inevitably break down unless I could have rest. I went on until
February, Johnny, and then it came. I had to give up my situation; and
since then I have been dangerously ill from another source--chest and
lungs."
"I did not know your lungs were weak, Mr. Marks."
"I'm sure I did not," he said, after a fit of coughing. "I had one
attack in January through catching a cold. Then I caught another cold,
and you see the result: the doctor hardly saved me. I never was subject
to take cold before. I suppose the fact is that when a man breaks down
in one way he gets weak in all, and is more liable to other ailments."
"I hope you will get better as the warm weather comes on. We shall soon
have it here."
"Better of this cough, perhaps: I don't know: but not better yet of my
true illness that I think most of--the overtaxed nerves and brain. Oh,
if I could only have taken a sufficient rest in time!"
"Mr. Todhetley said you ought to have stayed with us for three months.
He says it often still."
"I believe," he said, solemnly lifting his hand, "that if I could have
had entire rest then for two or three months, it would have set me up
for life. Heaven hears me say it."
And what a dreadful thing it now seemed that he had not!
"I don't repine. My lot seems a hard one, and I sometimes feel sick and
weary when I dwell upon it. I have tried to do my duty: I could but keep
on and work, as God knows. There was no other course open to me."
I supposed there was not.
"I am no worse off than many others, Johnny. There are men breaking down
every day from incessant application and want of needful rest. Well for
them if their hearts don't break with it!"
And, to judge by the tone he spoke in, it was as much as to say that his
heart had broken.
"I am beginning to dwell less on it now," he went on. "Perhaps it is
that I am too weak to feel so keenly. Or that Christ's words are being
indeed realized to me: 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest.' God does not forsake us in our
trouble, Johnny, once we have learnt to turn to Him."
Mrs. Marks came into the room with the cup of arrowroot. The boy had
run down to tell her I was there. She was very pleasant and cheerful:
you could be at home with her at once. While he was waiting for the
arrowroot to cool, he leant back in his chair and dropped into a doze.
"It must have been a frightful cold that he caught," I whispered to her.
"It was caught the day he went into the City to tell Mr. Brown he must
give up his situation," she answered. "There's an old saying, of being
penny wise and pound foolish, and that's what poor James was that day.
It was a fine morning when he started; but rain set in, and when he left
Mr. Brown it was pouring, and the streets were wet. He ought to have
taken a cab, but did not, and waited for an omnibus. The first that
passed was full; by the time another came he had got wet and his feet
were soaking. That brought on a return of the illness he had had in
January."
"I hope he will get well."
"It lies with God," she answered.
They made me promise to go again. "Soon, Johnny, soon," said Mr. Marks
with an eagerness that was suggestive. "Come in the afternoon and have
some tea with me."
I had meant to obey literally and go in a day or two; but one thing or
other kept intervening, and a week or ten days passed. One Wednesday
Miss Deveen was engaged to a dinner-party, and I took the opportunity to
go to Pimlico. It was a stormy afternoon, blowing great guns one minute,
pouring cats and dogs the next. Mrs. Marks was alone in the parlour, the
tea-things on the table before her.
"We thought you had forgotten us," she said in a half-whisper, shaking
hands. "But this is the best time you could have come; for a kind
neighbour has invited all the children in for the evening, and we shall
be quiet. James is worse."
"Worse!"
"At least, weaker. He cannot sit up long now without great fatigue. He
lay down on the bed an hour ago and has dropped asleep," she added,
indicating the next room. "I am waiting for him to awake before I make
the tea."
He awoke then: the cough betrayed it. She went into the room, and
presently he came back with her. No doubt he was worse! my heart sank at
seeing him. If he had looked like a skeleton before, he was like a
skeleton's ghost now.
"Ah, Johnny! I knew you would come."
I told him how it was I had not been able to come before, going into
details. It seemed to amuse him to hear of the engagements, and I
described Helen Whitney's Court dress as well as I could--and Lady
Whitney's--and the servants' great bouquets--and the ball at night. He
ate one bit of thin toast and drank three big cups of tea. Mrs. Marks
said he was always thirsty.
After tea he had a violent fit of coughing and thought he must lie down
to rest for a bit. Mrs. Marks came back and sat with me.
"I hope he will get well," I could not help saying to her.
She shook her head. "I fear he has not much hope of it himself," she
answered. "Only yesterday I heard him tell Willy--that--that God would
take care of them when he was gone."
She could hardly speak the last words, and broke down with a sob. I
wished I had not said anything.
