SHEEP-SHEARING.
Ba, Ba, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes, Master, that I have,--
Three bags full.
Lady Henley had always piqued herself upon a certain superiority to
emotion of every kind,--youth, love, sorrow had seemed to her ridiculous
things for many years. This winter, however, had changed the little
wooden woman and brought her grief and anxiety, and revealed secrets to
her that she had never guessed before. Often the very commonest facts of
life are not facts, only sounds, until they have been lived. One can't
listen to happiness, or love, or sorrow--one must have been some things
in order to understand others. Lady Henley married somewhat late in
life--soberly, without romance. Until then, her horse, her dog, her
partner at the last ball, had been objects of about equal interest. She
had always scouted all expressions of feeling. She had but little
experience; and coldness of heart comes more often from ignorance than
from want of kindness or will to sympathise.
Sometimes the fire of adversity warms a cold heart, and then the story
is not all sorrowful. The saddest story is that of some ice-bound souls,
whom the very fires of adversity cannot reach. Poor Dolly sometimes felt
the chill when Philippa, unconscious of the stab, would say something,
do some little thing, that brought a flush of pain into her daughter's
cheek.
The girl would not own it to herself, but there is a whole life
reluctant as well as a life consenting. The involuntary words, the
thoughts we would not think, the things we would not do, and those that
we do not love, are among the strongest influences of our lives. Dolly
at this time found herself thinking many things she would gladly have
left unthought, hoping things sometimes that she hated herself for
hoping, indifferent to others that all those round about her seemed to
imagine of most consequence, and that she tried in vain to care for too.
When Philippa began to recover from her first burst of hysteric grief,
her spirits seemed to revive. They were enough to overwhelm Dolly at
times, for she had inherited her mother's impressionability, and at the
same time her father's somewhat morbid fidelity.
Lady Henley's dislike to her sister-in-law made her clear-sighted as to
what was going on, and she tried in many ways to shield the girl from
her mother's displeasure and incessant worry of recrimination. With a
view to Jonah's possible interest, she had regretted Dolly's decision
not to dispute the will as much as Mrs. Palmer herself, but she could
not see her worried.
'Philippa is really too bad,' she said one day. 'Thomas, can't you do
something--send for some one--suggest something?'
Sir Thomas meekly suggested Robert Henley.
'The very last person I should wish to see,' cried Lady Henley, sharply.
'Bell, did you ever know your father understand anything one said to
him?'
Lady Henley's concern was relieved without Sir Thomas's assistance.
Before the end of the winter Mrs. Palmer had left Henley Court and
firmly established herself at Paris. Dolly remained behind. It was
Philippa's arrangement, and Dolly had been glad to agree to her cousins'
eager proposal that she should stay on at Henley for a time. Nobody
quite knew how it had happened, except, indeed, that Philippa had
intended it all along; and she now wrote in raptures with the climate,
so different from what they had been enduring in Yorkshire. But Joanna
did not care for climate--her Palmer constitution was not susceptible to
the influence of atmosphere.
All through that sad winter Dolly stayed on in Yorkshire. Their kindness
was unwearied. Then, when the snow began to melt at last, the heavy
clouds of winter to lighten, when the spring began to dawn, and the
summer sun and the sweet tones of natural things to thrill and stir the
world to life, Dolly, too, began to breathe again; she could not enjoy
all this beauty, but it comforted her, nevertheless.
The silence of the country was very tranquillising and quieting. She had
come like a tired child, sad and over-wearied. Mother Nature was hushing
her off to sleep at last. She spent long mornings in the meadows down by
the river; sometimes her cousins took her for walks across the moors,
but to Dolly they seemed more like birds than human beings, and she had
not strength for their ten-mile flights.
'You know what our life is,' she wrote to Robert, 'and I need not
describe it. I try to help my uncle a little of a morning. I go out
driving with my aunt, or into the village of an afternoon with Norah;
the wind comes cutting through the trees by the lodge-gate--all the
roads are heavy with snow. Everything seems very cold and
sad--everything except their kindness, which I shall never forget.
