One day it occurred to Raby he could play the misanthrope just as well
at home as abroad, so he returned home.
He found old Dence dead and buried, and Patty Dence gone to Australia
with her husband.
He heard Jael was in the hospital. He called at Woodbine villa, and they
told him Grace was lying between life and death.
He called on Dr. Amboyne, and found him as sad as he used to be gay. The
doctor told him all, and even took him to the town hall, and showed him
an arm and part of the trunk of a man preserved in spirits, and a piece
of tweed cloth, and a plain gold ring.
“There,” said he, “is all that remains to us of your nephew, and my
friend. Genius, beauty, courage--all come to this!” He could say no
more.
The tears filled Raby's eyes, and all his bitterness melted away. With
respect to his sister, he said he was quite willing to be reconciled,
and even to own himself in the wrong, if Dr. Amboyne, on reading the
correspondence, should think so. Dr. Amboyne said he would come to Raby
Hall for that purpose. He communicated this at once to Mrs. Little.
Grace had a favorable crisis, and in a few days more she was out of
danger, but in a deplorable state of weakness. Dr. Amboyne ordered her
to the sea-side. A carriage was prepared expressly for her, and her
father took her there.
Woodbine Villa was put up to let furnished, and it was taken by--Mr.
Coventry.
Jael Dence began to recover strength rapidly, but she wore at times a
confused look. The very day Grace left for Eastbank she was discharged
as cured, and left the hospital. This was in the morning.
In the afternoon Dr. Amboyne, being now relieved of his anxiety as to
Grace, remembered he had not been to see this poor girl for some time;
so he went to the hospital.
When he heard she was discharged, he felt annoyed with himself for not
having paid her closer attention. And besides, Grace had repeatedly told
him Jael Dence could make a revelation if she chose. And now, occupied
with Grace herself, he had neglected her wishes.
“Where is she gone? do you know?”
One of the nurses said she was gone home.
Another said the patient had told her she should go down to the works
first.
“And that is the very last place you should have let her go to,” said
the doctor. “A fine shock the poor creature will get there. You want
her back here again, I suppose!” He felt uneasy, and drove down to the
works. There he made some inquiries among the women, and elicited that
Jael Dence had turned faint at sight of the place, and they had shown
her, at her request, where she had been picked up, and had told her
about the discovery of Little's remains, and she had persuaded a little
girl to go to the town hall with her.
“Oh, the tongue! the tongue!” groaned Amboyne.
He asked to see the little girl, and she came forward of her own
accord, and told him she had gone to the town hall with the lass, “but”
(regretfully) “that the man would not show them it without an order from
the Mayor.”
“IT!”
Dr. Amboyne said he was very glad that common sense had not quite
deserted the earth. “And where did you go next?”
“I came back here.”
“So I see; but the lass?”
“She said she should go home. 'My dear,' says she, 'there's nobody left
me here; I'll go and die among my own folk.' That was her word.”
“Poor thing! poor thing! Why--”
He stopped short, for that moment he remembered Raby had said old Dence
was dead, and Patty gone to Australia. If so, here was another blow in
store for poor Jael, and she weakened by a long illness.
He instantly resolved to drive after her, and see whether she was really
in a fit state to encounter so many terrible shocks. If not, he should
take her back to the infirmary, or into his own house; for he had a
great respect for her, and indeed for all her family.
He drove fast, but he could see nothing of her on the road. So then he
went on to Cairnhope.
He stopped at the farm-house. It was sadly deteriorated in appearance.
Inside he found only an old carter and his daughter. The place was in
their charge.
The old man told him apathetically Jael had come home two hours ago and
asked for her father and Patty, and they had told her the old farmer was
dead and buried, and Patty gone to foreign parts.
“What, you blurted it out like that! You couldn't put yourself in
that poor creature's place, and think what a blow it would be? How, in
Heaven's name, did she take it?”
“Well, sir, she stared a bit, and looked stupid-like; and then she sat
down. She sat crowded all together like in yon corner best part of an
hour, and then she got up and said she must go and see his grave.”
“You hadn't the sense to make her eat, of course?”
“My girl here set meat afore her, but she couldn't taste it.”
