Another life and a changed world! What small matters sometimes bring
about that sudden disenchantment! Two or three words exchanged without
much thought--one figure disappearing out of the landscape--and, lo! all
the prismatic colours have faded from the horizon, and blank daylight
glares upon startled eyes! Nettie had not, up to this time, entertained
a suspicion of how distinct a place the doctor held in her limited
firmament--she was totally unaware how much exhilaration and support
there was in his troubled, exasperated, impatient admiration. Now, all
at once, she found it out. It was the same life, yet it was different.
Her occupations were unchanged, her surroundings just what they used to
be. She had still to tolerate Fred, to manage Susan, to superintend with
steady economy all the expenditure of the strange little household.
The very rooms and aspect of everything was the same; yet had she been
suddenly transported back again to the Antipodes, life could not have
been more completely changed to Nettie. She recognised it at once with
some surprise, but without any struggle. The fact was too clearly apparent
to leave her in any doubt. Nobody but herself had the slightest insight
into the great event which had happened--nobody could know of it, or
offer Nettie any sympathy in that unforeseen personal trial. In her
youth and buoyant freshness, half contemptuous of the outside troubles
which were no match for her indomitable heart, Nettie had been fighting
against hard external circumstances for a great part of her valorous
little life, and had not hesitated to take upon herself the heaviest
burdens of outside existence. Such struggles are not hard when one's
heart is light and sound. With a certain splendid youthful scorn of all
these labours and drudgeries, Nettie had gone on her triumphant way,
wearing her bonds as if they were ornaments. Suddenly, without any
premonition, the heart had died out of her existence. A personal blow,
striking with subtle force into that unseen centre of courage and hope,
had suddenly disabled Nettie. She said not a word on the subject to any
living creature--if she shed any tears over it, they were dropped in
the darkness, and left no witness behind; but she silently recognised
and understood what had happened to her. It was not that she had lost
her lover--it was not that the romance of youth had glimmered and
disappeared from before her eyes. It was not that she had ever entered,
even in thought, as Edward Rider had done, into that life, glorified out
of common existence, which the two could have lived together. Such was
not the form which this extraordinary loss took to Nettie. It was her
personal happiness, wonderful wine of life, which had suddenly failed to
the brave little girl. Ah, the difference it made! Labours, disgusts,
endurances of all kinds: what cannot one undertake so long as one has
that cordial at one's heart? When the endurance and the labour remain,
and the cordial is gone, it is a changed world into which the surprised
soul enters. This was what had happened to Nettie. Nobody suspected the
sudden change which had passed upon everything. The only individual in
the world who could have divined it, had persuaded himself in a flush of
anger and mortification that she did not care. He consoled himself by
elaborate avoidance of that road which led past St Roque's--by bows of
elaborate politeness when he encountered her anywhere in the streets of
Carlingford--by taking a sudden plunge into such society as was open
to him in the town, and devoting himself to Miss Marjoribanks, the old
physician's daughter. Nettie was not moved by these demonstrations,
which showed her sway still undiminished over the doctor's angry and
jealous heart. She did not regard the petulant shows of pretended
indifference by which a more experienced young woman might have consoled
herself. She had enough to do, now that the unsuspected stimulus of her
life was withdrawn for the moment, to go on steadily without making any
outward show of it. She had come to the first real trial of her strength
and worthiness. And Nettie did not know what a piece of heroism she was
enacting, nor that the hardest lesson of youthful life--how to go on
stoutly without the happiness which that absolute essence of existence
demands and will not be refused--was being taught her now. She only knew
it was dull work just for the moment--a tedious sort of routine, which
one was glad to think could not last for ever; and so went on, the
steadfast little soul, no one being any the wiser, upon that
suddenly-clouded, laborious way.
It is sad to be obliged to confess that Dr Rider's conduct was nothing
like so heroical. He, injured and indignant and angry, thought first of
all of revenging himself upon Nettie--of proving to her that he would
get over it, and that there were women in the world more reasonable
than herself. Dr Marjoribanks, who had already made those advances to
the doctor which that poor young fellow had gone to carry the news of,
not without elation of heart, on that memorable night, to St Roque's,
asked Edward to dinner a few days after; and Miss Marjoribanks made
herself very agreeable, with just that degree of delicate regard and
evident pleasure in his society which is so soothing when one has met
with a recent discomfiture. Miss Marjoribanks, it is true, was over
thirty, and by no means a Titania. Edward Rider, who had retired from
the field in Bessie Christian's case, and whom Nettie had rejected,
asked himself savagely why he should not make an advantageous marriage
now, when the chance offered. Old Marjoribanks's practice and savings,
with a not unagreeable, rather clever, middle-aged wife--why should
he not take it into consideration? The young doctor thought of that
possibility with a certain thrill of cruel pleasure. He said to himself
that he would make his fortune, and be revenged on Nettie. Whenever
there was a chance of Nettie hearing of it, he paid the most devoted
attentions to Miss Marjoribanks. Ready gossips took it up and made the
matter public. Everybody agreed it would be an admirable arrangement.
