WAITING FOR BELL.
The fire threw its glow on Mrs. Bell's kitchen--kitchen and
sitting-room combined--lighting up the strip of bright carpet before
the fender and the red-tiled floor; playing on the plates and dishes
on the dresser, and on the blue hyacinth glasses in the window, now
closed in by the outer shutters. Stout Mrs. Bell sat by the round
table in her white apron and mob-cap, plying her knitting-needles. On
the other side the hearth sat a neighbour, one Nancy Tomson, a tall,
thin Cornish woman in a check apron, with projecting teeth and a high
nose, who had come in for a chat. On the table waited the supper of
bread-and-cheese; and a candle stood ready for lighting.
The clock struck nine. Mrs. Bell looked up as though the sound half
startled her.
"Who'd heve thought it!" cried the visitor, whose chatter had been
going incessantly for the last hour, causing the time to pass quickly.
"Be they clock too fast, Dame Bell?"
"No," said the dame. "It's right by the church."
"Well, I'd never heve said it were nine. Your folks es late. I wonder
where they be that they don't come hoam."
"No need to wonder," returned Mrs. Bell, in sharp tones, meant for the
absentees. "Rosaline's staying with poor Granny Sandon, who seems to
have nobody else to stay with her. As to Bell, he is off again to the
Golden Shaft."
"You said he had comed in."
"He did come in: and I thought he had come in for good. But he didn't
stay a minute; he must needs tramp out again. And he was further gone,
Nancy Tomson, than I've seen him these three years."
Dame Bell plied her needles vigorously, as if her temper had got down
into her fingers. The visitor plunged into renewed conversation,
chiefly turning upon that interesting episode, the encounter between
Janes and his wife. At half-past nine, Mrs. Bell put down her knitting
and rose from her seat. She was growing uneasy.
"What can keep Rosaline? She never stays out so late as this, let
Granny Sandon want her ever so. I'll take a look out and see if I can
see her."
Unbolting and opening the door she admitted a flood of pale moonlight:
pale, compared with the ruddier glow of the interior. Mrs. Bell peered
out across the Bare Plain in the direction of Trennach; and Nancy
Tomson, who was always ready for any divertisement, advanced and
stretched her long neck over Dame Bell's shoulder.
"It's a rare light night," she said. "But I don't see nobody coming,
Mrs. Bell. They keeps to the Golden Shaaft."
Feeling the air cold after the hot fire, Nancy Tomson withdrew indoors
again. She was in no hurry to be gone. Her husband made one of the
company at the Golden Shaft to-night, and this warm domicile was
pleasanter than her own. Dame Bell was about to shut the door, when a
faint sound caused her to look quickly out again, and advance somewhat
farther than she did before. Leaning against the wall on the other
side the window was a dark object: and, to Mrs. Bell's intense
surprise, she discovered it to be Rosaline.
Rosaline, in what appeared to be the very utmost abandonment of grief
or of terror. Her hands were clasped, her face was bent down. Every
laboured breath she took seemed to come forth with suppressed anguish.
"Why, child, what on earth's the matter?" ejaculated the mother. "What
are you staying there for?"
The words quickly brought out Nancy Tomson. Her exclamations, when she
saw Rosaline, might almost have been heard at Trennach.
Rosaline's moans subsided into silence. She slowly moved from the
wall, and they helped her indoors. Her face was white as that of the
dead, and appeared to have a nameless horror in it. She sat down on
the first chair she came to, put her arms on the table, and her head
upon them, so that her countenance was hidden. The two women, closing
the front-door, stood gazing at her with the most intense curiosity.
"She heve been frighted," whispered Nancy Tomson. And it did indeed
look like it. Mrs. Bell, however, negatived the suggestion.
"Frighted! What is there to frighten her? What's the matter,
Rosaline?" she continued, somewhat sharply. "Be you struck mooney,
child?"
Nancy Tomson was one who liked her own opinion, and held to the
fright. She advanced a step or two nearer Rosaline, dropping her voice
to a low key.
"Heve you seen anything o' Dan Sandon? Maybe hes ghost shawed itself
to you as you come by the Bottomless Shaaft?"
The words seemed to affect Rosaline so strongly that the table, not a
very substantial one, vibrated beneath her weight.