Dr. Amboyne drove to Raby Hall and told Raby. Raby said he would have
Jael up to the hall. It would be a better place for her now than the
farm. He ordered a room to be got ready for her, and a large fire
lighted, and at the same time ordered the best bedroom for Dr. Amboyne.
“You must dine and sleep here,” said he, “and talk of old times.”
Dr. Amboyne thanked him--it was dusk by this time--and was soon seated
at that hospitable table, with a huge wood fire blazing genially.
Meantime Jael Dence sat crouched upon her father's grave, stupefied with
grief. When she had crouched there a long time she got up, and muttered,
“Dead and gone! dead and gone!”
Then she crept up to the old church, and sat down in the porch, benumbed
with grief, and still a little confused in her poor head.
She sat there for nearly two hours, and then she got up, and muttered,
“Dead and gone--he is dead and gone!” and wandered on the hill desolate.
Her feet wandered, her brain wandered. She found herself at last in
a place she recognized. It was Squire Raby's lawn. The moon had just
risen, and shone on the turf, and on the little river that went curling
round with here and there a deep pool.
She crept nearer, and saw the great bay-window, and a blaze of light
behind it.
There she had sung the great Noel with her father; and now he was dead
and gone.
There she had been with Henry Little, and seen him recognize his
mother's picture; and now he was dead and gone. She had saved his life
in vain; he was dead and gone. Every body was dead and gone.
She looked up at the glowing window. She looked down at the pool, with
the moon kissing it.
She flung her arms up with a scream of agony, and sunk into the deep
pool, where the moon seemed most to smile on it.
Directly after dinner Dr. Amboyne asked to see the unhappy
correspondence of which he was to be the judge.
Raby went for the letters, and laid them before him. He took up the
fatal letter. “Why, this is not written by Mrs. Little. I know her neat
Italian hand too well. See how the letters slant and straggle.”
“Oh! but you must allow for the writer's agitation.”
“Why should I allow for it? YOU DIDN'T. Who can look at this scrawl,
and not see that the poor heart-broken creature was not herself when
she wrote it? This is not a letter, it is a mere scream of agony. Put
yourself in her place. Imagine yourself a woman--a creature in whom
the feelings overpower the judgment. Consider the shock, the wound, the
frenzy; and, besides, she had no idea that you left this house to get
her husband the money from your own funds.”
“She never shall know it either.”
“She does know it. I have told her. And, poor thing, she thinks she was
the only one to blame. She seeks your forgiveness. She pines for it.
This is the true cause of her illness; and I believe, if you could
forgive her and love her, it might yet save her life.”
“Then tell her I blame myself as much as her. Tell her my house, my
arms, and my heart are open to her. Amboyne, you are a true friend, and
a worthy man. God bless you. How shall we get her here, poor soul? Will
you go for her, or shall I?”
“Let me sleep on that,” said Dr. Amboyne.
In the course of the evening, Dr. Amboyne told Raby all the reports
about Jael Dence and Henry Little.
“What does that matter now?” said Raby, with a sigh.
Whenever a servant came into the room, Amboyne asked him if Jael had
arrived.
Raby shared his curiosity, but not his anxiety. “The girl knows her
friends,” said he. “She will have her cry out, you may depend; but after
that she will find her way here, and, when she has got over it a little,
I shall be sure to learn from her whether he was her lover, and where he
was when the place was blown up. A Dence never lies to a Raby.”
But when nine o'clock struck, and there were no tidings of her, Raby
began to share the doctor's uneasiness, and also to be rather angry and
impatient.
“Confound the girl!” said he. “Her grandfathers have stood by mine,
in their danger and trouble, for two hundred years; and now, in her
trouble, she slinks away from me.”
“Put yourself in her place,” said Amboyne. “Ten to one she thinks you
are offended about her and Henry. She is afraid to come near you.”
“What, when I ask her?”
“Through your stupid lazy servants, who, to save themselves trouble,
have very likely told somebody else to tell her; and we know what
comes of that process. Ten to one the invitation has either missed her
altogether, or come to her divested of all that is kind and soothing.
