HOW A NAUGHTY LITTLE GIRL CAME OUT IN THE COLD AND TALKED TO HER
DADDY. AND HOW WINTER MADE HER WORSE. OF A TALK BETWEEN THE RECTOR
AND MISS FOSSETT, AND A SUGGESTION SHE MADE TO HIM
A little bare foot came stealing down the twisted oak stair at the
far end of the room, which leads straight up to Lizarann's eyrie
where Jarge got the sunflower through the window for her not three
months ago. The little white figure in a nightgown is taller than the
Lizarann whom we saw, also in her nightgown, rushing out into the snow
last winter to summon the police to Uncle Bob. But the robust look of
childhood has given place to what is at least an entire unfitness to
be out of bed in the cold. If Mrs. Fox had not been lemon-hunting in
the shop, she would have sent the delinquent back in double-quick time.
Jim's sharp ears caught the patter of the shoeless feet.
"That's the lassie, I lay," said he. And Lizarann, who didn't care, was
on his knee before he had got a proper reproach ready. All he could say
was, "A little lass out of her bed in the middle of the night! Where's
the police, hay?" He affected inability to deal with the case in the
absence of the civil authority.
"I come down because it wasn't cold," said Lizarann. "I come down
because the stackace is mide of wood. I come down for to kiss my daddy
very often." She did so.
Jim called to Mrs. Fox, without. "Mother! Ahoy! Here's a young
charackter come out of her bed in the cold."
Mrs. Fox testified to her horror and surprise, saying substantially
that, even in the most depraved circles she had mixed with, such a
thing as a little girl coming out of bed in the middle of the night
was quite outside her experience. Jim suggested that a blanket would
be useful as protection, inside which Lizarann could watch him through
his toddy, after assisting in its preparation. Mrs. Fox went for the
blanket.
"'Tin't cold," said Lizarann. "And there hin't any cold wind outside
in the road. Only in the chimbley.... I'm thicker than I was, Daddy."
This last was in response to Jim's explorations about her small limbs
in search of flesh. Dr. Sidrophel had been a little hopeful about the
possible effect of the _ones_ and _ites_, if persevered in.
"Where's the flesh you was going to put on, the doctor said? Hey,
lassie? Sure you haven't put it on some other little lass?"
Lizarann seemed very uncertain--perhaps didn't understand the question.
"Old Mrs. Willoughby, lives near the Spost-Office," she says, "medgers
eighteen inches round, and her son Gabriel does the horse-shoes."
This is not irrelevance; its object is to show that fat is not always
an advantage. Jim misunderstands its drift, and conceives that Mrs.
Willoughby is brought forward as an example of slimness and its robust
consequences.
"That's no great shakes, anyhow," says he; "for round an old lady's
waist...."
But Lizarann interrupts. "I didn't sye wyste," she says. "Round her
arms with string above the elber. She hin't got a wyste. She's all one
piece. Yass!" Then Mrs. Fox returns, and throws a light on old Mrs.
Willoughby. She is her cousin Catharine, and is dropsical. What set the
child off on her, she asks?
Jim explains. "The lassie wasn't so far out, mother," he says. "You may
have too much of a good thing. Only...." But he doesn't finish.
And Mrs. Fox, when she afterwards told Athelstan Taylor things about
Jim, recalled how, at this interview, she could see him always feeling,
feeling gently, about the little feet and hands that came out of the
blanket she had wrapped about the child. "I did all I could to give
him heart," she said then. "But I couldn't say too much about looks,
because he could see with his finger-tips, as you might say."
In fact, old Mrs. Fox could offer very little in the way of
reassurance, and had to fall back upon a resource that had already been
freely drawn upon--the growth of little girls and the attenuation that
was alleged to accompany it, though really an appeal was being made to
conditions of development that belong to growing children over eight
years old. Probably Jim saw through all this. But he did not want to
discourage those who wished to give him hope. What though it _were_
to be hope against hope--by which one means hope against fear, with
despair in the bush--was not their goodwill as good, whatever foes were
in league against him?
