Masters of the Novella

by Delphi Classics

  ‘I will go to-night. Activity and readiness go a long way in our profession. Remember that, my boy! I hope I shall come back, but if I don’t, be sure and recollect all the words of wisdom that have fallen from my lips. Now where’s the portmanteau? If I can gain half an hour for a gathering up of my things in Eltham, so much the better. I’m clear of debt anyhow; and what I owe for my lodgings you can pay for me out of my quarter’s salary, due November 4th.’

  ‘Then you don’t think you will come back?’ I said, despondingly.

  ‘I will come back some time, never fear,’ said he, kindly. ‘I may be back in a couple of days, having been found in-competent for the Canadian work; or I may not be wanted to go out so soon as I now anticipate. Anyhow you don’t suppose I am going to forget you, Paul this work out there ought not to take me above two years, and, perhaps, after that, we may be employed together again.’ Perhaps! I had very little hope. The same kind of happy days never returns. However, I did all I could in helping him: clothes, papers, books, instruments; how we pushed and struggled — how I stuffed. All was done in a much shorter time than we had calculated upon, when I had run down to the sheds to order the engine. I was going to drive him to Eltham. We sate ready for a summons. Holdsworth took up the little nosegay that he had brought away from the Hope Farm, and had laid on the mantel-piece on first coming into the room. He smelt at it, and caressed it with his lips.

  ‘What grieves me is that I did not know — that I have not said good-bye to — to them.’

  He spoke in a grave tone, the shadow of the coming separation falling upon him at last.

  ‘I will tell them,’ said I. ‘I am sure they will be very sorry.’ Then we were silent.

  ‘I never liked any family so much.’

  ‘I knew you would like them.’

  ‘How one’s thoughts change, — this morning I was full of a hope, Paul.’ He paused, and then he said, —

  ‘You put that sketch in carefully?’

  ‘That outline of a head?’ asked I. But I knew he meant an abortive sketch of Phillis, which had not been successful enough for him to complete it with shading or colouring.

  ‘Yes. What a sweet innocent face it is! and yet so — Oh, dear!’ He sighed and got up, his hands in his pockets, to walk up and down the room in evident disturbance of mind. He suddenly stopped opposite to me.

  ‘You’ll tell them how it all was. Be sure and tell the good minister that I was so sorry not to wish him good-bye, and to thank him and his wife for all their kindness. As for Phillis, — please God in two years I’ll be back and tell her myself all in my heart.’

  ‘You love Phillis, then?’ said I.

  ‘Love her! Yes, that I do. Who could help it, seeing her as I have done? Her character as unusual and rare as her beauty! God bless her! God keep her in her high tranquillity, her pure innocence. — Two years! It is a long time. — But she lives in such seclusion, almost like the sleeping beauty, Paul,’ — (he was smiling now, though a minute before I had thought him on the verge of tears,)— ‘but I shall come back like a prince from Canada, and waken her to my love. I can’t help hoping that it won’t be difficult, eh, Paul?’

  This touch of coxcombry displeased me a little, and I made no answer. He went on, half apologetically, —

  ‘You see, the salary they offer me is large; and beside that, this experience will give me a name which will entitle me to expect a still larger in any future undertaking.’

  ‘That won’t influence Phillis.’

  ‘No! but it will make me more eligible in the eyes of her father and mother.’ I made no answer.

  ‘You give me your best wishes, Paul,’ said he, almost pleading. ‘You would like me for a cousin?’

  I heard the scream and whistle of the engine ready down at the sheds.

  ‘Ay, that I should,’ I replied, suddenly softened towards my friend now that he was going away. ‘I wish you were to be married to-morrow, and I were to be best man.’

  ‘Thank you, lad. Now for this cursed portmanteau (how the minister would be shocked); but it is heavy!’ and off we sped into the darkness. He only just caught the night train at Eltham, and I slept, desolately enough, at my old lodgings at Miss Dawsons’, for that night. Of course the next few days I was busier than ever, doing both his work and my own. Then came a letter from him, very short and affectionate. He was going out in the Saturday steamer, as he had more than half expected; and by the following Monday the man who was to succeed him would be down at Eltham. There was a P.S., with only these words:— ‘My nosegay goes with me to Canada, but I do not need it to remind me of Hope Farm.’