"The most sensible thing I've heard of for years--step into the old
fellow's practice, and set himself up for life--eh, don't you think
so?--that's my opinion," said Mr Wodehouse. Mr Wodehouse's daughters
talked over the matter, and settled exactly between themselves what was
Miss Marjoribanks's age, and how much older she was than her supposed
suitor--a question always interesting to the female mind. And it was
natural that in these circumstances Nettie should come to hear of it
all in its full details, with the various comments naturally suggesting
themselves thereupon. What Nettie's opinion was, however, nobody could
ever gather; perhaps she thought Dr Edward was justified in putting an
immediate barrier between himself and her. At all events, she was
perfectly clear upon the point that it could not have been otherwise,
and that no other decision was possible to herself.
The spring lagged on, accordingly, under these circumstances. Those
commonplace unalterable days, varied in nothing but the natural
fluctuations of making and mending,--those evenings with Fred sulky by
the fire--always sulky, because deprived by Nettie's presence of his
usual indulgences; or if not so, then enjoying himself after his dismal
fashion in his own room, with most likely Susan bearing him company, and
the little maiden head of the house left all by herself in the solitary
parlour,--passed on one by one, each more tedious than the other. It
seemed impossible that such heavy hours could last, and prolong themselves
into infinitude, as they did; but still one succeeded another in endless
hard procession. And Nettie shed back her silky load of hair, and pressed
her tiny fingers on her eyes, and went on again, always dauntless. She
said to herself, with homely philosophy, that this could not last very
long; not with any tragical meaning, but with a recognition of the
ordinary laws of nature which young ladies under the pressure of a first
disappointment are not apt to recur to. She tried, indeed, to calculate
in herself, with forlorn heroism, how long it might be expected to last,
and, though she could not fix the period, endeavoured to content herself
with the thought that things must eventually fall into their natural
condition. In the mean time it was slow and tedious work enough--but
they did pass one after another, these inevitable days.
One night Nettie was sitting by herself in the parlour busy over her
needlework. Fred and his wife, she thought, were up-stairs. They had
left her early in the evening,--Susan to lie down, being tired--Fred to
his ordinary amusements. It was a matter of course, and cost Nettie no
special thought. After the children went to bed, she sat all by herself,
with her thread and scissors on the table, working on steadily and quietly
at the little garment she was making. Her needle flew swift and nimbly;
the sleeve of her dress rustled as she moved her arm; her soft breath went
and came: but for that regular monotonous movement, and those faint steady
sounds of life, it might have been a picture of domestic tranquillity and
quiet, and not a living woman with aches in her heart. It did not matter
what she was thinking. She was facing life and fortune--indomitable,
not to be discouraged. In the silence of the house she sat late over
her needlework, anxious to have some special task finished. She heard
the mistress of the cottage locking up, but took no notice of that
performance, and went on at her work, forgetting time. It got to be
very silent in the house and without; not a sound in the rooms where
everybody was asleep; not a sound outside, except an occasional rustle
of the night wind through the bare willow-branches--deep night and not
a creature awake but herself, sitting in the heart of that intense and
throbbing silence. Somehow there was a kind of pleasure to Nettie in the
isolation which was so impossible to her at other hours. She sat rapt in
that laborious quiet as if her busy fingers were under some spell.
When suddenly she heard a startled motion up-stairs, as if some one
had got up hastily; then a rustling about the room overhead, which was
Susan's room. After a while, during which Nettie, restored by the sound
to all her growing cares, rose instantly to consideration of the question,
What had happened now? the door above was stealthily opened, and a
footstep came softly down the stair. Nettie put down her work and
listened breathlessly. Presently Susan's head peeped in at the parlour
door. After all, then, it was only some restlessness of Susan's. Nettie
took up her work, impatient, perhaps almost disappointed, with the dead
calm in which nothing ever happened. Susan came in stealthy, pale,
trembling with cold and fright. She came forward to the table in her
white night-dress like a faded ghost. "Fred has never come in," said
Susan, in a shivering whisper; "is it very late? He promised he would
only be gone an hour. Where _can_ he have gone? Nettie, Nettie, don't
sit so quiet and stare at me. I fell asleep, or I should have found it
out sooner; all the house is locked up, and he has never come in."
