A DREARY VIGIL
Through the dark rain, against the cold wind, shaken over the rough
stones, went Hester in the little tax-cart. Her heart kept rising
against her fate; the hot tears came unbidden to her eyes. But
rebellious heart was soothed, and hot tears were sent back to their
source before the time came for her alighting.
The driver turned his horse in the narrow lane, and shouted after
her an injunction to make haste as, with her head bent low, she
struggled down to the path to Haytersbank Farm. She saw the light in
the window from the top of the brow, and involuntarily she slackened
her pace. She had never seen Bell Robson, and would Sylvia recollect
her? If she did not how awkward it would be to give the explanation
of who she was, and what her errand was, and why she was sent.
Nevertheless, it must be done; so on she went, and standing within
the little porch, she knocked faintly at the door; but in the
bluster of the elements the sound was lost. Again she knocked, and
now the murmur of women's voices inside was hushed, and some one
came quickly to the door, and opened it sharply.
It was Sylvia. Although her face was completely in shadow, of course
Hester knew her well; but she, if indeed she would have recognized
Hester less disguised, did not know in the least who the woman,
muffled up in a great cloak, with her hat tied down with a silk
handkerchief, standing in the porch at this time of night, could be.
Nor, indeed, was she in a mood to care or to inquire. She said
hastily, in a voice rendered hoarse and arid with grief:
'Go away. This is no house for strangers to come to. We've enough on
our own to think on;' and she hastily shut the door in Hester's
face, before the latter could put together the right words in which
to explain her errand. Hester stood outside in the dark, wet porch
discomfited, and wondering how next to obtain a hearing through the
shut and bolted door. Not long did she stand, however; some one was
again at the door, talking in a voice of distress and remonstrance,
and slowly unbarring the bolts. A tall, thin figure of an elderly
woman was seen against the warm fire-light inside as soon as the
door was opened; a hand was put out, like that which took the dove
into the ark, and Hester was drawn into the warmth and the light,
while Bell's voice went on speaking to Sylvia before addressing the
dripping stranger--
'It's not a night to turn a dog fra' t' door; it's ill letting our
grief harden our hearts. But oh! missus (to Hester), yo' mun forgive
us, for a great sorrow has fallen upon us this day, an' we're like
beside ourselves wi' crying an' plaining.'
Bell sate down, and threw her apron over her poor worn face, as if
decently to shield the signs of her misery from a stranger's gaze.
Sylvia, all tear-swollen, and looking askance and almost fiercely at
the stranger who had made good her intrusion, was drawn, as it were,
to her mother's side, and, kneeling down by her, put her arms round
her waist, and almost lay across her lap, still gazing at Hester
with cold, distrustful eyes, the expression of which repelled and
daunted that poor, unwilling messenger, and made her silent for a
minute or so after her entrance. Bell suddenly put down her apron.
'Yo're cold and drenched,' said she. 'Come near to t' fire and warm
yo'rsel'; yo' mun pardon us if we dunnot think on everything at
onest.'
'Yo're very kind, very kind indeed,' said Hester, touched by the
poor woman's evident effort to forget her own grief in the duties of
hospitality, and loving Bell from that moment.
'I'm Hester Rose,' she continued, half addressing Sylvia, who she
thought might remember the name, 'and Philip Hepburn has sent me in
a tax-cart to t' stile yonder, to fetch both on yo' back to
Monkshaven.' Sylvia raised her head and looked intently at Hester.
Bell clasped her hands tight together and leant forwards.
'It's my master as wants us?' said she, in an eager, questioning
tone.
'It's for to see yo'r master,' said Hester. 'Philip says he'll be
sent to York to-morrow, and yo'll be fain to see him before he goes;
and if yo'll come down to Monkshaven to-night, yo'll be on t' spot
again' the time comes when t' justices will let ye.'
Bell was up and about, making for the place where she kept her
out-going things, almost before Hester had begun to speak. She
hardly understood about her husband's being sent to York, in the
possession of the idea that she might go and see him. She did not
understand or care how, in this wild night, she was to get to
Monkshaven; all she thought of was, that she might go and see her
husband. But Sylvia took in more points than her mother, and, almost
suspiciously, began to question Hester.