  Saturday came; but it was very late before I could go out to the farm. It was a frosty night, the stars shone clear above me, and the road was crisping beneath my feet. They must have heard my footsteps before I got up to the house. They were sitting at their usual employments in the house-place when I went in. Phillis’s eyes went beyond me in their look of welcome, and then fell in quiet disappointment on her work.

  ‘And where’s Mr Holdsworth?’ asked cousin Holman, in a minute or two. ‘I hope his cold is not worse, — I did not like his short cough.’

  I laughed awkwardly; for I felt that I was the bearer of unpleasant news.

  ‘His cold had need be better — for he’s gone — gone away to Canada!’

  I purposely looked away from Phillis, as I thus abruptly told my news.

  ‘To Canada!’ said the minister.

  ‘Gone away!’ said his wife. But no word from Phillis.

  ‘Yes!’ said I. ‘He found a letter at Hornby when we got home the other night — when we got home from here; he ought to have got it sooner; he was ordered to go up to London directly, and to see some people about a new line in Canada, and he’s gone to lay it down; he has sailed to-day. He was sadly grieved not to have time to come out and wish you all good-by; but he started for London within two hours after he got that letter. He bade me thank you most gratefully for all your kindnesses; he was very sorry not to come here once again.’ Phillis got up and left the room with noiseless steps.

  ‘I am very sorry,’ said the minister.

  ‘I am sure so am I!’ said cousin Holman. ‘I was real fond of that lad ever since I nursed him last June after that bad fever.’

  The minister went on asking me questions respecting Holdsworth’s future plans; and brought out a large old-fashioned atlas, that he might find out the exact places between which the new railroad was to run. Then supper was ready; it was always on the table as soon as the clock on the stairs struck eight, and down came Phillis — her face white and set, her dry eyes looking defiance to me, for I am afraid I hurt her maidenly pride by my glance of sympathetic interest as she entered the room. Never a word did she say — never a question did she ask about the absent friend, yet she forced herself to talk.

  And so it was all the next day. She was as pale as could be, like one who has received some shock; but she would not let me talk to her, and she tried hard to behave as usual. Two or three times I repeated, in public, the various affectionate messages to the family with which I was charged by Holdsworth; but she took no more notice of them than if my words had been empty air. And in this mood I left her on the Sabbath evening.

  My new master was not half so indulgent as my old one. He kept up strict discipline as to hours, so that it was some time before I could again go out, even to pay a call at the Hope Farm.

  It was a cold misty evening in November. The air, even indoors, seemed full of haze; yet there was a great log burning on the hearth, which ought to have made the room cheerful. Cousin Holman and Phillis were sitting at the little round table before the fire, working away in silence. The minister had his books out on the dresser, seemingly deep in study, by the light of his solitary candle; perhaps the fear of disturbing him made the unusual stillness of the room. But a welcome was ready for me from all; not noisy, not demonstrative — that it never was; my damp wrappers were taken off; the next meal was hastened, and a c
hair placed for me on one side of the fire, so that I pretty much commanded a view of the room. My eye caught on Phillis, looking so pale and weary, and with a sort of aching tone (if I may call it so) in her voice. She was doing all the accustomed things — fulfilling small household duties, but somehow differently — I can’t tell you how, for she was just as deft and quick in her movements, only the light spring was gone out of them. Cousin Holman began to question me; even the minister put aside his books, and came and stood on the opposite side of the fire-place, to hear what waft of intelligence I brought. I had first to tell them why I had not been to see them for so long — more than five weeks. The answer was simple enough; business and the necessity of attending strictly to the orders of a new superintendent, who had not yet learned trust, much less indulgence. The minister nodded his approval of my conduct, and said,— ‘Right, Paul! “Servants, obey in all things your master according to the flesh.” I have had my fears lest you had too much licence under Edward Holdsworth.’

  ‘Ah,’ said cousin Holman, ‘poor Mr Holdsworth, he’ll be on the salt seas by this time!’