But, except it were just this once, Jim never allowed his fears to
leak out. He could lock them up in his own bosom, and endure life to
the end. If he lost his little lass, why!--that _was_ the end of
things. He looked forward to it, if it was to be, as a believer in the
possibility of his own extinction may look forward to the guillotine.
Only, the knife-edge of this guillotine of Jim's was to touch his neck
and spring back, then do the same again, then just draw blood and spare
him--a guillotine-cat at play with a human heart. But as for showing
his fears to the little lass--no more of that!
This was in January. The child was then still enjoying life, with
the drawback of that nasty cough. It was only a few weeks since she
had been up in the early morning to see her Daddy to his field of
operations. Why was that stopped, and why was Lizarann so ready to
surrender, and even to remain in bed till the day got warm and she
could go out? It was all put down to the winter days. But who ever gave
a thought to the winter days in Tallack Street? She firmly believed in
her heart that, if only the medicine-bottles were flung on a dust-heap,
and she and Daddy were to go back to their old lives, she would still
be able to wait his coming in the cold, and perhaps tell all about
the Flying Dutchman again to old Mother Groves, and hear more of the
strange experiences of the Turk. She identified her old health with
her surroundings at that time, and credited _them_ with claims for
gratitude really due to _it_.
However, the exhilarating bygone time had disappeared. Perhaps it
was the healthy, bracing influence of Aunt Stingy that she missed,
and the occasional stimulus, when Jim was afar, of a strap or a
slipper? Perhaps it was Uncle Bob? Perhaps it was The Boys? If she and
Bridgetticks were shouting defiances to them--now this moment, through
the snow--would it make her cough? She scouted the idea. It never used
to it. Indeed, she did not feel sure that Bridgetticks might not prove,
if fairly tried, worth quarts of Chloric Ether. A dream hung about
her waking consciousness of Bridgetticks and the Turk, mysteriously
visitors to relatives in the neighbourhood of Royd, and of a wild
escapade to the highest ridge of a hill in the neighbourhood, in the
snow. At the end of that dream an imaginary self passed through the
mind of the little pale dreamer, a robust young self and a rosy, that
broke in upon an image of Daddy at his hour for leaving the well-head,
with, "Me and this boy and Bridgetticks, we been right up atop of
Crumwen, and I haven't coftited not wuntst, the whole time!" A little
of that sort of thing would set her up. But she wasn't going to say so.
She loved the big Rector and Phoebe and Jones, and Mrs. Forks, and even
poor Dr. Spiderophel, with his scientific delusions, far too much to
hint that they could be mistaken. They should have it all their way,
they should!
Athelstan Taylor became quite hopeful about the little girl during
that January and February. He paid Lizarann a visit at intervals--very
short ones when her absences from school were frequent. According to
the reports he carried to Miss Caldecott and his own little girls, the
patient took a decided turn for the better so often that a very few
weeks should have sufficed to qualify her to practise as an Amazon.
Phoebe and Joan were quite satisfied that when papa and aunty took
them up to town in autumn Lizarann would come too, and then they would
all go to see Madame Tussaud's, Westminster Abbey, and Tallack Street.
Especially the last. But this expedition never came off.
When Teacher from London came again about Easter time she was
disappointed. She did not find what she had been led to suppose she
would; not by any conscious exaggeration of the Rector's, but by his
genuine over-hopefulness, backed by groundless mis-statements of fact
from the little woman herself contained in very well-written letters
enclosing hieroglyphs that meant kisses. Adeline Fossett took the first
opportunity of finding out whether the patient was still a self-acting
Turkish Bath in the small hours, or dry. Her observations were not
satisfactory. But there!--you know all about cases of this sort; at
least, we expect you do, though we hope you don't.