"Then just you tell us whaat else it es," pursued Nancy Tomson, eager
for enlightenment--for Rosaline had made a movement in the negative as
to Dan Sandon's ghost. "Sure," added the woman to Mrs. Bell, "sure
Janes and her be not a-fighting again! Sure he heven't been and killed
her! Is it _that_ whaat heve frighted you, Rosaline?"
"No, no," murmured Rosaline.
"Well, it must be something or t'other," urged the woman, beside
herself with curiosity. "One caan't be frighted to death for nothing.
Heve ye faaled down and hurted yerself?"
An idea, like an inspiration, seized upon Mrs. Bell. And it seemed to
her so certain to be the true one that she only wondered she had not
thought of it before. She laid her hand upon her daughter's shoulder.
"Rosaline! You have heard the Seven Whistlers!"
A slight pause. Rosaline neither stirred nor spoke. To Nancy Tomson
the suggestion cleared up the mystery.
"_Thaat's it_," she cried emphatically. "Where was aal my wits, I
wonder, thaat I never remembered they? Now doan't you go for to deny
it, Rosaline Bell: you have heared they Seven Whistlers, and gashly
things they be."
Another pause. A shiver. And then Rosaline slowly lifted her white
face.
"Yes," she answered. "The Seven Whistlers." And the avowal struck such
consternation on her hearers, although the suggestion had first come
from them, that they became dumb.
"Father heard them, you know," went on Rosaline, a look of terror in
her eyes, and a dreamy, far-off sound in her voice. "Father heard
them. And they mean ill-luck."
"They bode death: as some says," spoke Nancy Tomson, lowering her
voice to an appropriate key.
"Yes," repeated Rosaline, in a tone of sad wailing. "Yes: they bode
death. Oh, mother! mother!"
But now, Mrs. Bell, although given, like her neighbours, to putting
some faith in the Seven Whistlers: for example is contagious: was by
no means one to be overcome with the fear of them. Rather was the
superstition regarded by her as a prolific theme for gossip, and she
altogether disapproved of the men's making it an excuse for idleness.
Had she heard the Whistlers with her own ears, it would not have moved
her much. Of course she did not particularly like the Whistlers; she
was willing to believe that they were in some mysterious way the
harbingers of ill-luck; and the discomfort evinced by her husband on
Sunday night, when he returned home after hearing the sounds, had in a
degree imparted discomfort to herself. But, that any one should be put
into a state of terror by them, such as this now displayed by
Rosaline, she looked upon as absurd and unreasonable.
"Don't take on like that, child!" she rebuked. "You must be silly.
They don't bode _your_ death: never fear. I'll warm you a cup o'
pea-soup. There's some left in the crock."
She bustled into the back-kitchen for the soup and a saucepan.
Rosaline kept her head down: deep, laboured breathings agitated her.
Nancy Tomson stood looking on, her arms folded in her check apron.
"Whereabouts did ye hear they Whistlers, Rosaline?" she asked at
length.
But there was no answer.
"On the Bare Plain, I take it," resumed the woman. "Were't a-nigh they
mounds by the Shaaft? Sounds echoes in they zigzag paths rarely. I've
heard the wind a-whistling like anything there afore now. She be a
pewerly lonesome consarn, thaat Shaaft, for waun who has to paas her
at night alone."
A moan, telling of the sharpest mental agony, broke from Rosaline.
Dame Bell heard it as she was coming in. In the midst of her sympathy,
it angered her.
"Rosaline, I won't have this. There's reason in roasting of eggs. We
shall have your father here directly, and what will he say? I can tell
you, he was bad enough when he went out. Come! just rouse yourself."
"Father heard the Whistlers, and--they--bode--death!" shivered
Rosaline.
"They don't bode yours, I say," repeated Dame Bell, losing
patience. "Do you suppose death comes to every person who hears the
Whistlers?--or ill-luck either?"
"No, no," assented Nancy Tomson, for Rosaline did not speak. "For waun
that faals into ill-luck after hearing they Whistlers, ten escapes.
I've knowed a whole crowd o' they men hear the sounds, and nought heve
come on't to any waun on 'em."
"And that's quite true," said Mrs. Bell.
Rosaline could not be persuaded to try the soup. It was impossible
that she could swallow it, she said. Taking a candle; she went up to
her room; to bed, as her mother supposed.