  ‘No, indeed,’ said I, ‘he’s landed. I have had a letter from him from Halifax.’ Immediately a shower of questions fell thick upon me. When? How? What was he doing? How did he like it? What sort of a voyage? &c.

  ‘Many is the time we have thought of him when the wind was blowing so hard; the old quince-tree is blown down, Paul, that on the right-hand of the great pear-tree; it was blown down last Monday week, and it was that night that I asked the minister to pray in an especial manner for all them that went down in ships upon the great deep, and he said then, that Mr Holdsworth might be already landed; but I said, even if the prayer did not fit him, it was sure to be fitting somebody out at sea, who would need the Lord’s care. Both Phillis and I thought he would be a month on the seas.’ Phillis began to speak, but her voice did not come rightly at first. It was a little higher pitched than usual, when she said, —

  ‘We thought he would be a month if he went in a sailing-vessel, or perhaps longer. I suppose he went in a steamer?’

  ‘Old Obadiah Grimshaw was more than six weeks in getting to America,’ observed cousin Holman.

  ‘I presume he cannot as yet tell how he likes his new work?’ asked the minister.

  ‘No! he is but just landed; it is but one page long. I’ll read it to you, shall I? —

  ‘“Dear Paul, — We are safe on shore, after a rough passage. Thought you would like to hear this, but homeward-bound steamer is making signals for letters. Will write again soon. It seems a year since I left Hornby. Longer since I was at the farm. I have got my nosegay safe. Remember me to the Holmans. — Yours, E. H.”’

  ‘That’s not much, certainly,’ said the minister. ‘But it’s a comfort to know he’s on land these blowy nights.’

  Phillis said nothing. She kept her head bent down over her work; but I don’t think she put a stitch in, while I was reading the letter. I wondered if she understood what nosegay was meant; but I could not tell. When next she lifted up her face, there were two spots of brilliant colour on the cheeks that had been so pale before. After I had spent an hour or two there, I was bound to return back to Hornby. I told them I did not know when I could come again, as we — by which I mean the company — had undertaken the Hensleydale line; that branch for which poor Holdsworth was surveying when he caught his fever.

  ‘But you’ll have a holiday at Christmas,’ said my cousin. ‘Surely they’ll not be such heathens as to work you then?’

  ‘Perhaps the lad will be going home,’ said the minister, as if to mitigate his wife’s urgency; but for all that, I believe he wanted me to come. Phillis fixed her eyes on me with a wistful expression, hard to resist. But, indeed, I had no thought of resisting. Under my new master I had no hope of a holiday long enough to enable me to go to Birmingham and see my parents with any comfort; and nothing could be pleasanter to me than to find myself at home at my cousins’ for a day or two, then. So it was fixed that we were to meet in Hornby Chapel on Christmas Day, and that I was to accompany them home after service, and if possible to stay over the next day.

  I was not able to get to chapel till late on the appointed day, and so I took a seat near the door in considerable shame, although it really was not my fault. When the service was ended, I went and stood in the porch to await the coming out of my cousins. Some worthy people belonging to the congregation clustered into a group just where I stood, and exchanged the good wishes of the season. It had just begun to snow, and this occasioned a little delay, and they fell into further conversation. I was not attending to what was not meant for me to hear, till I caught the name of Phillis Holman. And then I listened; where was the harm?

  ‘I never saw any one so changed!’

  ‘I asked Mrs Holman,’ quoth another, ‘“Is Phillis well?” and she just said she had been having a cold which had pulled her down; she did not seem to think anything of it.’

  ‘They had best take care of her,’ said one of the oldest of the good ladies; ‘Phillis comes of a family as is not long-lived. Her mother’s sister, Lydia Green, her own aunt as was, died of a decline just when she was about this lass’s age.’

