up t’ brow and through t’ field, and just have a look down t’ lane.’
‘I’ll go wi’ thee,’ said Sylvia, feeling all the time the uselessness of any looking for intelligence from York so early in the day. Very patiently did she wait by her mother’s side during the long half-hour which Bell spent in gazing down the road for those who never came.
When they got home Sylvia put the potatoes on to boil; but when dinner was ready and the three were seated at the dresser, Bell pushed her plate away from her, saying it was so long after dinner time that she was past eating. Kester would have said something about its being only half-past twelve, but Sylvia gave him a look beseeching silence, and he went on with his dinner without a word, only brushing away the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand from time to time.
‘A’ll noane go far fra’ home t’ rest o’ t’ day,’ said he, in a whisper to Sylvia, as he went out.
‘Will this day niver come to an end?’ cried Bell, plaintively.
‘Oh, mother! it’ll come to an end some time, never fear. I’ve heerd say — “Be the day weary or be the day long, At length it ringeth to even-song.”‘
‘To even-song — to even-song,’ repeated Bell. ‘D’ye think now that even-song means death, Sylvie?’
‘I cannot tell — I cannot bear it. Mother,’ said Sylvia, in despair, ‘I’ll make some clap-bread: that’s a heavy job, and will while away t’ afternoon.’
‘Ay, do!’ replied the mother. ‘He’ll like it fresh — he’ll like it fresh.’
Murmuring and talking to herself, she fell into a doze, from which Sylvia was careful not to disturb her.
The days were now getting long, although as cold as ever; and at Haytersbank Farm the light lingered, as there was no near horizon to bring on early darkness. Sylvia had all ready for her m
other’s tea against she wakened; but she slept on and on, the peaceful sleep of a child, and Sylvia did not care to waken her. Just after the sun had set, she saw Kester outside the window making signs to her to come out. She stole out on tip-toe by the back-kitchen, the door of which was standing open. She almost ran against Philip, who did not perceive her, as he was awaiting her coming the other way round the corner of the house, and who turned upon her a face whose import she read in an instant. ‘Philip!’ was all she said, and then she fainted at his feet, coming down with a heavy bang on the round paving stones of the yard.
‘Kester! Kester!’ he cried, for she looked like one dead, and with all his strength the wearied man could not lift her and carry her into the house.
With Kester’s help she was borne into the back-kitchen, and Kester rushed to the pump for some cold water to throw over her.
While Philip, kneeling at her head, was partly supporting her in his arms, and heedless of any sight or sound, the shadow of some one fell upon him. He looked up and saw his aunt; the old dignified, sensible expression on her face, exactly like her former self, composed, strong, and calm.
‘My lass,’ said she, sitting down by Philip, and gently taking her out of his arms into her own. ‘Lass, bear up! we mun bear up, and be agait on our way to him, he’ll be needing us now. Bear up, my lass! the Lord will give us strength. We mun go to him; ay, time’s precious; thou mun cry thy cry at after!’
Sylvia opened her dim eyes, and heard her mother’s voice; the ideas came slowly into her mind, and slowly she rose up, standing still, like one who has been stunned, to regain her strength; and then, taking hold of her mother’s arm, she said, in a soft, strange voice —
‘Let’s go. I’m ready.’
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE ORDEAL
It was the afternoon of an April day in that same year, and the sky was blue above, with little sailing white clouds catching the pleasant sunlight. The earth in that northern country had scarcely yet put on her robe of green. The few trees grew near brooks running down from the moors and the higher ground. The air was full of pleasant sounds prophesying of the coming summer. The rush, and murmur, and tinkle of the hidden watercourses; the song of the lark poised high up in the sunny air; the bleat of the lambs calling to their mothers — everything inanimate was full of hope and gladness.
For the first time for a mournful month the front door of Haytersbank Farm was open; the warm spring air might enter, and displace the sad dark gloom, if it could. There was a newly-lighted fire in the unused grate; and Kester was in the kitchen, with his clogs off his feet, so as not to dirty the spotless floor, stirring here and there, and trying in his awkward way to make things look home-like and cheerful. He had brought in some wild daffodils which he had been to seek in the dawn, and he placed them in a jug on the dresser. Dolly Reid, the woman who had come to help Sylvia during her mother’s illness a year ago, was attending to something in the back-kitchen, making a noise among the milk-cans, and singing a ballad to herself as she worked; yet every now and then she checked herself in her singing, as if a sudden recollection came upon her that this was neither the time nor the place for songs. Once or twice she took up the funeral psalm which is sung by the bearers of the body in that country —
Our God, our help in ages past.
But it was of no use: the pleasant April weather out of doors, and perhaps the natural spring in the body, disposed her nature to cheerfulness, and insensibly she returned to her old ditty.
Kester was turning over many things in his rude honest mind as he stood there, giving his finishing touches every now and then to the aspect of the house-place, in preparation for the return of the widow and daughter of his old master.