"He has great trust, but things trouble him very much," she resumed.
"Nothing else can be expected, for he knows that our means are almost
spent."
"It must trouble you also, Mrs. Marks."
"I seem to have so much to trouble me that I dare not dwell upon it. I
pray not to, every hour of the day. If I gave way, what would become of
them?"
At dark she lighted the candles and drew down the blinds. Just after
that, there came a tremendous knock at the front-door, loud and long.
"Naughty children," she exclaimed. "It must be they."
"I'll go; don't you stir, Mrs. Marks."
I opened the door, and a rush of wind and rain seemed to blow in an old
gentleman. He never said a word to me, but went banging into the parlour
and sank down on a chair out of breath.
"Papa!" exclaimed Mrs. Marks. "Papa!"
"Wait till I get up my speech, my dear," said the old gentleman. "She is
gone."
"Who is gone!" cried Mrs. Marks.
"_She._ I don't want to say too much against her now she's gone,
Caroline; but she _is_ gone. She had a bad fall downstairs in a tipsy
fit some days ago, striking her head on the flags, and the doctors could
do nothing for her. She died this morning, poor soul; and I am coming
to live with you and James, if you will have me. We shall all be so
comfortable together, my dear."
Perhaps Mrs. Marks remembered at once what it implied--that the pressure
of poverty was suddenly lifted and she and those dear ones would be at
ease for the future. She bent her head in her hands for a minute or two,
keeping silence.
"Your husband shall have rest now, my dear, and all that he needs. So
will you, Caroline."
It had come too late. James Marks died in May.
* * * * *
It was about three or four years afterwards that we saw the death of Mr.
Brown in the _Times_. The newspapers made a flourish of trumpets over
him; saying he had died worth two hundred thousand pounds.
"There must be something wrong somewhere, Johnny," remarked the Squire,
in a puzzle. "_I_ should not like to die worth all that money, and know
that I had worked my clerks to the bone to get it together. I wonder how
he will like meeting poor Marks in the next world?"
XVIII.
REALITY OR DELUSION?
This is a ghost story. Every word of it is true. And I don't mind
confessing that for ages afterwards some of us did not care to pass
the spot alone at night. Some people do not care to pass it yet.
It was autumn, and we were at Crabb Cot. Lena had been ailing; and in
October Mrs. Todhetley proposed to the Squire that they should remove
with her there, to see if the change would do her good.
We Worcestershire people call North Crabb a village; but one might count
the houses in it, little and great, and not find four-and-twenty. South
Crabb, half a mile off, is ever so much larger; but the church and
school are at North Crabb.
John Ferrar had been employed by Squire Todhetley as a sort of
overlooker on the estate, or working bailiff. He had died the previous
winter; leaving nothing behind him except some debts; for he was not
provident; and his handsome son Daniel. Daniel Ferrar, who was rather
superior as far as education went, disliked work: he would make a show
of helping his father, but it came to little. Old Ferrar had not put
him to any particular trade or occupation, and Daniel, who was as
proud as Lucifer, would not turn to it himself. He liked to be a
gentleman. All he did now was to work in his garden, and feed his
fowls, ducks, rabbits, and pigeons, of which he kept a great quantity,
selling them to the houses around and sending them to market.
But, as every one said, poultry would not maintain him. Mrs. Lease, in
the pretty cottage hard by Ferrar's, grew tired of saying it. This Mrs.
Lease and her daughter, Maria, must not be confounded with Lease the
pointsman: they were in a better condition of life, and not related to
him. Daniel Ferrar used to run in and out of their house at will when a
boy, and he was now engaged to be married to Maria. She would have a
little money, and the Leases were respected in North Crabb. People began
to whisper a query as to how Ferrar got his corn for the poultry: he
was not known to buy much; and he would have to go out of his house at
Christmas, for its owner, Mr. Coney, had given him notice. Mrs. Lease,
anxious about Maria's prospects, asked Daniel what he intended to do
then, and he answered, "Make his fortune: he should begin to do it as
soon as he could turn himself round." But the time was going on, and the
turning round seemed to be as far off as ever.
After Midsummer, a niece of the schoolmistress's, Miss Timmens, had come
to the school to stay: her name was Harriet Roe. The father, Humphrey
Roe, was half-brother to Miss Timmens. He had married a Frenchwoman, and
lived more in France than in England until his death. The girl had been
christened Henriette; but North Crabb, not understanding much French,
converted it into Harriet. She was a showy, free-mannered, good-looking
girl, and made speedy acquaintance with Daniel Ferrar; or he with her.