'Why are they sending him to York? What made Philip leave us? Why
didn't he come hissel'?'
'He couldn't come hissel', he bade me say; because he was bound to
be at the lawyer's at five, about yo'r father's business. I think
yo' might ha' known he would ha' come for any business of his own;
and, about York, it's Philip as telled me, and I never asked why. I
never thought on yo'r asking me so many questions. I thought yo'd be
ready to fly on any chance o' seeing your father.' Hester spoke out
the sad reproach that ran from her heart to her lips. To distrust
Philip! to linger when she might hasten!
'Oh!' said Sylvia, breaking out into a wild cry, that carried with
it more conviction of agony than much weeping could have done. 'I
may be rude and hard, and I may ask strange questions, as if I cared
for t' answers yo' may gi' me; an', in my heart o' hearts, I care
for nought but to have father back wi' us, as love him so dear. I
can hardly tell what I say, much less why I say it. Mother is so
patient, it puts me past mysel', for I could fight wi' t' very
walls, I'm so mad wi' grieving. Sure, they'll let him come back wi'
us to-morrow, when they hear from his own sel' why he did it?'
She looked eagerly at Hester for an answer to this last question,
which she had put in a soft, entreating tone, as if with Hester
herself the decision rested. Hester shook her head. Sylvia came up
to her and took her hands, almost fondling them.
'Yo' dunnot think they'll be hard wi' him when they hear all about
it, done yo'? Why, York Castle's t' place they send a' t' thieves
and robbers to, not honest men like feyther.'
Hester put her hand on Sylvia's shoulder with a soft, caressing
gesture.
'Philip will know,' she said, using Philip's name as a kind of
spell--it would have been so to her. 'Come away to Philip,' said she
again, urging Sylvia, by her looks and manner, to prepare for the
little journey. Sylvia moved away for this purpose, saying to
herself,--
'It's going to see feyther: he will tell me all.'
Poor Mrs. Robson was collecting a few clothes for her husband with an
eager, trembling hand, so trembling that article after article fell
to the floor, and it was Hester who picked them up; and at last,
after many vain attempts by the grief-shaken woman, it was Hester
who tied the bundle, and arranged the cloak, and fastened down the
hood; Sylvia standing by, not unobservant, though apparently
absorbed in her own thoughts.
At length, all was arranged, and the key given over to Kester. As
they passed out into the storm, Sylvia said to Hester,--
'Thou's a real good wench. Thou's fitter to be about mother than me.
I'm but a cross-patch at best, an' now it's like as if I was no good
to nobody.'
Sylvia began to cry, but Hester had no time to attend to her, even
had she the inclination: all her care was needed to help the hasty,
tottering steps of the wife who was feebly speeding up the wet and
slippery brow to her husband. All Bell thought of was that 'he' was
at the end of her toil. She hardly understood when she was to see
him; her weary heart and brain had only received one idea--that each
step she was now taking was leading her to him. Tired and exhausted
with her quick walk up hill, battling all the way with wind and
rain, she could hardly have held up another minute when they reached
the tax-cart in the lane, and Hester had almost to lift her on to
the front seat by the driver. She covered and wrapped up the poor
old woman, and afterwards placed herself in the straw at the back of
the cart, packed up close by the shivering, weeping Sylvia. Neither
of them spoke a word at first; but Hester's tender conscience smote
her for her silence before they had reached Monkshaven. She wanted
to say some kind word to Sylvia, and yet knew not how to begin.
Somehow, without knowing why, or reasoning upon it, she hit upon
Philip's message as the best comfort in her power to give. She had
delivered it before, but it had been apparently little heeded.
'Philip bade me say it was business as kept him from fetchin' yo'
hissel'--business wi' the lawyer, about--about yo'r father.'
'What do they say?' said Sylvia, suddenly, lifting her bowed head,
as though she would read her companion's face in the dim light.
'I dunnot know,' said Hester, sadly. They were now jolting over the
paved streets, and not a word could be spoken. They were now at
Philip's door, which was opened to receive them even before they
arrived, as if some one had been watching and listening. The old
servant, Phoebe, the fixture in the house, who had belonged to it
and to the shop for the last twenty years, came out, holding a
candle and sheltering it in her hand from the weather, while Philip
helped the tottering steps of Mrs. Robson as she descended behind. As
Hester had got in last, so she had now to be the first to move. Just
as she was moving, Sylvia's cold little hand was laid on her arm.
