HOW MISS FOSSETT WENT TO ROYD. ON SUSPENSION OF OPINION. ANXIETY
ABOUT LIZARANN. A VISIT TO JIM, AND A RETROSPECT. HOW MISS FOSSETT
MADE A NICE MESS OF IT
A hot July was drawing to a close, and Athelstan Taylor and his friend
Gus's sister Adeline Fossett were out early in the Rectory garden, and
had many things to talk about. It was the Saturday morning of a Friday
to Monday visit, which could not be prolonged, on any terms, till
Tuesday.
One of the things they had to talk about was sad, as anyone could have
told from their voices, without hearing a word distinctly. Because they
were speaking with such very resolute cheerfulness of it; putting such
a good face on it; each of them evidently thinking the other wanted an
ally.
"I go by Sidrophel." It was Athelstan who said this. "Taking a man
out of London to live on the south shore of the Mediterranean is like
giving meat and drink after a diet of poisons. You'll see Gus's first
letters will say he's well. He won't be, of course; one mustn't expect
miracles. But it will seem like that--to him."
"I think that's very likely. But when I said I wished I had been able
to go with him, I didn't mean that. I don't believe he'll want any
coddling or looking after out there. What I was thinking of was the
poor boy being so lonely, all by himself." But Athelstan laughed out
at this: the idea of a pastor of a flock being _lonely_!--the last
thing in the world! The lady admitted this, and helped it a little.
"Yes--and, after all, it isn't as if we had seen each other every day
when he _was_ in London." Then she reflected a little, and added:
"Besides, I couldn't have gone, anyhow, because of mother." Of whom
this story can report nothing, no questions having been asked. "Mother"
must have her place in it as the reason Miss Fossett could not go to
Tunis.
Something came to the Rector's mind which provoked a cheerful laugh.
"I suppose," he said, "poor Challis would say we were bringing an
indictment against the Almighty."
"I wonder you call him 'poor Challis,' Yorick. I've no patience! I've
heard all about it from the other side, you know. But what did you mean
he says?" The question is asked stiffly. Challis is evidently not in
favour.
"He says that resignation, as practised, always seems to be meant as an
indictment against the Almighty. It's true he said he was referring to
venomous resignation. We must hope ours is t'other sort."
"I won't laugh at anything Mr. Challis says, Yorick. I've no patience
with a man who behaves so to his wife. My cousin Lotty knew the whole
thing from the beginning, and it's quite impossible she should be
mistaken.... Oh yes!--I know what you're going to say. That little bit
of Latin...."
"Well!--it's a very good little bit, as far as it goes. _Audi alteram
partem!_ Nobody ever bursts from bottling up his judgment until he has
heard both sides."
"My dear Yorick, I agree with you _ab_solutely about the principle
as a general rule. But in this particular case I do think you are
unreasonable. How is it possible Lotty should be mistaken, when Mrs.
Challis is actually living at her mother's at Tulse Hill? Oh no! I do
think you're quite wrong!"
"But I'm only refusing to form an opinion. I'm not expressing one."
"Well, if you don't see that Mr. Challis _must_ be in the wrong, you
never will see it. Don't be ridiculous and paradoxical, Yorick dear,
because you know perfectly well you agree. Now don't you?"
"Can't say I do." And the conversation ran for some distance on the
same pair of wheels, the lady always maintaining that in this one
particular case suspension of opinion, pending production of evidence,
is the merest affectation, and the gentleman resolutely refusing to
make any exceptions. However, Miss Fossett had not produced all her
arguments.
"Besides, Yorick dear, you know Mr. Challis _did_ tell you all his side
of the story." A head-shake. "No?--well, he had the opportunity of
telling you, and he didn't, which is the same thing."
"No--no, Addie, not the same thing--not the same thing! You know I had
a long talk twice with him about it. I went to see him on purpose, and
neither time would he say a single word in self-defence...."
"Because he couldn't!"
"Oh no--no! Indeed, you're unfair to him. When I say _audi alteram
partem_, in this case, I really mean wait till we are certain we have
heard all there is to be said on the other side. I am as sure as that
I am standing here that the poor chap was tongue-tied by chivalry to
his wife. I wish she would have seen me when I went...."
"You did go?"
