AWAKE.
In his dream, a pale frightened face approached him slowly, and
recoiling uttered a cry. The scream was horribly prolonged as the
figure receded. He thought he recognised some one--dead or living he
could not say--in the strange, Grecian face, fixed as marble, that with
enormous eyes, had looked into his.
With this sound ringing in his ears he awoke. As is the case with
other over-fatigued men, on whom, at length, slumber has seized, he
was for a time in the attitude of wakefulness before his senses and
his recollection were thoroughly aroused, and his dream quite
dissipated. Another long shriek, and another, and another, he heard.
Charles recognised, he fancied, his wife’s voice. Scared, and wide
awake, he ran from the room--to the foot of the stairs--up the stairs.
A tread of feet he heard in the room, and the door violently shaken,
and another long, agonized scream.
Over this roof and around it is the serenest and happiest night. The
brilliant moon, the dark azure and wide field of stars make it a night
for holy thoughts, and lovers’ vigils, so tender and beautiful. There
is no moaning night-wind, not even a rustle in the thick ivy. The
window gives no sound, except when the gray moth floating in its
shadow taps softly on the pane. You can hear the leaf that drops of
itself from the tree-top, and flits its way from bough to spray to the
ground.
Even in that gentle night there move, however, symbols of guilt and
danger. While the small birds, with head under wing, nestle in their
leafy nooks, the white owl glides with noiseless wing, a murderous
phantom, cutting the air. The demure cat creeps on and on softly as a
gray shadow till its green eyes glare close on its prey. Nature, with
her gentleness and cruelty, her sublimity and meanness, resembles that
microcosm, the human heart, in which lodge so many contrarieties, and
the shabby contends with the heroic, the diabolic with the angelic.
In this still night Alice’s heart was heavy. Who can account for those
sudden, silent, but terrible changes in the spiritual vision which
interpose as it were a thin coloured medium between ourselves and the
realities that surround us--how all objects, retaining their outlines,
lose their rosy glow and golden lights, and on a sudden fade into
dismallest gray and green?
“Dulcibella, do you think he’s coming? Oh! Dulcibella, do you think
he’ll come to-night?”
“He may, dear. Why shouldn’t he? Lie down, my child, and don’t be
sitting up in your bed so. You’ll never go asleep while you’re
listening and watching. Nothing but fidgets, and only the wider awake
the longer you watch. _Well_ I know it, and many a long hour I laid
awake myself expectin’ and listenin’ for poor Crane a comin’ home with
the cart from market, long ago. He had his failin’s--as who has not?
poor Crane--but an honest man, and good-natured, and would not hurt a
fly, and never a wry word out of his mouth, exceptin’, maybe, one or
two, which he never meant them, when he was in liquor, as who is
there, Miss Ally, will not be sometimes? But he was a kind, handsome
fellow, and sore was my heart when he was taken,” and Dulcibella wiped
her eyes. “Seven-and-twenty years agone last Stephen’s Day I buried
him in Wyvern Churchyard, and I tried to keep the little business
agoin’, but I couldn’t make it pay nohow, and when it pleased God to
take my little girl six years after, I gave all up and went to live at
the vicarage. But as I was sayin’, miss, many a long hour I sat up a
watchin’ for my poor Crane on his way home. He would sometimes stop a
bit on the way, wi’ a friend or two, at the Cat and Fiddle--’twas the
only thing I could ever say wasn’t quite as I could a’ liked in my
poor Crane. And that’s how I came to serve your good mother, miss, and
your poor father, the good vicar o’ Wyvern--there’s not been none like
him since, not one--no, indeed.”
“You remember mamma very well?”
“Like yesterday, miss,” said old Dulcibella, who often answered that
question. “Like yesterday, the pretty lady. She always looked so
pleasant, too--a smiling face, like the light of the sun coming into a
room.”
“I wonder, Dulcibella, there was no picture.”
“No picture. No, miss. Well, ye see, Miss Ally, dear, them pictures,
I’m told, costs a deal o’ money, and they were only beginnin’ you
know, and many a little expense--and Wyvern Vicarage is a small
livelihood at best, and ye must be managin’ if ye’d keep it--and good
to the poor they was with all that, and gave what many a richer one
wouldn’t, and never spared trouble for them; they counted nothin’
trouble for no one. They loved all, and lived to one another, not a
wry word ever; what one liked t’other loved, and all in the light o’
God’s blessin’. I never seen such a couple, never; they doted on one
another, and loved all, and they two was like one angel.”
“Lady Wyndale has a picture of poor mamma--very small--what they call
a miniature. I think it quite beautiful. It was taken when she was not
more than seventeen. Lady Wyndale, you know, was ever so much older
than mamma.”
“Ay, so she was, ten year and more, I dare say,” answered Dulcibella.
“She is very fond of it--too fond to give it to me now; but she says,
kind aunt, she has left it to me in her will. And oh! Dulcibella, I
feel so lonely.”
