Snow was falling. At one of the windows of the parlour at Copse Farm,
stood Susan Page, her bunch of short dark curls fastened back with a
comb on both sides of her thin face, her trim figure neat in a fine
crimson merino gown. Her own portion of household-work was already done,
though it was not yet mid-day, and she was about to sit down, dressed
for the day, to some sewing that lay on the work-table.
"I was hoping the snow was over: the morning looked so clear and
bright," she said to herself, watching the large flakes. "Leek will have
a job to get the truck to the church."
It was a long, narrow room. At the other end, by the fire, sat Mr. Page
in his arm-chair. He had dropped asleep, his cheek leaning on his hand.
As Miss Susan sat down and took up her work, a large pair of scissors
fell to the ground with a crash. She glanced round at her father, but he
did not wake. That stroke of a year ago had dulled his faculties.
"I should uncommonly like to know who did this--whether Sally or the
woman," she exclaimed, examining the work she had to do. One of Mr.
Page's new shirts had been torn in the washing, and she was about to
mend the rent. "That woman has a heavy hand: and Sally a careless one.
It ought not to have been ironed."
The door opened, and John Drench came in. When he saw that Mr. Page
was asleep, he walked up the room towards Miss Susan. In the past
twelvemonth--for that amount of time had rolled on since the trouble
about Jessy and her mysterious disappearance--John Drench had had time
to return to his first allegiance (or, as Miss Susan mentally put it,
get over his folly); and he had decidedly done it.
"Did you want anything?" asked Susan in a cold tone. For she made a
point of being short with him--for his own benefit.
"I wanted to ask the master whether he'd have that ditch made, that he
was talking about," was the answer. "There's no hurry about it: not much
to be done anywhere while this weather lasts."
She made no reply. John Drench stood, waiting for Mr. Page to wake,
looking alternately at the snow and at Miss Susan's steel thimble and
nimble fingers. Very deftly was she doing the work, holding the linen
gingerly, that the well-ironed bosom and wristbands might not get
creased and unfit the shirt for wear. He was thinking what a good wife
she would make: for there was nothing, in the shape of usefulness, that
Susan Page could not put her hand to, and put it well.
"Miss Susan, I was going to ask you a question," he began, standing
uncomfortably on one leg. "I've been wanting to do it for a good bit
now, but----"
"Pick up my cotton," said Miss Susan tartly, dropping a reel purposely.
"But I believe I have wanted courage," resumed he after doing as he was
bid. "It _is_ a puzzling task to know how to do it for the best, and
what to say. If you----"
Open flew the door, and in came Miss Page, in her white kitchen apron.
Her sleeves were rolled above her elbows, her floured hands were lightly
wiped. John Drench, interrupted, thought he should never have pluck to
speak again.
"Susan, do you know where that old red receipt-book is?" she asked, in a
low tone, glancing at her sleeping father. "I am not certain about the
proportions for the lemon cake."
"The red receipt-book?" repeated Susan. "I have not seen it for ever so
long."
"Nor I. I don't think I have had occasion to use it since last
Christmas-Eve. I know I had to look at it then for the lemon-cake. Sally
says she's sure it is somewhere in this room."
"Then you had better send Sally to find it, Abigail."
Instead of that, Miss Page began searching herself. On the book-shelves;
on the side-board; in all the nooks and corners. It was found in the
drawer of an unused table that stood against the wall.
"Well, I declare!" she exclaimed, as she drew it out. "I wonder who put
it in here?"
In turning over the leaves to look for what she wanted, a piece of
paper, loosely folded, fell to the ground. John Drench picked it up.
"Why!" he said, "it is a note from Jessy."
It was the letter written to them by Jessy, saying she had found a
situation and hoped to suit and be happy in it. The _one_ letter: for no
other had ever come. Abigail, missing the letter months ago, supposed it
had got burnt.
"Yes," she said with a sigh, as she glanced over the few lines now,
standing by Susan's work-table, "it is Jessy's letter. She might have
written again. Every morning of my life for weeks and weeks, I kept
looking for the letter-man to bring another. But the hope died out at
last, for it never came."
"She is a heartless baggage!" cried Miss Susan. "In her grand
lady's-maid's place, amongst her high people, she is content to forget
and abandon us. I'd never have believed it of her."
A pause ensued. The subject was a painful one. Mortifying too: for no
one likes to be set at nought and forgotten by one that they have loved
and cherished and brought up from a little child. Abigail Page had tears
in her eyes.
"It's just a year ago to-day that she came into the church to help us to
dress it," said John Drench, his tender tone of regret grating on Miss
Susan's ear. "In her blue mantle she looked sweeter and brighter than a
fairy."
"Did you ever see a fairy, pray?" asked Miss Susan, sharply taking him
up. "She acted like a fairy, didn't she?"
"Best to forget her," interposed Abigail, suppressing a sigh. "As
Susan says, she is heartless. Almost wicked: for what is worse than
ingratitude? Never to write: never to let us know where her situation is
and with what people: never to ask or care whether her poor father, who
had nothing but love for her, is living or dead? It's best to forget
her."