And remember, she is not a man. She is a poor girl, full of shame and
apprehension, and needs a gentle encouraging hand to draw her here. Do,
for once, put yourself in a woman's place--you were born of a woman.”
“You are right,” said Raby. “I will send down a carriage for her, with a
line in my own hand.”
He did so.
At eleven the servant came back with the news that Jael Dence was not at
home. She had been seen wandering about the country, and was believed to
be wrong in her head. George, the blacksmith, and others, were gone up
to the old church after her.
“Turn out with torches, every man Jack of you, and find her,” said Raby.
As for Raby and Amboyne, they sat by the fireside and conversed
together--principally about poor Mrs. Little; but the conversation was
languid.
A few minutes after midnight a terrible scream was heard. It was uttered
out of doors, yet it seemed to penetrate the very room where Raby and
Amboyne were seated. Both men started to their feet. The scream was not
repeated. They looked at each other.
“It was in my garden,” said Raby; and, with some little difficulty, he
opened the window and ran out, followed by Amboyne.
They looked, but could see nothing.
But, with that death-shriek ringing in their ears, they wasted no time.
Raby waved Amboyne to the left, and himself dashed off to the right, and
they scoured the lawn in less than a minute.
A cry of horror from Raby! He had found the body of a woman floating in
a pool of the river, head downward.
He dashed into the water directly and drew it to the bank; Dr. Amboyne
helped him, and they got it out on dry land. The face was ghastly, the
body still.
“Turn her face downward,” said Amboyne, “give her every chance. Carry
her gently.”
One took the shoulders, the other the feet; they carried her slowly in
and laid her gently down before the fire.
She lay like dripping marble.
Her clothes clinging tightly round her, revealed her marvelous form and
limbs of antique mold--but all so deadly still.
Amboyne kneeled over her, searching, in vain, for some sign of life. He
groaned.
“Oh!” said he, “is it possible that such a creature as this can be cut
off in its prime?”
“Dead!” cried Raby, trembling all over. “Oh, God forbid! One of her
ancestors saved a Raby's life in battle, another saved a Raby in a
foaming flood; and I couldn't save her in a dead pool! She is the last
of that loyal race, and I'm the last Raby. Farewell, Dence! Farewell,
Raby!”
While he bemoaned her thus, and his tears actually dripped upon her pale
face, Amboyne detected a slight quivering in the drowned woman's throat.
“Hush?” said he to Raby.
There was a pair of old-fashioned bellows by the side of the fire;
Amboyne seized them, and opened Jael's mouth with more ease than he
expected. “That is a good sign,” said he.
He inflated the bellows, and inserted the tube very carefully; then he
discharged the air, then gently sucked it back again. When he had done
this several times something like a sigh escaped from Jael's breast. The
doctor removed the bellows, and felt her heart and examined her eyes.
“Curious!” said he. “Give me some brandy. It is more like syncope than
drowning.”
Acting on this notion, he laid her flat on her back, and applied neat
brandy to her nostrils and ears.
After a while she moved her whole body like a wounded snake, and moaned
feebly.
Raby uttered a loud shout of joy. “She is saved!” he cried. “She
is saved!” He jumped about the room like a boy, and, anxious to do
something or other, was for ringing up the female servants. But Amboyne
would not hear of it. “On the contrary,” said he, “lock the door, and
let only you and I see the poor girl's distress when she comes back to
this bitter world. Raby, don't you shut your eyes to the truth. This was
no accident.”
“I am afraid not,” said Raby. “She knows the water as well as I do, and
she picked out the deepest hole: poor girl! poor girl”
He then asked Amboyne in a whisper what he thought she would do when she
came to her senses.
“Impossible to say. She may be violent, and if so we shall have enough
to do to hold her. They tell me she threw that workman like a sack.”
At this moment Jael stretched her great arms and sighed. The movement,
though gentle and feminine, had a grandeur and freedom that only goes
with power.
The doctor lowered his voice to a whisper. “She is a good Christian, and
most likely she will be penitent, and then she will cry her heart out.
Any way, she is pretty sure to be hysterical, so mind and be firm as
well as kind. There, her color is coming back. Now put yourself in her
place. You and I must call this an accident. Stick to that through thick
and thin. Ah, she is coming round safe. She shall see you first. You
take her right hand, and look at her with all the pity and kindness I am
sure you feel.”