"I wish we could get her to the seaside," said she. "Any of those
places would do. You know, Yorick, you are just as anxious to save the
little person as I am. Every bit!"
"My dear Addie!--of course I am. The idea! But we mustn't talk of
_saving_ her, yet. I should say _losing_ her, perhaps; but you know
what I mean. We can talk to Sidrophel--see what he says."
So the doctor was referred to, and his opinion amounted to this: that
if the child went away by herself to any sort of hospital or home, she
would either have to be indoors with the other patients, or exposed to
all the windy gusts of spring on the sea-beach, or perhaps in a shelter
with a fine sea-view. People were always hunting climates that didn't
exist, and inflicting horrible hardships on themselves in the chase.
When summer by the sea was a certainty, send her, by all means. After
midsummer, he should say; no sooner!
This was in early April, just when a misleading rush of crocuses into
a treacherous few days of sunshine had set folk off hoping for a real
spring this year; like when we were young--like Chaucer--like Spenser.
Some mistaken nightingales arrived, and must have felt foolish.
Infatuated orchards promised themselves a crop of pears; it even went
as far as that!
"We may be thankful for one thing, at any rate," said the Rev.
Athelstan to Miss Fossett two or three weeks after. "We did _not_ pack
off that little wench to the seaside. In weather like this she's best
where she is, on the whole. Sidrophel's right. He often is."
"He was right this time. Just look at it!" Sleet was the thing referred
to.
"Werry bad state the roads are in, sir," says a third party in this
conversation. "Bad alike for 'orse and man. Thankee, sir!" He was a
cabman, and he had just driven this lady and gentleman over five miles,
so he knew. He departs with the postscript sixpence his last words
procured, as an extra concession after an over-liberal fare, and his
late tenants pass in at the door of the little house that is part of
the school-building where Lizarann developed that first inflammatory
cold months ago. The story is back for the moment on the Cazenove
Estate, and the Rector is going presently to walk over to the new
incumbent at St. Vulgate's, who will house him to-night, and tell of
his few sheep and many goats. He can stay for a cup of tea now, and get
there by seven.
"Yes, the doctor was right. She's just as well off under Mrs. Fox's
thatch. Better! When the warm weather comes we'll send her for six
weeks to Chalk Cliff, and give her a good set-up!" But his hearer only
sees her way to silence on this point.
The story has told, but very slightly, the strange _rapport_ between
these two, that had lasted through so many years. For over twenty they
had elected to pose as brother and sister. During all that time the
mind of each had referred to the other as in some sense the principal
person; that is the only way to express their thought. When Athelstan
first adored the fascinating Sophia Caldecott, he really could hardly
have said which he wanted most, that young person herself, or Gus's
sister's sympathy about her. But so blind was he at the time, so blind
had he remained through all the years of his married life, that he
never conceived that, midmost among all her memories of the past, a
lurid star outshining all the others, was the record of that hour when
the young man she thought and spoke of as a boy, remembered so well,
came to her father's house intoxicated with a new-found joy, to tell
her chiefly and above all others that he was affianced to--well!--to
the wrong sister; not the friend she had set her heart on!
As they sat there by the fire in the half-dark, resting after their
journey, his mind, like hers, went off on old times. Presently he shook
off his own burden of memories with, "Well!--I suppose I ought to be on
the move."
"Don't hurry away. It's not much past five yet, and they can make
dinner half-past seven. You've plenty of time."
The flicker of the fire has the best of what is left of the light of a
dull day; it shows two faces serious enough, certainly, but not sad.
They are dwelling on the same past, each from its own point of view;
but their owners are really happy to eke out a little more time in
the half-light, each knowing the heart of the other. They are glad
dinner at St. Vulgate's can be half-past seven; it is half-an-hour
longer to be together, and really those people in the train had made it
impossible to talk.
"I shan't see you again for ever so long, Yorick, unless you and Bessy
change your minds and come up earlier."
"You must manage a visit to Royd in July."