"And the best place for her," remarked Dame Bell. "To think of her
getting a fright like this!"
But poor Rosaline did not go to bed, and did not undress. Taking her
shoes off, that she might not be heard, she began to pace the few
yards of her narrow chamber, to and fro, to and fro, from wall to
wall, in an anguish the like of which has rarely been felt on earth.
She was living over again the night's meeting at the Bottomless Shaft
and its frightful ending: she saw the white, upturned, agonized face,
and heard the awful cry of despair of him who was falling into its
pitiless depths, and was now lying there, dead: and it seemed to her
that she, herself, must die of it.
The clock struck ten, and Nancy Tomson tore herself away from the warm
and hospitable kitchen, after regaling herself upon the soup rejected
by Rosaline. And Dame Bell sat on, knitting, and waiting for her
husband.
When Rosaline, her hands lifted in distress, tore away that evening
from the Bottomless Shaft, and the tragedy that had been enacted
there, and went flying over the Bare Plain towards home, Frank Raynor,
recovering from the horror which had well-nigh stunned his faculties,
went after her. Two or three times he attempted to say a word to her,
but she took no notice of him; only sped the quicker, if that were
possible. She never answered; it was as if she did not hear. When they
reached the narrow path that branched off to the cottages, there she
stopped, and turned towards him.
"We part here. Part for ever.
"Are you going home?" he asked.
"Where else should I go?" she rejoined, in anguish. "Where else can I
go?"
"I will see you safe to the door.
"No. No! Good-bye."
And, throwing up her hands, as if to ward him off, she would have sped
onwards. But Frank Raynor could not part thus: he had something to
say, and detained her, holding her hands tightly. A few hasty words
passed between them, and then she was at liberty to go on. He stood
watching her until she drew near to her own door, and then turned back
on his way across the plain.
In his whole life Francis Raynor had never felt as he was feeling now.
An awful weight had settled upon his soul. His friends had been wont
to say that no calamity upon earth could bring down Frank's exuberant
spirits, or change the lightness of his ways. But something had been
found to do it now. Little less agitated was he than Rosaline; the
sense of horror upon him was the same as hers.
He was now passing the fatal spot, the Bottomless Shaft; its
surrounding hillocks shone out in the moonlight. Frank turned his eyes
that way, and stood still to gaze. Of their own accord, and as if some
fascination impelled him against his will, his steps moved
thitherwards.
With a livid face, and noiseless feet, and a heart that ceased for the
moment to beat, he took the first narrow zigzag between two of the
mounds. And--but what was it that met his gaze? As he came in view of
the Shaft, he saw the figure of a man standing on its brink. The sight
was so utterly unexpected, and so unlikely, that Frank stood still,
scarcely believing it to be reality. For one blissful moment he lost
sight of impossibilities, and did indeed think it must be Josiah Bell.
Only for an instant. The truth returned to his mind in all its
wretchedness, together with the recognition of Mr. Blase Pellet. Mr.
Blase was gingerly bending forward, but with the utmost caution, and
looking down into the pit. As if he were listening for what might be
to be heard there: just as the unhappy Rosaline had professed to
listen a few minutes before.
Frank had not made any noise; and, even though he had, a strong gust
of wind, just then sweeping the mounds, deadened all sound but its
own. But, with that subtle instinct that warns us sometimes of a human
presence, Blase Pellet turned sharply round, and saw him. Not a word
passed. Frank drew silently back--though he knew the man had
recognized him--and pursued his way over the Plain.
He guessed how it was. When he and Rosaline had been waiting amidst
the mounds for Blase Pellet to pass, Blase had not passed. Blase must
have seen them cross over to the spot in the moonlight; and, instead
of continuing his route, had stealthily crossed after them and
concealed himself in one or other of the narrow zigzags. He must have
remained there until now. How much had he seen? How much did he know?
If anything had been capable of adding to the weight of perplexity and
trouble that had fallen on Frank Raynor, it would be this. He groaned
in spirit he pursued his way homeward.
"How late you are, Frank!"
The words, spoken by Edina, met him as he entered. Hearing him come
in, she had opened the door of the sitting-room. In the bewildering
confusion of his mind, the perplexity as to the future, the sudden
shock of the one moment's calamity, which might change the whole
current of his future life, Frank Raynor had lost all recollection of
the engagement for the evening. The appearance of Edina recalled it to
him.