Mr. Raby took Jael's hand in both his, and fixed his eyes on her with
pity and anxiety.
She came to her senses, and stared at him a long time.
Then she looked down at her wet clothes. Then she snatched her hand
away, and covered her face with both hands, and began to rock and moan,
and finally turned round and hid her face against the very floor as if
she would grovel and burrow into it.
“Are you better, my dear?” said the doctor, quietly.
No reply. And the face still crushed against the floor.
“The next time you faint away, don't let it be on the banks of a river.
You have been going too long without food; and you fainted away and
fell into the river. Luckily it was not very deep or it might have been
serious. You have given us a fine fright, I can tell you.”
While these words were being uttered, Jael, who did not miss a syllable,
began to look very, very slowly round with scared and troubled eyes, and
to defend herself. “I remember naught,” said she, doggedly. “Who took me
out?”
“Mr. Raby.”
She looked timidly at him, and saw his wet clothes.
“Oh, squire, why did you spoil your clothes for me?” and she laid her
head on his knee and began to cry.
“My clothes!” said Raby. “The girl wants to break my heart.”
“Eh, dear! and I've spoiled the beautiful carpet,” said Jael, piteously.
“D--n the carpet!” said Raby, nearly blubbering.
All this time Amboyne was putting himself in Jael's Dence's place.
“Is there a good fire in her room?” asked he, with a significant look.
Raby took the hint, and said he would go and see.
As soon as he was out of the room, the transmigrator began to talk very
fast to Jael. “Now look here, Jael, that poor man is alone in the world
now, and very sad; he wants you to keep his house for him. He has been
sending messages all day after you, and your room has been ready ever so
long.”
“My room in this house?”
“Yes. But we could not find you. However, here you are. Now you must not
go back to the farm. The poor squire won't be quite so sad if he sees
you about him. You know he was always fond of you Dences. You should
have seen him cry over you just now when he thought you were dead.”
“I am more cared for than I thought,” said Jael, softly.
“Yes, but not more than you deserve, my dear.” He dipped a sponge-cake
in wine. “Oblige me by eating that.”
She took it submissively.
“Now another.”
She ate another, and a third.
“It's a very wicked lass you are so good to,” said she, softly, and some
gentle tears began to flow.
“Stuff and nonsense!” said the doctor. “What do you know about
wickedness? I'm a better judge of that than you, and I say you are the
best girl and the most unselfish girl in the world; and the proof is
that, instead of sitting down and nursing your own griefs, you are going
to pluck up courage, and be a comfort to poor Mr. Raby in his lonely
condition.”
These words appeared to sink into Jael's mind: she put her hands to her
head, and pondered them. Perhaps she might have replied to them, but
Raby came down, and ordered her to her apartment.
She took a step or two in that direction, but presently drew back and
would not move. “The women-folk! They'll see me on the stair, this
figure.”
“Not they. They are all in bed.”
“Are they so? Then please let me go to the kitchen for a dry cloth or
two.”
“What to do?”
“To dry the rug a bit. Just look--what a mess I've made!”
“I'll say it was the dog.”
“Will you, though? Oh, but you are a good friend to me this night. Then
I'll go. Let me wring my gown a bit, not to mess the stairs as well.”
“No, no; I'll take all the blame. Will you go, or must the doctor and I
carry you?”
“Nay, nay, there's no need. Your will is my pleasure, sir.”
So Mr. Raby showed Jael to her room, and opened a great wardrobe, and
took out several armfuls of antique female habiliments, and flung them
on the floor; rich velvets, more or less faded, old brocades, lace
scarves, chemises with lace borders; in short, an accumulation of
centuries. He soon erected a mound of these things in the middle of the
floor, and told her to wear what she liked, but to be sure and air the
things well first; “for,” said he, “it is a hundred years or so since
they went on any woman's back. Now, say your prayers like a good girl,
and go to bed.”
“Ay,” said Jael, solemnly, “I shall say my prayers, you may be sure.”
As he left the room she said, in a sort of patient way, “Good squire, I
am willing to live, since you are so lonely.”