She went out of the room with the note and receipt-book as she spoke,
softly closing the door behind her, as one does who is feeling trouble.
Miss Susan worked on with rapid and angry stitches; John Drench looked
out on the low-lying snow. The storm had passed: the sky was blue again.
Yes. Christmas-Eve had come round, making it just a year since Jessy in
her pretty blue mantle had chosen the sprays of holly in the church.
They had never had from her but that one first unsatisfactory letter:
they knew no more how she went, or why she went, or where she was, than
they had known then. Within a week or two of the unsatisfactory journey
to London of Miss Abigail and John Drench, a letter came to the farm
from Mr. Marcus Allen, inquiring after Jessy, expressing hopes that she
had been found and was at home again. It was not answered: Miss Page,
busy with her father's illness, neglected it at first, and then thought
it did not matter.
Mr. Page had recovered from his stroke: but he would never be good for
anything again. He was very much changed; would sit for hours and never
speak: at times his daughters thought him a little silly, as if his
intellect were failing. Miss Page, with John Drench's help, managed the
farm: though she always made it a point of duty to consult her father
and ask for his orders. In the month of June they heard again from Mr.
Marcus Allen. He wrote to say that he was sorry not to fulfil his
promise (made in the winter's visit) of coming to stay with them during
the time of hay-making, but he was busy finishing a painting and could
not leave it: he hoped to come at some other time. And this was now
December.
Susan Page worked on: John Drench looked out of the window. The young
lady was determined not to break the silence.
"The Dunn Farm is to let," said he suddenly.
"Is it?" slightingly returned Miss Susan.
"My father has some thoughts of taking it for me. It's good land."
"No better than other land about here."
"It's very good, Susan. And just the place I should like. There's an
excellent house too, on it."
Susan Page began rummaging in the deep drawer of the work-table for her
box of buttons. She had a great mind to hum a tune.
"But I couldn't take it, or let father take it for me, unless you'd
promise to go to it with me, Susan."
"Promise to go to it with you, John Drench!"
"I'd make you as good a husband as I know how. Perhaps you'll think of
it."
No answer. She was doubling her thread to sew on the button.
"_Will_ you think of it, Miss Susan?"
"Well--yes, I will," she said in a softer tone, "And if I decide to
bring my mind to have you, John Drench, I'll hope to make you a good and
faithful wife."
He held out his hand to shake hers upon the bargain. Their eyes met in
kindliness: and John Drench knew that the Dunn Farm would have its
mistress.
* * * * *
We were going to dress the church this year as we did the last. Clerk
Bumford's cough was bad, and the old sexton was laid by as usual. Tod
and I got to the church early in the afternoon, and saw the Miss Pages
wading their way through the coppice, over their ankles in snow: the one
lady having finished her cake-making and the other her shirt-mending.
"Is Leek not here yet?" cried they in surprise. "We need not have made
so much haste."
Leek with his large truck of holly was somewhere on the road. He had
started, as Miss Page said, while they were at dinner. And he was not to
be seen!
"It is all through his obstinacy," cried Susan. "I told him he had
better take the highway, though it was a little further round; but he
said he knew he could well get through the little valley. That's where
he has stuck, truck and all."
John Drench came up as she was speaking. He had been on some errand to
Church Dykely; and gave a bad account of the snow on the roads. This was
the third day of it. The skies just now were blue as in spring; the sun,
drawing towards the west, was without a cloud. After waiting a few
minutes, John Drench started to meet Leek and help him on; and we cooled
our heels in the church-porch, unable to get inside. As it was supposed
Leek would be there sooner than any one else, the key of the church had
been given to him that he might get the holly in. There we waited in the
cold. At last, out of patience, Tod went off in John Drench's wake, and
I after him.
It was as Miss Susan surmised. Leek and his truck had stuck fast in the
valley: a low, narrow neck of land connecting a byeway to the farm with
the lane. The snow was above the wheels: Leek could neither get on nor
turn back. He and John Drench were hard at work, pulling and pushing;
and the obstinate truck refusing to move an inch. With the help of our
strength--if mine was not worth much, Tod's _was_--we got it on. But
all this caused ever so much delay: and the dressing was begun when it
ought to have been nearly finished. I could not help thinking of the
other Christmas-Eve; and of pretty Jessy who had helped--and of Miss
Susan scolding her for coming in her best blue mantle--and of the sudden
looming upon us of the stranger, Marcus Allen. Perhaps the rest were
thinking about it as I was. One thing was certain--that there was no
liveliness in this year's dressing; we were all as silent as mutes and
as dull as ditch-water. Charley Page, who had made enough noise last
year, was away this. He went to school at Worcester now, and had gone to
spend the Christmas with some people in Gloucestershire, instead of
coming home.
The work was in progress, when who should look in upon us but Duffham.