'I am main and thankful to yo'. I ask yo'r pardon for speaking
cross, but, indeed, my heart's a'most broken wi' fear about
feyther.'
The voice was so plaintive, so full of tears, that Hester could not
but yearn towards the speaker. She bent over and kissed her cheek,
and then clambered unaided down by the wheel on the dark side of the
cart. Wistfully she longed for one word of thanks or recognition
from Philip, in whose service she had performed this hard task; but
he was otherwise occupied, and on casting a further glance back as
she turned the corner of the street, she saw Philip lifting Sylvia
carefully down in his arms from her footing on the top of the wheel,
and then they all went into the light and the warmth, the door was
shut, the lightened cart drove briskly away, and Hester, in rain,
and cold, and darkness, went homewards with her tired sad heart.
Philip had done all he could, since his return from lawyer Dawson's,
to make his house bright and warm for the reception of his beloved.
He had a strong apprehension of the probable fate of poor Daniel
Robson; he had a warm sympathy with the miserable distress of the
wife and daughter; but still at the back of his mind his spirits
danced as if this was to them a festal occasion. He had even taken
unconscious pleasure in Phoebe's suspicious looks and tones, as he
had hurried and superintended her in her operations. A fire blazed
cheerily in the parlour, almost dazzling to the travellers brought
in from the darkness and the rain; candles burned--two candles, much
to Phoebe's discontent. Poor Bell Robson had to sit down almost as
soon as she entered the room, so worn out was she with fatigue and
excitement; yet she grudged every moment which separated her, as she
thought, from her husband.
'I'm ready now,' said she, standing up, and rather repulsing
Sylvia's cares; 'I'm ready now,' said she, looking eagerly at
Philip, as if for him to lead the way.
'It's not to-night,' replied he, almost apologetically. 'You can't
see him to-night; it's to-morrow morning before he goes to York; it
was better for yo' to be down here in town ready; and beside I
didn't know when I sent for ye that he was locked up for the night.'
'Well-a-day, well-a-day,' said Bell, rocking herself backwards and
forwards, and trying to soothe herself with these words. Suddenly
she said,--
'But I've brought his comforter wi' me--his red woollen comforter as
he's allays slept in this twelvemonth past; he'll get his rheumatiz
again; oh, Philip, cannot I get it to him?'
'I'll send it by Phoebe,' said Philip, who was busy making tea,
hospitable and awkward.
'Cannot I take it mysel'?' repeated Bell. 'I could make surer nor
anybody else; they'd maybe not mind yon woman--Phoebe d'ye call
her?'
'Nay, mother,' said Sylvia, 'thou's not fit to go.'
'Shall I go?' asked Philip, hoping she would say 'no', and be
content with Phoebe, and leave him where he was.
'Oh, Philip, would yo'?' said Sylvia, turning round.
'Ay,' said Bell, 'if thou would take it they'd be minding yo'.'
So there was nothing for it but for him to go, in the first flush of
his delightful rites of hospitality.
'It's not far,' said he, consoling himself rather than them. 'I'll
be back in ten minutes, the tea is maskit, and Phoebe will take yo'r
wet things and dry 'em by t' kitchen fire; and here's the stairs,'
opening a door in the corner of the room, from which the stairs
immediately ascended. 'There's two rooms at the top; that to t' left
is all made ready, t' other is mine,' said he, reddening a little as
he spoke. Bell was busy undoing her bundle with trembling fingers.
'Here,' said she; 'and oh, lad, here's a bit o' peppermint cake;
he's main and fond on it, and I catched sight on it by good luck
just t' last minute.'
Philip was gone, and the excitement of Bell and Sylvia flagged once
more, and sank into wondering despondency. Sylvia, however, roused
herself enough to take off her mother's wet clothes, and she took
them timidly into the kitchen and arranged them before Phoebe's
fire.
Phoebe opened her lips once or twice to speak in remonstrance, and
then, with an effort, gulped her words down; for her sympathy, like
that of all the rest of the Monkshaven world, was in favour of
Daniel Robson; and his daughter might place her dripping cloak this
night wherever she would, for Phoebe.