She was in evening dress: though very sober dress. A plain grey silk,
its low body and short sleeves trimmed with a little white lace; a
gold chain and locket on her neck; and bracelets of not much value.
Quite ready, all but her gloves.
"Are--are you going, Edina?"
"_Going!_" replied Edina. "Of course I am going. You are going also,
are you not?"
Frank pushed his hair off his brow. The gay scene at The Mount, and
the dreadful scene in which he had just been an actor, struck upon him
as being frightfully incongruous. Edina was gazing at him: she
detected some curious change in his manner, and she saw that he was
looking very pale.
"Is anything the matter, Frank? Are you not well?"
"Oh, I am quite well."
"Surely that poor woman is not dead?"
"What woman?" asked Frank, his wits still wool-gathering. Dr. Raynor,
leaving his chair by the parlour-fire, had also come to the door, and
was looking on.
"Have you been to see more than one woman?" said Edina. "I meant Molly
Janes."
"Oh--ay--yes," returned Frank, passing his hand over his perplexed
brow. "She'll be all right in a few days. There's no very serious
damage done."
"What has made you so long, then?" questioned the doctor.
"I--did not know it was late," was the only excuse poor Frank could
think of, as he turned from the steady gaze of Edina: though he might
have urged that plastering up Mrs. Molly's wounds had taken time. And
in point of fact he did not, even yet, know whether it was late or
early.
"Pray make haste, Frank," said Edina. "You can dress quickly when you
like. I did not wish, you know, to be so late as this."
He turned to seek his room. There was no help for it: he must go to
this revelry. Edina could not go alone: and, indeed, he had no plea
for declining to accompany her. Not until he was taking off his coat
did he remember the blow on his shoulder. Frank Raynor, in his mind's
grievous trouble, had neither felt the pain left by the blow, nor
remembered that he had received one.
Yet it was a pretty severe stroke, and the shoulder on which it fell
was stiff and aching. Frank, his coat off, was passing his hand gently
over the place, perhaps to ascertain the extent of the damage, when
the door was tapped at and then opened by Edina.
"I have brought you a flower for your button-hole, Frank."
It was a hot-house flower, white and beautiful as wax. Dr. Raynor had
brought it from a patient's house where he had been in the afternoon,
and Edina had kept it until the last moment as a small surprise to
Frank. He took it mechanically; thanking her, it is true, but very
tamely, his thoughts evidently far away. Edina could only note the
change: what had become of Frank's light-heartedness?
"Is anything wrong with your shoulder?"
"It has a bit of a bruise, I think," he carelessly answered, putting
the flower down on his dressing-table.
She shut the door, and Frank went on dressing, always mechanically.
How many nights, and days, and weeks, and years, would it be before
his mind would lose the horror of the recent scene!
"I wish to Heaven that she-demon, Molly Janes, had been _there!_" he
cried, stamping his foot on the floor in a sudden access of grief and
passion. "But for her vagaries, I should not have been called out this
evening, and this frightful calamity would not have happened!"
Edina was ready when he went down, cloaked and shawled, a warm hood
over her smooth brown hair. The doctor did not keep a close carriage;
such a thing as a fly was not to be had at Trennach; and so they had
to walk. Mrs. St. Clare had graciously intimated that she would send
her carriage for Miss Raynor if the night turned out a bad one. But
the night was bright and fine.
"You will be _sure_ not to sit up for us, papa," said Edina, while
Frank was putting on his overcoat. "It is quite uncertain what time we
shall return home."
"No, no, child; I shall not sit up."
When they came to the end of the village, Frank turned on to the
roadway, at the back of the parsonage. Edina, who was on his arm,
asked him why he did so: the Bare Plain was the nearer way.
"But this is less dreary," was his answer. "We shall be there soon
enough."
"Nay, I think the Bare Plain far less dreary than the road: especially
on such a night as this," said Edina. "Here we are over-shadowed by
trees: on the Plain we have the full moonlight."
He said no more: only kept on his way. It did not matter; it would
make only about three minutes' difference. Edina stepped out
cheerfully; she never made a fuss over trifles. By-and-by, she began
to wonder at his silence. It was very unusual.
"Have you a headache, Frank?"
"No. Yes. Just a little."