"Oh yes--I went at once after seeing him, and only succeeded in seeing
her mother, a horrid, religious old woman...."
"Yorick dear!"
"Well--you know what I mean. The old woman as good as told me I was
a disgrace to my cloth, because I spoke of marriage with a deceased
wife's sister as an open question. You know that question comes into
Challis's affair--comes very much in...."
"I know. I know all about it. Only it's not the chief part ... a ...
but you know, of course?"
"Yes--yes!--what it _was_--of course!" And then each nods and looks
intuitive. If Charlotte Eldridge had been watching them then through a
telescope, she would have been able to spot the exact moment at which a
lady and gentleman--an unsanctioned brace, that is--came on the _tapis_.
How far can they be legitimately discussed--by us who know the lady?
That's the point! Miss Fossett bites a thoughtful lip about it. Mr.
Taylor utters a succession of short "hm's" and one long one; then says
in a by-the-way manner that accepts a slight head-shake as an answer:
"Didn't Judith Arkroyd speak to you?... Oh, I fancied she did;" adding,
in a reserved tone of voice: "You know, I dare say, that she herself
wrote to Mrs. Challis." And this speech seems to have the singular
effect of removing a padlock from Adeline Fossett's tongue.
"Handsome Judith?" she says, oddly lighting on Marianne's term for her
_bête noire_. "Oh, _I_ know!--I quite understand."
"But _what_ do you understand? Come, Addie dear, don't be ... don't be
_female_ about it. Do say what!"
The impression or suggestion that she might have married which we fancy
this story referred to when she first came into it seemed to mellow
and mature in Miss Fossett as she replied, "Oh, Yorick, dear old boy!
What an Arcadian shepherd you are!" And then she laughed, and repeated,
"Handsome Judith!"
"But she showed me the letter--she showed me the letter!" cries the
Rector, in a kind of frenzy with his friend for her persistence in
being female, as he calls it. "Come, Addie, what could she do more?"
The above-named suggestion seems to mature until it all but insinuates
that Adeline might marry still, if she chose. The thought just reaches
the Rector's mind, and leaves it as she repeats, in answer to his
question, "What more, indeed? But what did she say, I should like to
know?"
"Ah!--that's the point. And we think we're going to be told, do we?"
The Rector laughed a big good-humoured laugh. He detects in himself,
and is puzzled by it, a new-born disposition to treat Addie as if she
were in her teens, entirely caused by her excursion into feminine paths
hard to explain or classify.
But she unexpectedly forms square to repulse patronage; harks back, as
it were, to her thirties or forties--scarcely the latter yet--and says
gravely, "No, dear old boy! I won't try to pry into any confidence.
Don't tell me anything."
"I would as soon tell you as anyone"--he is looking at his watch--"a
... yes ... sooner than anyone--now Gus is gone." If the last four
words had not been spoken, a hearer--Mrs. Eldridge, say--might have
built an interest on what had preceded them. Those four made the speech
fraternal.
* * * * *
Miss Fossett had come to Royd Rectory to pay a visit of consolation,
following close on her brother's recent departure for Tunis. But it
was also a visit to Lizarann. Her affection for the child was manifest
from the fact that, when she arrived last night, before ever she ate
a scrap of anything, after all that long journey, she went to look at
her where she was asleep. It was nurse who made this mental note, and
who remarked also, when Miss Fossett left the child's bedside, that
she looked that upset you quite noticed it. Also that when the visitor
said, "Is she always like that?" she seemed asking to enquire, like.
"And what did you say, Ellen?" said Miss Caldecott, in nurse's
confidence. "I hope you didn't frighten Miss Fossett."
"Oh no, miss! I was careful not. I said the doctor took a most
favourable view, and had all along. I told what he said about
perspirations, and not to take too much account of temperatures, and
improving symptoms. Oh no, I wasn't likely!" And Ellen is a little
wounded at the bare suggestion that she should have any such a
thing--her own phrase in speech with another confidante next morning.
And yet Miss Fossett _was_ frightened! And when the Rector's voice
intercepted the above colloquy from below, saying, "Bessy, come down
and tell Addie what Dr. Pordage said about Lizarann," it was because
Miss Fossett had gone to her very late refection quite white, and had
said, referring to her visit upstairs, "Why, my dear Yorick, the little
thing's in a perfect bath of perspiration!" And then she only had a
little soup, and Cook took away the things, because Rachael had gone
to bed with a toothache.