It was a month and more since they had left home; more than a fortnight since Kester, with three halfpence in his pocket, had set out after his day’s work to go to York — to walk all night long, and to wish Daniel Robson his last farewell.
Daniel had tried to keep up and had brought out one or two familiar, thread-bare, well-worn jokes, such as he had made Kester chuckle over many a time and oft, when the two had been together afield or in the shippen at the home which he should never more see. But no ‘Old Grouse in the gunroom’ could make Kester smile, or do anything except groan in but a heart-broken sort of fashion, and presently the talk had become more suitable to the occasion, Daniel being up to the last the more composed of the two; for Kester, when turned out of the condemned cell, fairly broke down into the heavy sobbing he had never thought to sob again on earth. He had left Bell and Sylvia in their lodging at York, under Philip’s care; he dared not go to see them; he could not trust himself; he had sent them his duty, and bade Philip tell Sylvia that the game-hen had brought out fifteen chickens at a hatch.
Yet although Kester sent this message through Philip — although he saw and recognized all that Philip was doing in their behalf, in the behalf of Daniel Robson, the condemned felon, his honoured master — he liked Hepburn not a whit better than he had done before all this sorrow had come upon them.
Philip had, perhaps, shown a want of tact in his conduct to Kester. Acute with passionate keenness in one direction, he had a sort of dull straightforwardness in all others. For instance, he had returned Kester the money which the latter had so gladly advanced towards the expenses incurred in defending Daniel. Now the money which Philip gave him back was part of an advance which Foster Brothers had made on Philip’s own account. Philip had thought that it was hard on Kester to lose his savings in a hopeless cause, and had made a point of repaying the old man; but Kester would far rather have felt that the earnings of the sweat of his brow had gone in the attempt to save his master’s life than have had twice ten times as many golden guineas.
Moreover, it seemed to take his action in lending his hoard out of the sphere of love, and make it but a leaden common loan, when it was Philip who brought him the sum, not Sylvia, into whose hands he had given it.
With these feelings Kester felt his heart shut up as he saw the long-watched-for two coming down the little path with a third person; with Philip holding up the failing steps of poor Bell Robson, as, loaded with her heavy mourning, and feeble from the illness which had detained her in York ever since the day of her husband’s execution, she came faltering back to her desolate home. Sylvia was also occupied in attending to her mother; one or twice, when they paused a little, she and Philip spoke, in the familiar way in which there is no coyness nor reserve. Kester caught up his clogs, and went quickly out through the back-kitchen into the farm-yard, not staying to greet them, as he had meant to do; and yet it was dull-sighted of him not to have perceived that whatever might be the relations between Philip and Sylvia, he was sure to have accompanied them home; for, alas! he was the only male protector of their blood remaining in the world. Poor Kester, who would fain have taken that office upon himself, chose to esteem himself cast off, and went heavily about the farmyard, knowing that he ought to go in and bid such poor welcome as he had to offer, yet feeling too much to like to show himself before Philip.
It was long, too, before any one had leisure to come and seek him. Bell’s mind had flashed up for a time, till the fatal day, only to be reduced by her subsequent illness into complete and hopeless childishness. It was all Philip and Sylvia could do to manage her in the first excitement of returning home; her restless inquiry for him who would never more be present in the familiar scene, her feverish weariness and uneasiness, all required tender soothing and most patient endurance of her refusals to be satisfied with what they said or did.
At length she took some food, and, refreshed by it, and warmed by the fire, she sank asleep in her chair. Then Philip would fain have spoken with Sylvia before the hour came at which he must return to Monkshaven, but she eluded him, and went in search of Kester, whose presence she had missed.
She had guessed some of the causes which kept him from greeting them on their first return. But it was not as if she had shaped these causes into the defin
ite form of words. It is astonishing to look back and find how differently constituted were the minds of most people fifty or sixty years ago; they felt, they understood, without going through reasoning or analytic processes, and if this was the case among the more educated people, of course it was still more so in the class to which Sylvia belonged. She knew by some sort of intuition that if Philip accompanied them home (as, indeed, under the circumstances, was so natural as to be almost unavoidable), the old servant and friend of the family would absent himself; and so she slipped away at the first possible moment to go in search of him. There he was in the farm-yard, leaning over the gate that opened into the home-field, apparently watching the poultry that scratched and pecked at the new-springing grass with the utmost relish. A little farther off were the ewes with their new-dropped lambs, beyond that the great old thorn-tree with its round fresh clusters of buds, again beyond that there was a glimpse of the vast sunny rippling sea; but Sylvia knew well that Kester was looking at none of these things. She went up to him and touched his arm. He started from his reverie, and turned round upon her with his dim eyes full of unshed tears. When he saw her black dress, her deep mourning, he had hard work to keep from breaking out, but by dint of a good brush of his eyes with the back of his hand, and a moment’s pause, he could look at her again with tolerable calmness.
‘Why, Kester: why didst niver come to speak to us?’ said Sylvia, finding it necessary to be cheerful if she could.
Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell Page 204