They improved upon it so rapidly that Maria Lease grew jealous, and
North Crabb began to say he cared for Harriet more than for Maria. When
Tod and I got home the latter end of October, to spend the Squire's
birthday, things were in this state. James Hill, the bailiff who had
been taken on by the Squire in John Ferrar's place (but a far inferior
man to Ferrar; not much better, in fact, than a common workman, and of
whose doings you will hear soon in regard to his little step-son, David
Garth) gave us an account of matters in general. Daniel Ferrar had been
drinking lately, Hill added, and his head was not strong enough to stand
it; and he was also beginning to look as if he had some care upon him.
"A nice lot, he, for them two women to be fighting for," cried Hill, who
was no friend to Ferrar. "There'll be mischief between 'em if they don't
draw in a bit. Maria Lease is next door to mad over it, I know; and
t'other, finding herself the best liked, crows over her. It's something
like the Bible story of Leah and Rachel, young gents, Dan Ferrar likes
the one, and he's bound by promise to the t'other. As to the French
jade," concluded Hill, giving his head a toss, "she'd make a show
of liking any man that followed her, she would; a dozen of 'em on a
string."
It was all very well for surly Hill to call Daniel Ferrar a
"nice lot," but he was the best-looking fellow in church on Sunday
morning--well-dressed too. But his colour seemed brighter; and his
hands shook as they were raised, often, to push back his hair, that
the sun shone upon through the south-window, turning it to gold. He
scarcely looked up, not even at Harriet Roe, with her dark eyes roving
everywhere, and her streaming pink ribbons. Maria Lease was pale, quiet,
and nice, as usual; she had no beauty, but her face was sensible, and
her deep grey eyes had a strange and curious earnestness. The new parson
preached, a young man just appointed to the parish of Crabb. He went in
for great observances of Saints' days, and told his congregation that
he should expect to see them at church on the morrow, which would be the
Feast of All Saints.
Daniel Ferrar walked home with Mrs. Lease and Maria after service, and
was invited to dinner. I ran across to shake hands with the old dame,
who had once nursed me through an illness, and promised to look in and
see her later. We were going back to school on the morrow. As I turned
away, Harriet Roe passed, her pink ribbons and her cheap gay silk dress
gleaming in the sunlight. She stared at me, and I stared back again. And
now, the explanation of matters being over, the real story begins. But I
shall have to tell some of it as it was told by others.
The tea-things waited on Mrs. Lease's table in the afternoon; waited for
Daniel Ferrar. He had left them shortly before to go and attend to his
poultry. Nothing had been said about his coming back for tea: that he
would do so had been looked upon as a matter of course. But he did not
make his appearance, and the tea was taken without him. At half-past
five the church-bell rang out for evening service, and Maria put her
things on. Mrs. Lease did not go out at night.
"You are starting early, Maria. You'll be in church before other
people."
"That won't matter, mother."
A jealous suspicion lay on Maria--that the secret of Daniel Ferrar's
absence was his having fallen in with Harriet Roe: perhaps had gone of
his own accord to seek her. She walked slowly along. The gloom of dusk,
and a deep dusk, had stolen over the evening, but the moon would be up
later. As Maria passed the school-house, she halted to glance in at the
little sitting-room window: the shutters were not closed yet, and the
room was lighted by the blazing fire. Harriet was not there. She only
saw Miss Timmens, the mistress, who was putting on her bonnet before a
hand-glass propped upright on the mantel-piece. Without warning, Miss
Timmens turned and threw open the window. It was only for the purpose of
pulling-to the shutters, but Maria thought she must have been observed,
and spoke.
"Good evening, Miss Timmens."
"Who is it?" cried out Miss Timmens, in answer, peering into the dusk.
"Oh, it's you, Maria Lease! Have you seen anything of Harriet? She went
off somewhere this afternoon, and never came in to tea."
"I have not seen her."
"She's gone to the Batleys', I'll be bound. She knows I don't like her
to be with the Batley girls: they make her ten times flightier than she
would otherwise be."
Miss Timmens drew in her shutters with a jerk, without which they would
not close, and Maria Lease turned away.
"Not at the Batleys', not at the Batleys', but with _him_," she cried,
in bitter rebellion, as she turned away from the church. From the
church, not to it. Was Maria to blame for wishing to see whether she
was right or not?--for walking about a little in the thought of meeting
them? At any rate it is what she did. And had her reward; such as it
was.