However, next day in the sunshine, walking through the fields with the
children to pay a visit to Lizarann's Daddy at Mrs. Fox's, she felt
encouraged when she saw the little person running about in the highest
spirits, gathering blackberries, with a beautiful faith that her Daddy
would appreciate them.
"That wasn't a coft at all, Teacher," said Lizarann, when taxed with
coughing. "I didited it myself."
"Then _that_ was!"
"Only because I very nearly stumbled down," said Lizarann. She had a
high colour in her cheeks, and her eyes looked very large, and her
face wasn't thin--only her fingers. But her spirits were all that
could be desired; so Miss Fossett had to be content with hoping all
would go well, if she was stuffed with preparations of malt, and syrup
of hypophosphites, and so on. But how about the winter? Was there
no possible Tunis? For Miss Fossett's affection for the small waif
went any lengths in projected antidotes to phthisis. If it was money
that was the difficulty--well!--Yorick would have to get it from Sir
Murgatroyd; none of his conscientious nonsense!
However, it might be all unnecessary. Just look at the child tearing
down the hill with Phoebe, to get to her Daddy three minutes sooner,
and shouting out "Pi-lot!" in defiance of orders. And such an
_accolade_ as she gave her father did not look, at this distance, at
least, like either extract of malt or hypophosphites.
Miss Fossett intended to make use of this visit to Jim to get from him,
if she could, some information about the medical record of Lizarann's
family. She had the old-fashioned faith that consumption is hereditary.
It would be very nice to hear that it had never shown itself among her
little _protégée's_ ancestors. She had herself seen very little--almost
nothing--of the blind man, and was curious to make his acquaintance,
after hearing so much of him from the Rector.
Jim was not in the summer-house, but in Mrs. Fox's kitchen that opens
on the garden. It is lucky none of the party is six-foot-six. But there
is plenty of room, laterally.
Jim has to remind Lizarann of her social duties. "Ye'll have to name
the good lady for me to know, little lass." And Lizarann shouts out
"Teacher!" vehemently.
"Miss Fossett, at the school, you know, Mr. Coupland," says the owner
of the name. "Lizarann's one of my best pupils, and she's going to
get quite strong." There was an error in tact here: she should have
recollected that Jim would be a stranger to the medical discussions
over his child's lungs. A slight misgiving crossed her mind.
"Quite strong--the lassie? Aye, to be sure!" says Jim in a puzzled sort
of way. But the lassie herself supersedes the point, doing violence to
the conversation. "So's Daddy's leg," she says, wrenching in a topic of
greater importance. "Daddy's going to walk on it, quite strong, more
than free miles, and no scrutches. Yass!"
Certainly no conversation such as Miss Fossett wished for would be
possible as long as the children were here. Consultation with Mrs. Fox
developed a scheme for their temporary suppression.
Suppose the two young ladies and Lizarann--the distinction is always
nicely marked--were to go with her just three minutes' walk up at the
back of the house to see the swarm of bees in Clyst's orchard. The
supposition is entertained, and they go.
Miss Fossett admits to Jim that she has covertly sanctioned and
encouraged this move, that tranquillity should ensue. But she nearly
repented, she says, when she heard of the bees, lest they should sting.
She hopes it's all right? Oh yes, Lard bless her, that's all right
enough! Jim will go bail for the bees. Look, he says, at the many a
chance they've had to get a turn at him in his summer-house--he seems
to have appropriated it--and never gave him a thought! Besides, Jarge
would be there, and he'd say a word to the bees and tell them.
"Ye see, mistress," Jim continued, "it's a trade with Jarge. He's a
bee-master--so they call him--or you might say a bee-doctor; the folk
round about send for him, miles."
"I want to talk about Lizarann directly," said Miss Fossett. "But tell
me about George and the bees."
"Ah, Lizarann!... But I can tell about the bees, and soon done with. It
was martal queer about George, when he was a youngster. The bees nigh
stung him to death, for pinching of 'em inside the deep flowers when he
got a chance. They were making a mistake, though; for it wasn't he did
it, but another young shaver of his inches. So they cast about for to
make him some amends."