"If I can!--it depends. But...."
The Rector glanced shrewdly up. "But anything particular?" said he.
"Well, Yorick, yes! Something particular. Only I don't know how to
say it." As she sits there, a little flushed--or is it only the
firelight?--one hand a face-rest, the other coaxing the burning coals
into groups with a persuasive poker, the question that suggests itself
is the old one--how comes she to be an old maid? A six-and-thirty maid,
at any rate!
"I know what it's about, Addie. It's the Bill, and the Bishop."
"Yes, dear old boy." This was a great relief. "Now, do tell me, what
shall you do?"
"You mean if the Bill passes?"
"Yes."
"I shall do nothing. Why should I?"
"Not even if Dr. Barham...?"
"Dr. Barham can _do_ nothing. He can only remonstrate. What was it he
said to Lady Arkroyd?"
"That if the Bill passed it would be his duty to point out to you that
your relations ... well!--your relation with Bessy had altogether
changed since the Act; and that for a clerk in holy orders to keep
house with any single lady not his sister by parentage would be ...
well!--would not do at all."
"And what did Lady Arkroyd say to the Bishop?"
"Not herself; it was the Duchess. Only she told me. What the Duchess
said was, 'I hope if you do, the Reverend Athelstan will bring a suit
against you for libel, and make you smart for it.' Dr. Barham won't
speak to her Grace now."
"Dr. Barham would be quite within his rights. No action for libel could
possibly lie. Any remonstrance on a matter of morality within his
diocese must be a Bishop's privilege. Besides, a written letter would
hardly constitute publication...."
"Dear old Yorick! I wonder why men are so fond of talking law to women,
as if they knew by nature and women didn't. Never mind the law! It
isn't that.... Don't you see how disagreeable it would be for Bessy?"
"No--I don't know that I do. I don't see why Bess need bother herself
about it...."
"Hm...!"
"Oh--well--yes! Yes, I do--of course I do! It would be detestable for
Bess."
"You see I'm right?"
"Oh yes, absolutely. It was only my perversity." A self-excusing,
deprecatory shoulder-shrug. _Peccavit confitetur_ is its import. Then
he breaks into a good-humoured laugh. "After all, you know, there's
always a way out of the difficulty."
Something brings a sudden exclamation from Adeline Fossett. "Yes,
what?--but go on!" She has risen from her seat, and stands with her
hands pressed close together, and eyes of expectation fixed on his.
"Oh, Yorick!--is it--is it.... Oh, I do hope ... _is_ it the one I've
thought of?" She hesitates. He hesitates.
"That depends on _what_ you have thought," he says at last. But with a
suspicion that they may have thought alike, too.
"Oh, if I dared guess!... I don't know; dare I?...--yes, I will--I
don't care!..."
"Go on!"
"If the Bill passes, you know ... then ... then ... you and Bessy to
get married! Was that your idea, Yorick? Oh, do tell me!"
"Why, of course it was."
Miss Fossett throws herself back in her chair again, with a deep sigh
as of relief. "Oh dear, how nice that would be!" she says. But she is
taking it all to heart, and her eyes are full of tears. The Rector is
very cool over it.
"It would be a way out of the difficulty," he says. "Not a bad one,
perhaps. Better, at any rate, than Bess having to turn out and leave
the children. They are quite like her own, you see. And it wouldn't
make any difference." This is not quite understood, apparently, and he
adds: "Everything would go on exactly as usual."
Miss Fossett had a sort of feeling that it might be possible to parade
an unlover-like attitude too far. Athelstan surely might warm up a
little. He had spoken as he might have done if marriage were a new hat.
It would, or wouldn't, fit. "You would ... like it, though--wouldn't
you?" she asked, in a rather frightened sort of way.
"It would suit me very well. I shouldn't like the only other
expedient--marrying somebody else to make up a possible housekeeping.
We both should know exactly why we had done it, and we should gain the
end proposed. It would rather be for Bess to decide if she would like
such a very prosaic arrangement."