"If he comes we can unlock the house," said Nettie. "When did he go out,
and why didn't you tell me? Of course I should have let Mrs Smith know,
not to frighten her; but I told Fred pretty plainly last time that we
could not do with such hours. It will make him ill if he does not mind.
Go to bed, and I'll let him in."
"Go to bed! it is very easy for you to say so; don't you know it's the
middle of the night, and as dark as pitch, and my husband out all by
himself?" cried Susan. "Oh, Fred, Fred! after all the promises you made,
to use me like this again! Do you think I can go up-stairs and lie
shivering in the dark, and imagining all sorts of dreadful things
happening to him? I shall stay here with you till he comes in."
Nettie entered into no controversy. She got up quietly and fetched a
shawl and put it round her shivering sister; then sat down again and
took up her needlework. But Susan's excited nerves could not bear the
sight of that occupation. The rustle of Nettie's softly-moving hand
distracted her. "It sounds always like Fred's step on the way," said the
fretful anxious woman. "Oh, Nettie, Nettie! do open the end window and
look out; perhaps he is looking for the light in the windows to guide
him straight! It is so dark! Open the shutters, Nettie, and, oh, do look
out and see! Where do you suppose he can have gone to? I feel such a
pang at my heart, I believe I shall die."
"Oh, no, you will not die," said Nettie. "Take a book and read, or do
something. We know what is about the worst that will happen to Fred. He
will come home _like that_ you know, as he did before. We can't mend it,
but we need not break our hearts over it. Lie down on the sofa, and put
up your feet and wrap the shawl round you if you won't go to bed. I can
fancy all very well how it will be. It is nothing new, Susan, that you
should break your heart."
"It's you that have no feeling. Oh, Nettie, how hard you are! I don't
believe you know what it is to love anybody," said Susan. "Hark! is that
some one coming now?"
They thought some one was coming fifty times in the course of that
dreadful lingering night. Nobody came; the silence closed in deeper
and deeper around the two silent women. All the world--everything round
about them, to the veriest atom--seemed asleep. The cricket had stopped
his chirrup in the kitchen, and no mouse stirred in the slumbering
house. By times Susan dozed on the sofa, shivering, notwithstanding her
shawl, and Nettie took up her needlework for the moment to distract
her thoughts. When Susan started from these snatches of slumber, she
importuned her sister with ceaseless questions and entreaties. Where had
he gone?--where did Nettie imagine he could have gone?--and oh! would
she go to the window and look out to see if any one was coming, or put
the candle to the window to guide him, if perhaps he might have lost the
way? At last the terrible pale dawn came in and took the light out of
Nettie's candle. The two looked at each other, and acknowledged with a
mutual start that the night was over. They had watched these long hours
through with sentiments very different; now a certain thrill of sympathy
drew Nettie nearer to her sister. It was daylight again, remorseless
and uncompromising, and where was Fred, who loved the darkness? He had
little money and less credit in the limited place where himself and his
story were known. What could have become of him? Nettie acknowledged
that there was ground for anxiety. She folded up her work and put out
her candle, and promptly took into consideration what she could do.
"If you will go to bed, Susan, I shall go out and look for him," said
Nettie. "He might have stumbled in the field and fallen asleep. Men have
done such things before now, and been none the worse for it. If you will
go and lie down, I'll see after it, Susan. Now it's daylight, you know,
no great harm can happen to him. Come and lie down, and leave me to look
for Fred."
"But you don't know where to go, and he won't like to have you going
after him. Nettie, send to Edward," said Susan; "he ought to come and
look after his brother: he ought to have done it all through, and not to
have left us to manage everything; and he hasn't even been to see us for
ever so long. But send to Edward, Nettie--it's his business. For Fred
won't like to have you going after him, and you don't know where to go."
"Fred must have me going after him whether he likes it or no," said
Nettie, sharply, "and I shall not send to Dr Edward. You choose to
insult him whenever you can, and then you think it is his business to
look after his brother. Go to bed, and leave it to me. I can't leave you
shivering here, to catch something, and be ill, and laid up for weeks. I
want to get my bonnet on, and to see you in bed. Make haste, and come
up-stairs with me."