"You don't mean they found out their mistake?"
"Ah, but I do! They're a sly race, and full of knowledge. How they did
it between them I can't say, but there it is!--they've come to the
understanding. And what's the queerer is that George himself don't
above half-understand what's said to him by a Christian. It's only bees
he can tackle!... What was you kindly going to say about Lizarann?"
Miss Fossett, rendered cautious by the lapse she had so nearly made,
saw no way of approaching the subject she was curious about. So she
chatted on about Lizarann, hoping it might come into their talk
accidentally. Jim was eloquent about his gratitude for all that had
been done for himself and his child. "But for you and the master,"
said he, "I'd have been selling matches in the streets still. That
was before my accident. But you won't say anything of that to my
lassie." His hearer understood him. No--she would say nothing of his
begging days to Lizarann. He thanked her again. "But," he added,
"I wish you and the Rector-gentleman could have seen me eight year
agone--no!--barely seven year. I might have been grateful to some
kind of purpose then. I'm little use now!" Pride without a trace of
vanity was in his voice as he added: "There was a fine man in my place
in those days, and you'd ha' said so, lady." The waste remnant was
speaking of its former self.
Adeline Fossett succeeded in none of the things she tried to say. It
did not matter. He would be sure to talk of the past, and she would
glean all she wanted. He took for granted, as part of the conversation
in the interim, the fact of his wife's death.
"That was it, ye see: her mother died. She would have been the eldest."
"I understand. The little one herself told me of your accident, and how
you came back...."
"Aha!--my little lass! In coorse she would tell it! And she told about
the Flying Dutchman, I'll go bail." Jim laughed joyously at the image
his mind formed of Lizarann telling her inherited legend dramatically.
As to the incredulity, he knew it would exist in some minds; so let it
pass! "I came back, lady," he continued, "and I found Lizarann. But I
was all in the dark, and no sight of my wife's face. And there was no
hiding it from her about my eyes--no chance! I never ought to have gone
a-nigh the house. But she might have died, too...."
"You mean she would not have recovered, perhaps, if you _had_ stopped
away."
"Ah--if I had, ever so! But I was mazed with the longing to hear my
girl's voice again, and maybe I never gave her the thought I should
have done. I was a bad young man in those days, and suited myself when
I might have done others a turn, many's the time. It's over and done
with now." And his old self had vanished with it; so completely that
the voice of its derelict, now speaking, had no consciousness in it of
the way his narrative affected his hearers, as he continued, replying
to a word of inquiry from her: "My accident--ye'll have heard all that
from the lassie? My mates, they got me off to the Hospital, and the
doctor there, he dressed my face. And, do ye know, mistress, it wasn't
till the dressings and strappings was removed I knew that I was blind.
Nor my mates. And they had to tell me--mind you!--that the last strap
was off. I couldn't have guessed it. I was thinking I should see. But
it was all dark, and the doctor, he says: 'Sorry for you, my lad, but
the sight's gone. Ask 'em in London; they'll tell you the same.' So my
mates, they brought me away; and there was the sun, by the heat. But I
could only see black, and I judged the doctor would be in the right of
it, in the end. My mate Peter Cortright, he says, 'Never you fret, Jim;
it'll all come right. Give 'em a week or so, and wear a pair o' blue
spectacles a while, and you'll soon be forgetting all about it.' So I
says to him, 'What did old Sam Nuttall say ten days a-gone?'"
"What did Peter say?" asked Miss Fossett.
"Well, ye see, Peter, he _knew_! My ship's owners, out at Cape Town,
they were sorry, but in course no responsibility lay with them. I'd
myself to blame. They gave me my passage home, and home I came, in the
dark! Aboard of an old screw-collier from Liverpool, one o' the sart
they call 'tramps.' Not fit for sarvice, and underhanded. And on to
that dysentery, and half the crew down in their berths, doctorin' each
other the best they might. Well!--I'll tell ye." Jim seems amused at
this narration. "I was passing the time nigh to the binnacle, where
the master and a young man with a fractured arm were steering at the
wheel; for the rudder-chains, they'd fouled and got jammed, and there
was nothing for it but to run a file through 'em and free the rudder,
so they could work the starn-wheel, kept as a resarve. Ye see?...