Sylvia found her mother still sitting on the chair next the door,
where she had first placed herself on entering the room.
'I'll gi'e you some tea, mother,' said she, struck with the shrunken
look of Bell's face.
'No, no' said her mother. 'It's not manners for t' help oursel's.'
'I'm sure Philip would ha' wished yo' for to take it,' said Sylvia,
pouring out a cup.
Just then he returned, and something in his look, some dumb
expression of delight at her occupation, made her blush and hesitate
for an instant; but then she went on, and made a cup of tea ready,
saying something a little incoherent all the time about her mother's
need of it. After tea Bell Robson's weariness became so extreme,
that Philip and Sylvia urged her to go to bed. She resisted a
little, partly out of 'manners,' and partly because she kept
fancying, poor woman, that somehow or other her husband might send
for her. But about seven o'clock Sylvia persuaded her to come
upstairs. Sylvia, too, bade Philip good-night, and his look followed
the last wave of her dress as she disappeared up the stairs; then
leaning his chin on his hand, he gazed at vacancy and thought
deeply--for how long he knew not, so intent was his mind on the
chances of futurity.
He was aroused by Sylvia's coming down-stairs into the sitting-room
again. He started up.
'Mother is so shivery,' said she. 'May I go in there,' indicating
the kitchen, 'and make her a drop of gruel?'
'Phoebe shall make it, not you,' said Philip, eagerly preventing
her, by going to the kitchen door and giving his orders. When he
turned round again, Sylvia was standing over the fire, leaning her
head against the stone mantel-piece for the comparative coolness.
She did not speak at first, or take any notice of him. He watched
her furtively, and saw that she was crying, the tears running down
her cheeks, and she too much absorbed in her thoughts to wipe them
away with her apron.
While he was turning over in his mind what he could best say to
comfort her (his heart, like hers, being almost too full for words),
she suddenly looked him full in the face, saying,--
'Philip! won't they soon let him go? what can they do to him?' Her
open lips trembled while awaiting his answer, the tears came up and
filled her eyes. It was just the question he had most dreaded; it
led to the terror that possessed his own mind, but which he had
hoped to keep out of hers. He hesitated. 'Speak, lad!' said she,
impatiently, with a little passionate gesture. 'I can see thou
knows!'
He had only made it worse by consideration; he rushed blindfold at a
reply.
'He's ta'en up for felony.'
'Felony,' said she. 'There thou're out; he's in for letting yon men
out; thou may call it rioting if thou's a mind to set folks again'
him, but it's too bad to cast such hard words at him as
yon--felony,' she repeated, in a half-offended tone.
'It's what the lawyers call it,' said Philip, sadly; 'it's no word
o' mine.'
'Lawyers is allays for making the worst o' things,' said she, a
little pacified, 'but folks shouldn't allays believe them.'
'It's lawyers as has to judge i' t' long run.'
'Cannot the justices, Mr. Harter and them as is no lawyers, give him
a sentence to-morrow, wi'out sending him to York?'
'No!' said Philip, shaking his head. He went to the kitchen door and
asked if the gruel was not ready, so anxious was he to stop the
conversation at this point; but Phoebe, who held her young master in
but little respect, scolded him for a stupid man, who thought, like
all his sex, that gruel was to be made in a minute, whatever the
fire was, and bade him come and make it for himself if he was in
such a hurry.
He had to return discomfited to Sylvia, who meanwhile had arranged
her thoughts ready to return to the charge.
'And say he's sent to York, and say he's tried theere, what's t'
worst they can do again' him?' asked she, keeping down her agitation
to look at Philip the more sharply. Her eyes never slackened their
penetrating gaze at his countenance, until he replied, with the
utmost unwillingness, and most apparent confusion,--
'They may send him to Botany Bay.'
He knew that he held back a worse contingency, and he was mortally
afraid that she would perceive this reserve. But what he did say was
so much beyond her utmost apprehension, which had only reached to
various terms of imprisonment, that she did not imagine the dark
shadow lurking behind. What he had said was too much for her. Her
eyes dilated, her lips blanched, her pale cheeks grew yet paler.