  This ill-omened talk was broken in upon by the coming out of the minister, his wife and daughter, and the consequent interchange of Christmas compliments. I had had a shock, and felt heavy-hearted and anxious, and hardly up to making the appropriate replies to the kind greetings of my relations. I looked askance at Phillis. She had certainly grown taller and slighter, and was thinner; but there was a flush of colour on her face which deceived me for a time, and made me think she was looking as well as ever. I only saw her paleness after we had returned to the farm, and she had subsided into silence and quiet. Her grey eyes looked hollow and sad; her complexion was of a dead white. But she went about just as usual; at least, just as she had done the last time I was there, and seemed to have no ailment; and I was inclined to think that my cousin was right when she had answered the inquiries of the good-natured gossips, and told them that Phillis was suffering from the consequences of a bad cold, nothing more. I have said that I was to stay over the next day; a great deal of snow had come down, but not all, they said, though the ground was covered deep with the white fall. The minister was anxiously housing his cattle, and preparing all things for a long continuance of the same kind of weather. The men were chopping wood, sending wheat to the mill to be ground before the road should become impassable for a cart and horse. My cousin and Phillis had gone up-stairs to the apple-room to cover up the fruit from the frost. I had been out the greater part of the morning, and came in about an hour before dinner. To my surprise, knowing how she had planned to be engaged, I found Phillis sitting at the dresser, resting her head on her two hands and reading, or seeming to read. She did not look up when I came in, but murmured something about her mother having sent her down out of the cold. It flashed across me that she was crying, but I put it down to some little spirt of temper; I might have known better than to suspect the gentle, serene Phillis of crossness, poor girl; I stooped down, and began to stir and build up the fire, which appeared to have been neglected. While my head was down I heard a noise which made me pause and listen — a sob, an unmistakable, irrepressible sob. I started up.

  ‘Phillis!’ I cried, going towards her, with my hand out, to take hers for sympathy with her sorrow, whatever it was. But she was too quick for me, she held her hand out of my grasp, for fear of my detaining her; as she quickly passed out of the house, she said, —

  ‘Don’t, Paul! I cannot bear it!’ and passed me, still sobbing, and went out into the keen, open air.

  I stood still and wondered. What could have come to Phillis? The most perfect harmony prevailed in the family, and Phillis especially, good and gentle as she was, was so beloved that if they had found out that her finger ached, it would have cast a shadow over their hearts. Had I done anything to vex her? No: she was crying before I came in. I went to look at her book — one of
those unintelligible Italian books. I could make neither head nor tail of it. I saw some pencil-notes on the margin, in Holdsworth’s handwriting.

  Could that be it? Could that be the cause of her white looks, her weary eyes, her wasted figure, her struggling sobs? This idea came upon me like a flash of lightning on a dark night, making all things so clear we cannot forget them afterwards when the gloomy obscurity returns. I was still standing with the book in my hand when I heard cousin Holman’s footsteps on the stairs, and as I did not wish to speak to her just then, I followed Phillis’s example, and rushed out of the house. The snow was lying on the ground; I could track her feet by the marks they had made; I could see where Rover had joined her. I followed on till I came to a great stack of wood in the orchard — it was built up against the back wall of the outbuildings, — and I recollected then how Phillis had told me, that first day when we strolled about together, that underneath this stack had been her hermitage, her sanctuary, when she was a child; how she used to bring her book to study there, or her work, when she was not wanted in the house; and she had now evidently gone back to this quiet retreat of her childhood, forgetful of the clue given me by her footmarks on the new-fallen snow. The stack was built up very high; but through the interstices of the sticks I could see her figure, although I did not all at once perceive how I could get to her. She was sitting on a log of wood, Rover by her. She had laid her cheek on Rover’s head, and had her arm round his neck, partly for a pillow, partly from an instinctive craving for warmth on that bitter cold day. She was making a low moan, like an animal in pain, or perhaps more like the sobbing of the wind. Rover, highly flattered by her caress, and also, perhaps, touched by sympathy, was flapping his heavy tail against the ground, but not otherwise moving a hair, until he heard my approach with his quick erected ears. Then, with a short, abrupt bark of distrust, he sprang up as if to leave his mistress. Both he and I were immovably still for a moment. I was not sure if what I longed to do was wise: and yet I could not bear to see the sweet serenity of my dear cousin’s life so disturbed by a suffering which I thought I could assuage. But Rover’s ears were sharper than my breathing was noiseless: he heard me, and sprang out from under Phillis’s restraining hand.