Yesterday Aunt Joanna kissed me, and looked at me so kindly that I found
myself crying suddenly. Dear Robert, she showed me the letter you wrote
her. I cannot help saying one word about that one word in it in which
you speak of your doubting that I wish for your return. Why do you say
such things or think such unjust thoughts of me? Your return is the one
bright spot in my life just now. Did I not tell you so when you went
away? If I have ever failed, even loved you less than you wished, scold
me, dear Robert, as I am scolding you now, and I will love you the more
for it. You and I can understand, but it is hard to explain, even to my
aunt, how things stand between us. I trust you utterly, and I am quite
content to leave my fate to you.'
She sat writing by the fire on her knee as she warmed herself by the
embers. She paused once or twice and looked into the flame with her
sweet dreamy eyes. Where do people travel to as they sit quietly
dreaming and warming their feet at the fire? What long, aimless journeys
into other countries, into other hearts! What strange starts and
returns! Dolly finds herself by the little well in Kensington Gardens,
and some one is there, who says things in a strange voice that thrills
as Robert's never did. Does he call her his Rachel? Is love a chord? It
had seemed to her one single note until Frank Raban had spoken. Is this
Robert who is saying that she is the one only woman in all the world for
him? Dolly blushes a burning blush of shame all alone as she sits in the
twilight when she discovers of what she had been thinking.
'What are you burning, Dolly?' said her aunt, coming in.
It was her letter that Dolly had thrown into the fire. It had seemed to
her false somehow, and yet she wrote another to the same effect next
day.
Mr. Anley was going to Paris, and Dolly was to go with him. On the last
day before she left her uncle took her for a drive. He had business
beyond Pebblesthwaite, and while he went into a house Dolly wandered on
through an open gate, and by a little path that led across a field to a
stream and a great bleating and barking and rushing of waters. It was
early spring. As she came round by the bridge she saw a penned crowd of
sheep, a stout farmer in gaiters was flinging them one by one into the
river, they splashed and struggled in vain; a man stood up to his waist
in the midst of the stream dowsing the poor gentle creatures one by one,
as they swam past. The stream dashed along the narrow gully. The dogs
were barking in great excitement. The sheep went in black and came out
white and fleecy and flurried, scrambling to land. Young Farmer Rhodes
stood watching the process mounted on his beautiful mare; James Brand,
with the lurcher in a leash, had also stopped for a moment. He looked up
with his kind blue eyes at Dolly as she crossed the bridge, and stood
watching the rural scene. The hedges and the river banks were quivering
with coming spring, purple buds and green leaves, and life suddenly
rising out of silent moors. James Brand came up to where Dolly was
standing. He stood silent for an instant, then he spoke in his soft
Yorkshire tones:
'T' ship doan't like it,' he said. 'T' water's cold and deep, poor
things. 'Tis not t' ship aloan has to be dipped oft-times and washed in
t' waters of affliction,' moralised James, who attended at the chapel
sometimes.
Just then Sir Thomas came up. He knew James Brand and Farmer Tanner too;
he had come to buy some of these very sheep that were now struggling in
the water; and he turned and walked on with Tanner towards the little
farm. Dolly would not go in, she preferred waiting outside. All the
flowers were bursting into blaze again in the pretty garden. Geraniums
coming out in the window, ribes and lilies, dandies, early pansies,
forget-me-nots, bachelor's buttons, all the homely garland of cottage
flowers was flung there. Beyond the walls were the chimneys of a house
showing among the trees. Some men were working and chopping wood. The
red leaves of last winter's frost still hung to the branches. Brand was
coming and going with his dog at his heels, and he stopped again, seeing
Dolly standing alone; she had some curious interest for him. She had
rallied that day from a long season of silent depression. The spring
birds seemed to be singing to her, the grass seemed to spread green and
soft for her feet, the incense to be scenting the high air; it was a
sweet and fresh and voiceful stillness coming after noise and sorrow and
confusion of heart. The farmer's garden was half flower, half kitchen
garden; against one wall, rainbowed with moss and weather stains,
clustered the blossom of a great crop of future autumn fruits; the
cabbages stood in rows marshalled and glistening too. The moors were
also shining, and the birds whistling in the air.