Well!--the master, he'd been thirty-eight hours at it, and he just
gave out. So I made bold to suggest he should go to his berth, and I
should put a bit of force on the handles, and young O'Keeffe--that was
the young man's name--had a pair of eyes in his head, and we'd make it
out between the two of us. 'Keep her off two points when you see the
flashlight,' says the master, and off he goes to his berth. And from
then on, mistress, ye'll believe I did a stroke of work at that wheel,
just clapping on at the given word. But that's the last bit of work, to
call _work_, ever I did, or ever I shall do this side o' the grave."
Jim's voice rang its saddest note till now, over the dire knowledge
that had come to him that the joy of work could never be his again.
Miss Fossett thought, in the silence that followed, that Jim was
dwelling on thoughts of old times brought back by his old story. The
fact was that her unfortunate reference to Lizarann "getting quite
strong" had been slowly gathering force in a mind that found it hard
to receive, and was beginning to call aloud for explanation. He began
uneasily: "When you mentioned, lady, just now...." and stopped.
She saw what he meant, and saved him further words. "About Lizarann's
health?" she said.
"Ah! Is anything amiss?"
"Oh no--nothing _amiss_!" She had begun too confidently. She had to
retract somewhat. But there was nothing to cause the least uneasiness.
A fatal word that! She saw its marked effect on Jim, and, though she
felt about for some reassuring phrase that would not suggest the
question, "Why reassure?" she found nothing she felt confident of
getting to the end of successfully. When she did begin, Jim cut her
short:
"Are ye keeping something back from me, lady?" His voice was firm and
collected.
Adeline Fossett saw that it would have to be told in the end, and Jim
would have to bear it. Better to rely on his manhood, but make the
least of it. She replied with what was effectively an admission that
something had been kept back. She said that the Rector had wanted to
tell Jim the whole story at once, and exactly what the doctor had said,
but Miss Caldecott had dissuaded him. What the doctor had said came to
no more than this--that the child would want a good deal of care while
she was growing. This phrase, which she had invented for the occasion,
seemed good to her; it implied such confidence that Lizarann would
grow. She decided against repeating the doctor's exact phrase, "She'll
outgrow it with care--oh yes!" as it seemed to her somehow weaker, as a
hopeful expression.
Jim was very silent over it, and Miss Fossett felt that nothing would
be gained by fragmentary attempts to soften her main fact. Having said
it, best leave it to be looked in the face. If it could be safely
diluted, the Rector's testimony could be relied on to do that later.
Rather than dwell on the subject, she preferred to wonder why the
bee-inspection was so long on hand.
"I'm thinking maybe the young folk are too many for the old mother,"
said Jim. "But I doubt we shall hear the lassie sing out one o' these
minutes." Then he went on quietly asking questions about Lizarann; as
how long had the "uneasiness" been felt; to which the true answer,
which was not given, would have been, "from the beginning." For Dr.
Ferris's stethoscope had not given an absolutely clean bill to the
child's left lung. Then, what did the Rector himself really think?
"Would he be minded to tell me himself, if I made bold to ask him?"
said Jim.
"Tell you at once, of course!" said Miss Fossett. "He would have talked
about it before, only he didn't want to alarm you. Next time you see
him, ask him." This was much the best line to go on. But it was rather
a relief when the bee-party came back, elevated by natural history, and
anxious to impart new discoveries. "I never did shouted out 'Pi-lot,'"
said Lizarann, "because Teacher said not to." And she was rather
offensively vainglorious over this achievement, referring to it more
than once.
* * * * *
When Miss Fossett returned to the Rectory, she said to Athelstan
Taylor: "A nice mess I've made of it, Yorick!"
Said Yorick then, laughing: "What's the rumpus?"
"I've told Jim Coupland about Lizarann's chest."
"Hm-hm-hm! Ah well!--he's got to know. How did he take it?"
"Very well--but...."
"But, of course! Never mind, Addie. Don't you fret. I'm going round
that way after lunch, and I'll call and see Jim."
This was about a month after Challis and his wife parted. But is it
necessary to synchronize the events of the story so closely?