ALICE.
'Alice!' I cried.
She rose from her knees and turned to meet me. Her face was pale;
her eyes were heavy and they were full of tears.
'Alice!'
'I saw you when you came here, a week ago,' she said. 'Oh! Humphrey,
I saw you, and I was ashamed to let you know that I was here.'
'Ashamed? My dear, ashamed? But how--why--what dost thou here?'
'How could I meet Robin's eyes after what I had done?'
'It was done for him, and for his mother, and for all of us. Poor
child, there is no reason to be ashamed.'
'And now I meet him, and he is in a fever, and his mind wanders; he
knows me not.'
'He is sorely stricken, Alice; I know not how the disease may end;
mind and body are sick alike. For the mind I can do nothing; for the
body I can do but little: yet with cleanliness and good food we may
help him to mend. But tell me, Child, in the name of Heaven, how
camest thou in this place?'
But before anything she would attend to the sick man. And presently
she brought half-a-dozen negresses, who cleaned and swept the place,
and sheets were fetched and a linen shirt, in which we dressed our
patient, with such other things as we could devise for his comfort.
Then I bathed his head with cold water, continually changing his
bandages so as to keep him cool; and I took some blood from him, but
not much, because he was greatly reduced by bad food and hard work.
When he was a little easier we talked. But, Heavens! to think of
the villainy which had worked its will upon this poor child! As if
it was not enough that she should be forced to fly from a man who
had so strangely betrayed her, and as if it was not enough that
she should be robbed of all her money--but she must also be put on
board, falsely and treacherously, as one, like ourselves, sentenced
to ten years' servitude on the Plantations! For, indeed, I knew and
was quite certain that none of the Maids of Taunton were thus sent
abroad. It was notorious, before we were sent away, that, with the
exception of Susan Blake, who died of jail-fever at Dorchester, all
the Maids were given to the Queen's ladies, and by them suffered to
go free on the payment by their parents of thirty or forty pounds
apiece. And as for Alice, she was a stranger in the place, and it
was not known that she had joined that unfortunate procession. So
that, if ever a man was kidnapper and villain, that man was George
Penne.
It behoves a physician to keep his mind under all circumstances
calm and composed. He must not suffer himself to be carried away by
passion, by rage, hatred, or even anxiety. Yet, I confess that my
mind was clean distracted by the discovery that Alice herself was
with us, a prisoner like ourselves; I was, I say, distracted, nor
could I tell what to think of this event and its consequences. For,
to begin with, the poor child was near those who would protect her.
But what kind of protection could be given by such helpless slaves?
Then was she beyond her husband's reach; he would not, it was quite
certain, get possession of her at this vast distance. So far she was
safe. But then the master, who looked to make a profit by her, as he
looked to make a profit by us--through the ransom of her friends!
She had no friends to ransom her. There was but one, the Rector, and
he was her husband's father. The time would come when the avarice
of the master would make him do or threaten something barbarous
towards her. Then she had found favour with Madam, this beautiful
mulatto woman, whom Alice innocently supposed to be the master's
wife. And there was the young planter, who wished to buy her with
the honourable intention of marrying her. In short, I knew not what
to think or to say, because at one moment it seemed as if it was the
most Providential thing in the world that Alice should have been
brought here, and the next moment it seemed as if her presence only
magnified our evils.
'Nay,' she said, when I opened my mind to her, 'seeing that the
world is so large, what but a special ruling of Providence could
have brought us all to this same island, out of the whole multitude
of isles--and then again to this same estate out of so many?
Humphrey, your faith was wont to be stronger. I believe--nay, I am
quite sure--that it was for the strengthening and help of all alike
that this hath been ordained. First, it enables me to nurse my poor
Robin--mine, alas! no longer! Yet must I still love him as long as I
have a heart to beat.'
'Love him always, Child,' I said. 'This is no sin to love the
companion of thy childhood, thy sweetheart, from whom thou wast torn
by the most wicked treachery'--but could say no more, because the
contemplation of that sweet face, now so mournful, yet so patient,
made my voice to choke and my eyes to fill with tears. Said I not
that a physician must still keep his mind free from all emotion?
All that day I conversed with her. We agreed that for the present
she should neither acknowledge nor conceal the truth from Madam,
upon whose good-will we now placed all our hopes. That is to say,
if Madam questioned her she was to acknowledge that we were her
former friends; but, if Madam neither suspected anything nor asked
her anything, she should keep the matter to herself. She told me
during this day all that had happened unto her since I saw her last,
when we marched out of Taunton. Among other things I heard of the
woman called Deb, who was now working in the canefields (she was one
of a company whose duty it was to weed the canes). In the evening
this woman, when the people returned, came to the sick-house.
She was a great strapping woman, stronger than most men. She was
dressed, like all the women on the estate, in a smock and petticoat,
with a thick coif to keep off the sun, and a pair of strong shoes.
She came to help her mistress, as she fondly called Alice. She
wanted to sit up and watch the sick man, so that her mistress might
go to sleep. But Alice refused. Then this faithful creature rolled
herself up in her rug and laid herself at the door, so that no one
should go in or out without stepping over her. And so she fell
asleep.
Then we began our night watch, and talked in whispers, sitting by
the bedside of the fevered man. Presently I forgot the wretchedness
of our condition, the place where we were, our hopeless, helpless
lot, our anxieties and our fears, in the joy and happiness of once
more conversing with my mistress. She spoke to me after the manner
of the old days, but with more seriousness, about the marvellous
workings of the Lord among His people; and presently we began to
talk of the music which we loved to play, and how the sweet concord
and harmony of the notes lift up the soul; and of pictures and
painting, and Mr. Boscorel's drawings and my own poor attempts, and
my studies in the schools, and so forth, as if my life was, indeed,
but just beginning, and, instead of the Monmouth cap, and the canvas
breeches, and common shirt, I was once more arrayed in velvet, with
a physician's wig and a gold-headed cane.
Lastly she prayed, entreating merciful Heaven to bestow health of
mind and enlargement of body to the sick man upon the bed, and her
brother, and her dear friend (meaning myself), and to all poor
sufferers for religion; and she asked that, as it had been permitted
that she should be taken from her earthly lover by treachery, so it
might now be granted to her to lay down her life for his, so that he
might go free and she die in his place.
Through the open window I saw the four stars which make the
constellation they call the 'Crucero,' being like a cross fixed in
the heavens. The night was still, and there was no sound save the
shrill noise of the cigala, which is here as shrill as in Padua.
Slave and master, bondman and free, were all asleep save in this
house, where Robin rolled his heavy head, and murmured without
ceasing, and Alice communed with her God. Surely, surely, I thought,
here was no room for doubt! This my mistress had been brought here
by the hand of God Himself, to be as an angel or messenger of His
own, for our help and succour--haply for our spiritual help alone,
seeing that no longer was there any help from man.