As she was passing the top of the withy walk, their voices reached her
ear. People often walked there, and it was one of the ways to South
Crabb. Maria drew back amidst the trees, and they came on: Harriet Roe
and Daniel Ferrar, walking arm-in-arm.
"I think I had better take it off," Harriet was saying. "No need to
invoke a storm upon my head. And that would come in a shower of hail
from stiff old Aunt Timmens."
The answer seemed one of quick accent, but Ferrar spoke low. Maria Lease
had hard work to control herself: anger, passion, jealousy, all blazed
up. With her arms stretched out to a friendly tree on either side,--with
her heart beating,--with her pulses coursing on to fever-heat, she
watched them across the bit of common to the road. Harriet went one way
then; he another, in the direction of Mrs. Lease's cottage. No doubt to
fetch her--Maria--to church, with a plausible excuse of having been
detained. Until now she had had no proof of his falseness; had never
perfectly believed in it.
She took her arms from the trees and went forward, a sharp faint cry of
despair breaking forth on the night air. Maria Lease was one of those
silent-natured girls who can never speak of a wrong like this. She had
to bury it within her; down, down, out of sight and show; and she went
into church with her usual quiet step. Harriet Roe with Miss Timmens
came next, quite demure, as if she had been singing some of the infant
scholars to sleep at their own homes. Daniel Ferrar did not go to church
at all: he stayed, as was found afterwards, with Mrs. Lease.
Maria might as well have been at home as at church: better perhaps that
she had been. Not a syllable of the service did she hear: her brain was
a sea of confusion; the tumult within it rising higher and higher. She
did not hear even the text, "Peace, be still," or the sermon; both so
singularly appropriate. The passions in men's minds, the preacher said,
raged and foamed just like the angry waves of the sea in a storm, until
Jesus came to still them.
I ran after Maria when church was over, and went in to pay the promised
visit to old Mother Lease. Daniel Ferrar was sitting in the parlour. He
got up and offered Maria a chair at the fire, but she turned her back
and stood at the table under the window, taking off her gloves. An open
Bible was before Mrs. Lease: I wondered whether she had been reading
aloud to Daniel.
"What was the text, child?" asked the old lady.
No answer.
"Do you hear, Maria! What was the text?"
Maria turned at that, as if suddenly awakened. Her face was white; her
eyes had in them an uncertain terror.
"The text?" she stammered. "I--I forget it, mother. It was from Genesis,
I think."
"Was it, Master Johnny?"
"It was from the fourth chapter of St. Mark, 'Peace, be still.'"
Mrs. Lease stared at me. "Why, that is the very chapter I've been
reading. Well now, that's curious. But there's never a better in the
Bible, and never a better text was taken from it than those three words.
I have been telling Daniel here, Master Johnny, that when once that
peace, Christ's peace, is got into the heart, storms can't hurt us much.
And you are going away again to-morrow, sir?" she added, after a pause.
"It's a short stay?"
I was not going away on the morrow. Tod and I, taking the Squire in a
genial moment after dinner, had pressed to be let stay until Tuesday,
Tod using the argument, and laughing while he did it, that it must
be wrong to travel on All Saints' Day, when the parson had specially
enjoined us to be at church. The Squire told us we were a couple of
encroaching rascals, and if he did let us stay it should be upon
condition that we did go to church. This I said to them.
"He may send you all the same, sir, when the morning comes," remarked
Daniel Ferrar.
"Knowing Mr. Todhetley as you do Ferrar, you may remember that he never
breaks his promises."
Daniel laughed. "He grumbles over them, though, Master Johnny."
"Well, he may grumble to-morrow about our staying, say it is wasting
time that ought to be spent in study, but he will not send us back until
Tuesday."
Until Tuesday! If I could have foreseen then what would have happened
before Tuesday! If all of us could have foreseen! Seen the few hours
between now and then depicted, as in a mirror, event by event! Would it
have saved the calamity, the dreadful sin that could never be redeemed?
Why, yes; surely it would. Daniel Ferrar turned and looked at Maria.
"Why don't you come to the fire?"
"I am very well here, thank you."
She had sat down where she was, her bonnet touching the curtain. Mrs.
Lease, not noticing that anything was wrong, had begun talking about
Lena, whose illness was turning to low fever, when the house door opened
and Harriet Roe came in.