Susan obeyed with some mutterings of inarticulate discontent. The
daylight, after the first shock of finding that the night was really
over, brought some comfort to her foolish heart. She thought that as
Nettie said "no more harm" could come to him, he must be sleeping
somewhere, the foolish fellow. She thought most likely Nettie was right,
and that she had best go to bed to consume the weary time till there
could be something heard of him; and Nettie, of course, would find it
all out.
Such was the arrangement accordingly. Susan covered herself up warm, and
lay thinking all she should say to him when he came home, and how she
certainly never would again let him go out and keep it secret from
Nettie. Nettie, for her part, bathed her hot eyes, put on her bonnet,
and went out, quietly undoing all the bolts and bars, into the chill
morning world, where nobody was yet awake. She was a little uncertain
which way to turn, but noway uncertain of her business. Whether he had
gone into the town, or towards the low quarter by the banks of the
canal, she felt it difficult to conclude. But remembering her own
suggestion that he might have stumbled in the field, and fallen asleep
there, she took her way across the misty grass. It was still spring, and
a little hoar-frost crisped the wintry sod. Everything lay forlorn and
chill under the leaden morning skies--not even an early market-cart
disturbed the echoes. When the cock crew somewhere, it startled Nettie.
She went like a spectre across the misty fields, looking down into the
ditches and all the inequalities of the way. On the other side lay the
canal, not visible, except by the line of road that wound beside it,
from the dead flat around. She bent her steps in that direction,
thinking of a certain mean little tavern which, somehow, when she saw
it, she had associated with Fred--a place where the men at the door
looked slovenly and heated, like Fred himself, and lounged with their
hands in their pockets at noon of working-days. Some instinct guided
Nettie there.
But she had no need to go so far. Before she reached that place
the first sounds of life that she had yet heard attracted Nettie's
attention. They came from a boat which lay in the canal, in which the
bargemen seemed preparing to start on their day's journey. Some men were
leisurely leading forward the horses to the towing-path, while two in
the boat were preparing for their start inside. All at once a strange
cry rang into the still, chill air--such a cry as startles all who can
hear it. The men with the horses hurried forward to the edge of the
canal, the bargemen hung over the side of their boat; visible excitement
rose among them about something there. Nettie, never afraid, was less
timid than ever this morning. Without thinking of the risk of trusting
herself with these rude fellows alone, she went straight forward into
the midst of them with a curiosity for which she could scarcely account;
not anxiety, only a certain wonder and impatience, possessed her to see
what they had here.
What had they there?--not a man--a dreadful drowned image, all soiled
and swollen--a squalid tragic form, immovable, never to move more. Nettie
did not need to look at the dread, uncovered, upturned face. The moment
she saw the vague shape of it rising against the side of the boat, a
heap of dead limbs, recognisable only as something human, the terrible
truth flashed upon Nettie. She had found not him, but It. She saw nothing
more for one awful moment--heaven and earth reeling and circling around
her, and a horror of darkness on her eyes. Then the cold light opened up
again--the group of living creatures against the colourless skies, the
dead creature staring and ghastly, with awful dead eyes gazing blank
into the shuddering day. The girl steadied herself as she could on the
brink of the sluggish current, and collected her thoughts. The conclusion
to her search, and answer to all her questions, lay, not to be doubted
or questioned, before her. She dared not yield to her own horror, or
grief, or dismay. Susan sleeping, unsuspicious, in full trust of his
return--the slumbering house into which this dreadful figure must be
carried--obliterated all personal impressions from Nettie's mind. She
explained to the amazed group who and what the dead man was--where he
must be brought to--instantly, silently, before the world was awake. She
watched them lay the heavy form upon a board, and took off her own shawl
to lay over it, to conceal it from the face of day. Then she went on
before them, with her tiny figure in its girlish dress, like a child in
the shadow of the rough but pitying group that followed. Nettie did not
know why the wind went so chill to her heart after she had taken off her
shawl. She did not see the unequal sod under her feet as she went back
upon that dread and solemn road. Nothing in the world but what she had
to do occupied the throbbing heroic heart. There was nobody else to do
it. How could the girl help but execute the work put into her hand?
Thinking neither of the hardship nor the horror of such dread work
falling to her lot, but only this, that she must do it, Nettie took home
to the unconscious sleeping cottage that thing which was Fred Rider; no
heavier on his bearers' hands to-day than he had been already for years
of his wasted life.