Edina said nothing to the contradictory answer. Something unusual and
unpleasant had decidedly occurred to him.
"How did you bruise your shoulder?" she presently asked.
"Oh--gave it a knock," he said, after the slightest possible pause.
"My shoulder's all right, Edina: don't talk about it. Much better than
that confounded Molly Janes's bruises are."
And with the sharp words, sounding so strangely from Frank's
good-natured lips, Edina gathered the notion that the grievance was in
some way connected with Molly Janes; perhaps the damaged shoulder
also. Possibly she had turned obstreperous under the young doctor's
hands and had shown fight to him as well as to her husband.
The Mount burst upon them in a blaze of light. Plants, festoons,
music, brilliancy! As they were entering the chief reception-room,
out-door wrappings removed, Edina missed the beautiful white flower:
Frank's coat was unadorned.
"Frank! what have you done with your flower?"
His eyes wandered to the flowers decorating the rooms, and then to his
button-hole, all in an absent sort of way that surprised Miss Raynor.
"I fear I must have forgotten it, Edina. I wish you had worn it
yourself: it would have been more appropriate. How well it would have
looked in your hair!"
"Fancy me with flowers in my hair!" laughed Edina. "But, Frank, I
think Molly Janes must have scared some of your wits away."
Their greeting to Mrs. St. Clare over, Frank found a seat for Edina,
and stood back himself in a corner, behind a remote door. How terribly
this scene of worldly excitement contrasted with the one enacted so
short a time ago! He was living it, perforce, over again; going
through its short-lived action, that had all been over in one or two
fatal moments: this, before him, seemed as a dream. The gaily-robed
women sweeping past him with light laughter; the gleam of jewels; the
pomp and pageantry: all seemed but the shifting scenes of a panorama.
Frank could have groaned aloud at the bitter mockery: here life, gay,
heedless, joyous: there DEATH; death violent and sudden. Never before,
throughout his days, had the solemn responsibilities of this world and
of the next so painfully pressed themselves upon him in all their
dread reality.
"Oh, Mr. Raynor! I thought you were not coming! Have you been here
long?"
The emotional words came from a fair girl in a cloud of white--Daisy
St. Clare. Frank's hand went forward to meet the one held out to him:
but never a smile crossed his face.
"How long have you been here, Mr. Raynor?"
"How long? I am not sure. Half-an-hour, I think."
"Have you been dancing?"
"Oh no. I have been standing here."
"To hide yourself? I really should not have seen you but that I am
looking everywhere for Lydia's card, which she has lost."
He did not answer: his head was throbbing, his heart beating. Daisy
thought him very silent.
"I have had my dance with Sir Paul Trellasis," said Daisy, toying with
her own card, a blush on her face, and her eyes cast down.
At any other moment Frank would have read the signs, and taken the
hint: she was ready to dance with _him_. But he never asked her: he
did not take the gilded leaves and pencil into his own hands and write
down his name as many times as he pleased. He simply stood still,
gazing out with vacant eyes and a sad look on his face. Daisy at
length glanced up at him.
"Are you ill?" she inquired.
"No; only tired."
"Too tired to dance?" she ventured to ask, after a pause, her pulses
quickening a little as she put the suggestive question.
"Yes. I cannot dance to-night, Miss Margaret."
"Oh, but why?"
His breath was coming a little quickly with emotion. Not caused by
Daisy, and her hope of dancing; but by that terrible _recollection_.
Subduing his tones as far as possible, he spoke.
"Pray forgive me, Miss Margaret: I really cannot dance to-night."
And the cold demeanour, the discouraging words, threw a chill upon her
heart. What had she done to him, that he should change like this? With
a bearing that sought to be proud, but a quivering lip, Margaret
turned away.
He caught her eye as she was doing so; caught the expression of her
face, and read its bitter disappointment. The next moment he was
bending over her, pressing her hand within his.
"Forgive me, Daisy," he whispered, in pleading tones. "Indeed it is
not caprice: I--I cannot dance to-night. Go and dance to your heart's
content, and let me hide myself here until Miss Raynor is ready to
leave you. The kindest thing you can do is to take no further notice
of me."
He released her hand as he spoke, and stood back again in his dark
corner. Margaret turned away with a sigh. Her pleasure in the evening
had flown.
"And he never wished me any good wishes! It might just as well not
have been my birthday."