"You mean chilly?"
"No, I don't. We're not chilly now, Bess and I. And we never quarrel.
The temperature wouldn't go down because we had deferred to the opinion
of our diocesan." He drew out his watch, "I must go.... Don't think
I'm not in earnest, Addie. If the Bill passes, I might have to ask
Bess to settle the point. I should do it for the sake of the children.
The worst of it would be that if she negatived the idea, we might be
uncomfortable afterwards. As for her leaving the children, of course
that's out of the question. And I couldn't have her carry them off,
like poor Challis's wife.... I _must_ go." He got up to depart.
"I'm disappointed, Yorick," said Adeline.
"What at, Addie?"
"Why, of course she wouldn't have you on those terms."
"Just consider! If you were in her place?"
"Well--_I wouldn't!_ Not on _those_ terms." She seemed to mean every
syllable.
The Rector stood in the passage, buttoning his overcoat. "Poor
Challis!" said he, going back on the conversation. "They've made a
knight of him! I shall go and look for him before I go back. I fancy
he's back in town."
"You know I don't agree, Yorick?"
"What about?"
"About 'poor Challis.'" These words were said in inverted commas. "I
told you, don't you remember, that I had heard all about it from the
other side--from Charlotte Eldridge."
"Yes, but you were biassed against him, because of his deceased wife's
sister marriage. You know you were!"
"Well!--wasn't I right?" But there is an amused twinkle in the Rector's
eye, which is understood. "Oh no, Yorick, no!--it's _quite_ a different
thing...."
"Before and after an Act of Parliament, is that it?"
But Adeline has run her ship on the sands, and must back off. "It's
impossible to compare the two cases," she says. "Do you know, if you
are to be at St. Vulgate's by seven-thirty, you'll want a cab. You
can't carry what you're pleased to call your little valise and get
there by then. _Do_ take a cab, Yorick!"
"Fifty-five minutes does it," says Yorick. "And I've got fifty-seven.
I've a great mind to spend the odd two reading you a little homily
about consistency...."
"Go away. Good-bye." A cordial shake of the hand is all that forms
permit, and it seems such a shame!
* * * * *
One reason why it was impossible to compare the two cases was a
perfectly clear one, to the thinking of Miss Fossett's innermost heart.
But she kept it tight locked up there.
In the old days, when all her forecasts of life took her own practical
exclusion from it for granted, and wrote celibacy large on every page
of her record-volume, her great dream had been to unite her beloved
friend Bessy Caldecott to that dearest of all possible young fellows,
her brother Gus's friend Athelstan. Adeline was a little prone to
playing at Providence, and--don't you see?--Bessy was so good and
sound, and so much better altogether than that showy little sister of
hers. So, what wonder, when Athelstan led the family minx, Sophy, to
the altar, that Adeline rather than otherwise wished that the earth
would open and swallow the altar? She would have resented the idea that
any personal feeling entered into the matter.
Even so in these new days, with all this change, she could and did
believe that she could see her old girl friend the wife of her old boy
friend, without any feeling but sheer rejoicing that Yorick had married
the right sister after all. And this feeling entered strangely into her
real views on the Deceased Wife's Sister question. Catechized closely,
she might have confessed to a belief in real wives, with a sub-creed
that marriage with a sister of one was somehow a worse desecration of a
sacrament than marriage with a second cousin, for instance, or a mere
female undefined. There was no evidence to show that Challis hadn't
married the right sister first. If he hadn't, of course the "living in
Sin" business had come off in the first act of his drama, and nothing
was needed but an Act of Parliament to qualify the parties to live in
purity, ungrundied.
At any rate, those were the lines on which Miss Fossett would have
justified her friend's defiance of his Bishop. And when Yorick had
referred to that other way of solving his problem--marriage with the
female undefined--she had shut any hint of that female being defined as
herself into the very core of her heart with a snap.