"What a lovely night it is!" she said, taking of her own accord the
chair I had not cared to take, for I kept saying I must go. "Maria, what
went with you after church? I hunted for you everywhere."
Maria gave no answer. She looked black and angry; and her bosom heaved
as if a storm were brewing. Harriet Roe slightly laughed.
"Do you intend to take holiday to-morrow, Mrs. Lease?"
"Me take holiday! what is there in to-morrow to take holiday for?"
returned Mrs. Lease.
"I shall," continued Harriet, not answering the question: "I have been
used to it in France. All Saints' Day is a grand holiday there; we go to
church in our best clothes, and pay visits afterwards. Following it,
like a dark shadow, comes the gloomy Jour des Morts."
"The what?" cried Mrs. Lease, bending her ear.
"The day of the dead. All Souls' Day. But you English don't go to the
cemeteries to pray."
Mrs. Lease put on her spectacles, which lay upon the open pages of the
Bible, and stared at Harriet. Perhaps she thought they might help her to
understand. The girl laughed.
"On All Souls' Day, whether it be wet or dry, the French cemeteries are
full of kneeling women draped in black; all praying for the repose of
their dead relatives, after the manner of the Roman Catholics."
Daniel Ferrar, who had not spoken a word since she came in, but sat with
his face to the fire, turned and looked at her. Upon which she tossed
back her head and her pink ribbons, and smiled till all her teeth were
seen. Good teeth they were. As to reverence in her tone, there was none.
"I have seen them kneeling when the slosh and wet have been ankle-deep.
Did you ever see a ghost?" added she, with energy. "The French believe
that the spirits of the dead come abroad on the night of All Saints'
Day. You'd scarcely get a French woman to go out of her house after
dark. It is their chief superstition."
"What _is_ the superstition?" questioned Mrs. Lease.
"Why, _that_," said Harriet. "They believe that the dead are allowed to
revisit the world after dark on the Eve of All Souls; that they hover in
the air, waiting to appear to any of their living relatives, who may
venture out, lest they should forget to pray on the morrow for the rest
of their souls."[2]
[2] A superstition obtaining amongst some of the lower orders
in France.
"Well, I never!" cried Mrs. Lease, staring excessively. "Did you ever
hear the like of that, sir?" turning to me.
"Yes; I have heard of it."
Harriet Roe looked up at me; I was standing at the corner of the
mantel-piece. She laughed a free laugh.
"I say, wouldn't it be fun to go out to-morrow night, and meet the
ghosts? Only, perhaps they don't visit this country, as it is not under
Rome."
"Now just you behave yourself before your betters, Harriet Roe," put in
Mrs. Lease, sharply. "That gentleman is young Mr. Ludlow of Crabb Cot."
"And very happy I am to make young Mr. Ludlow's acquaintance," returned
easy Harriet, flinging back her mantle from her shoulders. "How hot your
parlour is, Mrs. Lease."
The hook of the cloak had caught in a thin chain of twisted gold that
she wore round her neck, displaying it to view. She hurriedly folded her
cloak together, as if wishing to conceal the chain. But Mrs. Lease's
spectacles had seen it.
"What's that you've got on, Harriet? A gold chain?"
A moment's pause, and then Harriet Roe flung back her mantle again,
defiance upon her face, and touched the chain with her hand.
"That's what it is, Mrs. Lease: a gold chain. And a very pretty one,
too."
"Was it your mother's?"
"It was never anybody's but mine. I had it made a present to me this
afternoon; for a keepsake."
Happening to look at Maria, I was startled at her face, it was so white
and dark: white with emotion, dark with an angry despair that I for
one did not comprehend. Harriet Roe, throwing at her a look of saucy
triumph, went out with as little ceremony as she had come in, just
calling back a general good night; and we heard her footsteps outside
getting gradually fainter in the distance. Daniel Ferrar rose.
"I'll take my departure too, I think. You are very unsociable to-night,
Maria."
"Perhaps I am. Perhaps I have cause to be."
She flung his hand back when he held it out; and in another moment, as
if a thought struck her, ran after him into the passage to speak. I,
standing near the door in the small room, caught the words.
"I must have an explanation with you, Daniel Ferrar. Now. To-night. We
cannot go on thus for a single hour longer."
"Not to-night, Maria; I have no time to spare. And I don't know what you
mean."
"You do know. Listen. I will not go to my rest, no, though it were for
twenty nights to come, until we have had it out. I _vow_ I will not.
There. You are playing with me. Others have long said so, and I know it
now."