“Lonely! why should you, darling, wi’ a fine handsome gentleman to
your husband, that will be squire o’ Wyvern--think o’ that--squire o’
Wyvern, and that’s a greater man than many a lord in Parliament; and
he’s good-natured, never a hard word or a skew look, always the same
quiet way wi’ him. Hoot, miss! ye mustn’t be talkin’ that way. Think
o’ the little baby that’s a comin’. Ye won’t know yourself for joy
when ye see his face, please God, and I’m a longin’ to show him to
ye.”
“You good old Dulcibella,” said the young lady, and her eyes filled
with tears as she smiled. “But poor mamma died when I was born, and
oh, Dulcibella, do you think I shall ever see the face of the poor
little thing? Oh! wouldn’t it be sad! wouldn’t it be sad!”
“Ye’re not to be talkin’ that nonsense, darling; ’tis sinful, wi’ all
that God has given you, a comfortable house over your head, and enough
to eat, and good friends, and a fine, handsome husband that’s kind to
you, and a blessed little child a comin’ to make every minute pleasant
to all that’s in the house. Why, ’tis a sin to be frettin’ like that,
and as for this thing or that thing, or being afeard, why, everyone’s
afeard, if they’d let themselves, and not one in a thousand comes by
any harm; and ’tis sinful, I tell ye, for ye know well ye’re in the
hands o’ the good God that’s took care o’ ye till now, and took ye out
o’ the little nursery o’ Wyvern Vicarage, when ye weren’t the length
o’ my arm, and not a friend near but poor, foolish, old Dulcibella,
that did not know where to turn. And your aunt, that only went out as
poor as your darling mamma, brought home well again from t’other end
o’ the world, and well to do, your own loving kith and kin, and good
friends raised up on every side, and the old squire, Harry o’ Wyvern,
although he be a bit angered for a while he’s another good friend,
that will be sure to make it up, whatever it is came between him and
Master Charles. Hot blood’s not the worst blood; better a blow in
haste and a shake hands after than a smile at the lips and no goodwill
wi’ it. I tell you, they’re not the worst, they hot-headed,
hard-fisted, out-spoken folk; and I’ll never forget that day to him,
when he brought you home that had no home, and me that was thinkin’ o’
nout but the workhouse. So do or say what he will, God bless him for
that day, say I, for ’twas an angel’s part he did,” said old
Dulcibella.
“So I feel, God knows; so I feel,” said Alice, “and I hope it may all
be made up; I’m sure it will; and, oh! Dulcibella, I have been the
cause of so much sorrow and bitterness!”
She stopped suddenly, her eyes full of tears; but she restrained them.
“That’s the way ye’ll always be talking. I’d like to know where they’d
be without you. Every man that marries will have care, more or less;
’tis the will o’ God; and if he hadn’t he’d never think o’ Him; and
’tis a short life at the longest, and a sore pilgrimage at the best.
So what He pleases to lay on us we must even bear wi’ a patient heart,
if we can’t wi’ a cheerful; for wi’ his blessin’ ’twill all end well.”
“Amen,” said Alice, with a cheerier smile but a load still at her
heart; “I hope so, my good old Dulcibella. What should I do without
you? _Wait!_ hush! Is that a noise outside? No; I thought I heard a
horse’s tread, but there’s nothing. It’s too late now; there’s no
chance of him to-night. Do you think, Dulcibella, there is any
chance?”
“Well, no, my dear; it’s gettin’ on too late--a deal too late; no, no,
we must even put that clean out of our heads. Ye’ll not get a wink o’
sleep if you be listening for him. Well I know them fidgets, and many
a time I lay on my hot ear--now this side, now that, listening, till I
could count the veins o’ my head beating like a watch, and myself only
wider and wider awake every hour, and more fool I; and well and hearty
home wi’ him, time enough, and not a minute sooner for all my
watching. And mind ye, what I often told ye when ye were a wee thing,
and ye’ll find it true to the end o’ your days--a watch-pot never
boils.”
Alice laughed gently.
“I believe you are right, Dulcibella. No, he won’t come to-night. It
was only a chance, and I might have known. But, perhaps, to-morrow?
Don’t you think to-morrow?”
“Very like, like enough, to-morrow--daylight, mayhap to breakfast--why
not?” she answered.
“Well, I do think he may; he said, perhaps to-night, and I know, I’m
sure he’ll think how his poor wife is watching and longing to see him;
and, as you advise, I’ll put that quite out of my head; he has so many
things to look after, and he only said _perhaps_; and you think in the
morning. Well, I won’t let myself think so, it would be too
delightful; I won’t think it. But it can’t be many days, I’m
sure--and--I won’t keep you up any longer, dear old Dulcibella. I’ve
been very selfish. So, good-night.”
And they kissed, as from little Allie’s infancy they had always done,
before settling for the night.
“Good-night, and God love it; it mustn’t be frettin’, and God bless
you, my darling Miss Allie; and you must get to sleep, or you’ll be
looking so pale and poor in the morning, he won’t know you when he
comes.”