After a minute's look into his face, as if fascinated by some
horror, she stumbled backwards into the chair in the chimney comer,
and covered her face with her hands, moaning out some inarticulate
words.
Philip was on his knees by her, dumb from excess of sympathy,
kissing her dress, all unfelt by her; he murmured half-words, he
began passionate sentences that died away upon his lips; and
she--she thought of nothing but her father, and was possessed and
rapt out of herself by the dread of losing him to that fearful
country which was almost like the grave to her, so all but
impassable was the gulf. But Philip knew that it was possible that
the separation impending might be that of the dark, mysterious
grave--that the gulf between the father and child might indeed be
that which no living, breathing, warm human creature can ever cross.
'Sylvie, Sylvie!' said he,--and all their conversation had to be
carried on in low tones and whispers, for fear of the listening ears
above,--'don't,--don't, thou'rt rending my heart. Oh, Sylvie,
hearken. There's not a thing I'll not do; there's not a penny I've
got,--th' last drop of blood that's in me,--I'll give up my life for
his.'
'Life,' said she, putting down her hands, and looking at him as if
her looks could pierce his soul; 'who talks o' touching his life?
Thou're going crazy, Philip, I think;' but she did not think so,
although she would fain have believed it. In her keen agony she read
his thoughts as though they were an open page; she sate there,
upright and stony, the conviction creeping over her face like the
grey shadow of death. No more tears, no more trembling, almost no
more breathing. He could not bear to see her, and yet she held his
eyes, and he feared to make the effort necessary to move or to turn
away, lest the shunning motion should carry conviction to her heart.
Alas! conviction of the probable danger to her father's life was
already there: it was that that was calming her down, tightening her
muscles, bracing her nerves. In that hour she lost all her early
youth.
'Then he may be hung,' said she, low and solemnly, after a long
pause. Philip turned away his face, and did not utter a word. Again
deep silence, broken only by some homely sound in the kitchen.
'Mother must not know on it,' said Sylvia, in the same tone in which
she had spoken before.
'It's t' worst as can happen to him,' said Philip. 'More likely
he'll be transported: maybe he'll be brought in innocent after all.'
'No,' said Sylvia, heavily, as one without hope--as if she were
reading some dreadful doom in the tablets of the awful future.
'They'll hang him. Oh, feyther! feyther!' she choked out, almost
stuffing her apron into her mouth to deaden the sound, and catching
at Philip's hand, and wringing it with convulsive force, till the
pain that he loved was nearly more than he could bear. No words of
his could touch such agony; but irrepressibly, and as he would have
done it to a wounded child, he bent over her, and kissed her with a
tender, trembling kiss. She did not repulse it, probably she did not
even perceive it.
At that moment Phoebe came in with the gruel. Philip saw her, and
knew, in an instant, what the old woman's conclusion must needs be;
but Sylvia had to be shaken by the now standing Philip, before she
could be brought back to the least consciousness of the present
time. She lifted up her white face to understand his words, then she
rose up like one who slowly comes to the use of her limbs.
'I suppose I mun go,' she said; 'but I'd sooner face the dead. If
she asks me, Philip, what mun I say?'
'She'll not ask yo',' said he, 'if yo' go about as common. She's
never asked yo' all this time, an' if she does, put her on to me.
I'll keep it from her as long as I can; I'll manage better nor I've
done wi' thee, Sylvie,' said he, with a sad, faint smile, looking
with fond penitence at her altered countenance.
'Thou mustn't blame thysel',' said Sylvia, seeing his regret. 'I
brought it on me mysel'; I thought I would ha' t' truth, whativer
came on it, and now I'm not strong enough to stand it, God help me!'
she continued, piteously.
'Oh, Sylvie, let me help yo'! I cannot do what God can,--I'm not
meaning that, but I can do next to Him of any man. I have loved yo'
for years an' years, in a way it's terrible to think on, if my love
can do nought now to comfort yo' in your sore distress.'
'Cousin Philip,' she replied, in the same measured tone in which she
had always spoken since she had learnt the extent of her father's
danger, and the slow stillness of her words was in harmony with the
stony look of her face, 'thou's a comfort to me, I couldn't bide my
life without thee; but I cannot take in the thought o' love, it
seems beside me quite; I can think on nought but them that is quick
and them that is dead.'