'Dolly,' said Sir Thomas, coming out fussily, 'I find Raban is expected
immediately. I will go up to the house and leave a note for him. I
thought you had been here before,' said Sir Thomas, as Dolly opened her
eyes. This then was Ravensrick.
The worthy baronet was not above a condescending gossip with James
Brand, as they walked up to the house. The number of men employed, the
cottages, the schoolmaster's increase of salary. 'Nice old place,' Sir
Thomas said, looking round: then he went on--
'We must have a lady at Ravensrick some of these days.'
'Wall,' said old Brand, 'he were caught in t' net once, Sir Thomas; 'tis
well nigh eno' to make a yong man wary. They laid their toils for
others, as ye know, but others were sharper than he----'
'Yes, yes; what a very pretty view,' said Sir Thomas, hastily pointing
to a moor upon which a great boulder of rock was lying.
'That is t' crag,' said Brand: 'there's a watter-fo' beyond. I ca' that
romantic; Mr. Frank were nigh killed as a boy fallin' fra t' side.... I
have known him boy and man,' the old fellow went on, with unusual
expansion, striking his gun against a felled tree; 'none could be more
fair and honourable than my ma-aster; people slandered him and lied to
t' Squire, but Mr. Fra-ank scorned to take mean adva-antage o' silly
women, and they made prey of him....' They had reached the garden by
this time, where old Mrs. Raban used to take her daily yards of walking
exercise, and where the old Squire used to sun himself hour after hour.
The ragged green leaves of the young chestnuts were coming out, and the
red blossoms of the sycamore, and the valley was full of light and
blending green. But the house looked dark and closed, only one window
was open. It was the library window, and Sir Thomas walked in to write
his note. And Dolly followed, looking round and about; she thought to
herself that she was glad to have come--glad to have heard the old
keeper's kindly praise of his young master. Frank must be her friend
always, even though she never saw him again. The manner of his life and
the place of it could never be indifferent to her. But she must never
see him again, never think of him, if she could help it.
The door opened suddenly, and Dolly started from the place where she had
been standing; it was only Becky of the beacon head, who had come in to
ask if anything was wanted.
'We must be off,' said Sir Thomas; 'my compliments to Mr. Raban and this
note. Tell him we hope to see him as soon as he can conveniently come
over. Your poor Aunt is very anxious always,' he said to Dolly in an
explanatory voice, and then he stepped out through the window again,
where Brand was still waiting.
Dolly looked back once as she left the room. 'Good-by,' she said in her
most secret heart. 'Good-by, forgive me if I have ever wronged you.' As
she went out, her dress caught in the window, and with an impatient,
hurried movement she stooped and disentangled it.
As they were driving off again, Sir Thomas complacently announced that
the works at Medmere were certainly a failure. 'One would not think so
from his manner; but Raban is a most incautious man,' said he; 'we must
come again when you come back to us, Dolly. Perhaps a certain traveller
will be home by then,' he added, good-naturedly.
'I shall be gone before Mr. Raban comes back,' said Dolly.
'Robert--Robert. I was speaking of Robert, of course,' said Sir Thomas,
pulling at the reins.
Dolly blushed crimson as she stooped to look for a glove that she had
dropped. That night again she awoke suddenly in a strange agony of shame
for her involuntary slip. It seemed to reveal her own secret heart, from
which she fain would fly; she had promised to be true, and she was not
false, but was this being true?
What is it that belongs to a woman of a right, inalienably, as to a man
probity, or a high-minded sense of honour--is it for women, womanliness
and the secret rectitude of self-respect? My poor Dolly felt suddenly as
if even this last anchor had failed, and for a cruel dark hour she lay
sobbing on her pillow. Then in the dawn she fell asleep.