So, with another hug and a kiss they parted, and old Dulcibella
leaving her young mistress’s candle burning on the table, as was her
wont, being nervous when she was alone, and screened from her eyes by
the curtain, with a final good-night and another blessing she closed
the door.
Is there ever an unreserved and complete confidence after marriage?
Even to kind old Dulcibella she could not tell all. As she smiled a
little farewell on the faithful old soul her heart was ready to burst.
She was longing for a good cry all to herself, and now, poor little
thing, she had it.
She cried herself, as children do, to sleep.
An hour later the old grange was silent as the neighbouring churchyard
of Carwell. But there was not a household in the parish, or in the
county, I suppose, many of whose tenants, at that late hour, were so
oddly placed.
In his chair in the oak-panelled room, downstairs, sat Charles
Fairfield, in that slumber of a tormented and exhausted brain, which
in its first profound submersion, resembles the torpor of apoplexy.
In his forsaken room lay on the pillow the pale face of his young
wife, her eyelashes not yet dry, fallen asleep in the sad illusion of
his absence--better, perhaps, than his presence would have been, if
she had known but all.
In her crib downstairs, at last asleep, lay the frightened Lilly
Dogger, her head still under the coverlet, under which she had popped
it in panic, as she thought on the possible return of the tall
unknown, and the lobe of her ear still flaming from the discipline of
her vice-like pinch.
Under his slanting roof, in the recess of the staircase, with only his
coat off, stretched on the broad of his back, with one great horny
hand half shut under his bullet head, and the other by his side,
snored honest Tom, nothing the less soundly for his big mug of beer
and his excursion to Cressley Common.
For a moment now we visit the bedside of good old Dulcibella. An easy
conscience, a good digestion, and an easy place in this troublesome
world, are favourable to sound slumbers, and very tranquilly she
slept, with a large handkerchief pinned closely about her innocent
bald head, and a night-cap of many borders outside it. Her thick,
well-thumbed Bible, in which she read some half-dozen verses every
night, lay, with her spectacles upon its cover, on the table by the
brass candlestick.
Mildred Tarnley, a thin figure with many corners, lay her length in
her clothes, her old brown stuff gown her cap and broad faded ribbons
binding her busy head, and her darned black worsted stockings still on
her weary feet, ready at call to jump up, pop her feet again into her
misshapen shoes, and resume her duties.
In her own solitary chamber, at the deserted side of the house, the
tall stranger, arrayed in a white woollen night-dress, lay her length,
not stirring.
After Mildred Tarnley had got herself stiffly under her quilt, she was
visited with certain qualms about this person, recollections of her
abhorred activity and energy in old times, and fears that the “grim
white woman” was not resting in her bed. This apprehension grew so
intense that, tired as she was, she could not sleep. The suspicion
that, bare-footed, listening, that dreadful woman was possibly groping
her way through the house made her heart beat faster and faster.
At last she could bear it no longer, and up she got, lighted her
candle with a match, and in her stockings glided softly through the
passage, and by the room where Charles Fairfield was at that time at
his letters.
He recognised the step to which his ear was accustomed, and did not
trouble himself to inquire what she was about.
So, softly, softly, softly--Mildred Tarnley found herself at the door
of the unwelcome guest and listened. You would not have supposed old
Mildred capable of a nervous tremble, but she was profoundly afraid of
this awful woman, before whose superior malignity and unearthly energy
her own temper and activity quailed. She listened, but could hear no
evidence of her presence. Was the woman there at all? Lightly,
lightly, with her nail, she tapped at the door. No answer. Then very
softly she tried the door. It was secured.
But was the old soldier in the room still, or wandering about the
house with who could fathom what evil purpose in her head?
The figure in white woollen was there still; she had been lying on her
side, with her pale features turned toward the door as Mildred
approached. Her blind eyes were moving in their sockets--there was a
listening smile on her lips--and she had turned her neck awry to get
her ear in the direction of the door. She was just as wide awake as
Mildred herself.
Mildred watched for a time at the door, irresolute. Excuse enough, she
bethought her, in the feeble state in which she had left her, had she
for making her a visit. Why should she not open the door boldly and
enter? But Mildred, in something worse than solitude, was growing more
and more nervous. What if that tall, insane miscreant were waiting at
the door, in a fit of revenge for her suspected perfidy, ready to
clutch her by the throat as she opened it, and to strangle her on the
bed? And when there came from the interior of the room a weary
bleating “heigh-ho!” she absolutely bounced backward, and for a moment
froze with terror.
She took a precaution as she softly withdrew. The passage, which is
terminated by the “old soldier’s” room, passes a dressing-room on the
left, and then opens, on the other side, upon a lobby. This door is
furnished with a key, and having secured it, Mrs. Tarnley, with that
key in her pocket, felt that she had pretty well imprisoned that evil
spirit, and returned to her own bed more serenely, and was soon lost
in slumber.