He was passing by to visit some one ill in the cottages. "Rather late,
shan't you be?" cried he, seeing that there was hardly any green up yet.
And we told him about the truck sticking in the snow.
"What possessed Leek to take it through the valley?" returned Duffham.
"Because he is fonder of having his own way than a mule," called out
Miss Susan from the aisle.
Duffham laughed. "Don't forget the gala bunch over the parson's head; it
looked well last year," said he, turning to go out. And we told him
there was no danger of forgetting it: it was one of our improvements on
old Bumford's dressing.
Darkness overtook us before half the work was done. There was nothing
for it but to get candles from the Copse Farm to finish by. No one
volunteered to fetch them: a walk through the snow did not look lively
in prospective to any one of us, and Leek had gone off somewhere. "I
suppose it must be me," said John Drench, coming out from the holly to
start: when Miss Page suddenly bethought herself of what the rest of
us were forgetting--that there might be candles in the church. On a
winter's afternoon, when it grew dark early and the parson could not see
through his spectacles to finish his sermon, Clerk Bumford would go
stumping into the place under the belfry, and re-appear with a lighted
candle and hand it up to the pulpit. He ought to have a stock of candles
in store.
John Drench struck some matches, and we went to explore Bumford's
den--a place dimly lighted by the open slits in the belfry above. The
first thing seen was his black gown hanging up, next a horn lantern on
the floor and the grave-digging tools, then an iron candlestick with a
candle end in it, then a stick half-a-mile long that he menaced the boys
with if they laughed in church; and next a round tin candlebox on a nail
in the wall. It was a prize.
There were ten candles in it. Leaving one, in case it should be wanted
on the morrow afternoon, the nine others were lighted. One was put
into the iron candlestick, the rest we stuck upright in melted tallow,
wherever one was wanted: how else could they be set up? It was a grand
illumination: and we laughed over Clerk Bumford's dismay when he should
find his store of candles gone.
_That_ took time: finding the candles, and dropping the tallow, and
talking and laughing. In the midst of it the clock struck five. Upon
that, Miss Abigail told us to hinder no more time, or the work would not
be done by midnight. So we set to with a will. In a couple of hours all
the dressing was finished, and the branches were ready to be hung over
the pulpit. John Drench felt for the string. He seemed to take his time
over it.
"Where on earth is it?" cried he, searching his pockets. "I'm sure I
brought some."
He might have brought it; but it was certain he had not got it then.
Miss Abigail, who had no patience with carelessness, told him rather
sharply that if he had put it in his pockets at all, there it would be
now.
"Well, I did," he answered, in his quiet way. "I put it in on purpose.
I'm sure I don't know where it can have got to."
And there we were: at a standstill for a bit of string. Looking at one
another like so many helpless noodles, and the flaring candles coming to
an end! Tod said, tear a strip off the tail of Bumford's gown; he'd
never miss it: for which Miss Abigail gave it him as sharply as if he
had proposed to tear it off the parson's.
"I might get a bit of string at old Bumford's," I said. "In a few
minutes I'll be back with it."
It was one of the lightest nights ever seen: the air clear, the moon
bright, the ground white with snow. Rushing round the north and
unfrequented side of the church, where the grass on the graves was long
and no one ever walked, excepting old Bumford when he wanted to cut
across the near way to his cottage, I saw something stirring against the
church wall. Something dark: that seemed to have been looking in at
the window, and now crouched down with a sudden movement behind the
buttress, as if afraid of being seen.
"Is that you, Leek?" I called out.
There was no answer: no movement: nothing but a dark heap lying low. I
thought it might be a fox; and crossed over to look.
Well--I had had surprises in my life, but never one that so struck upon
me as this. Foxes don't wear women's clothes: this thing did. I pulled
aside the dark cloak, and a face stood out white and cold in the
moonlight--the face of Jessy Page.
You may fancy it is a slice of romance this; made up for effect out of
my imagination: but it is the real truth, as every one about the place
can testify to, and its strangeness is talked of still. Yet there are
stranger coincidences in life than this. On Christmas-Eve, a year
before, Jessy Page had been helping to dress the church, in her fine
blue mantle, in her beauty, in her light-hearted happiness: on this
Christmas-Eve when we were dressing it again, she re-appeared. But how
changed! Wan, white, faint, wasted! I am not sure that I should have
known her but for her voice. Shrinking, as it struck me, with shame and
fear, she put up her trembling hands in supplication.
"Don't betray me!--don't call!" she implored in weak, feverish, anxious
tones. "Go away and leave me. Let me lie here unsuspected until they
have all gone away."
What ought I to do? I was just as bewildered as it's possible for a
fellow to be. It's no exaggeration to say that I thought her dying: and
it would never do to leave her there to die.
The stillness was broken by a commotion. While she lay with her thin
hands raised, and I was gazing down on her poor face, wondering what to
say, and how to act, Miss Susan came flying round the corner after me.
"Johnny Ludlow! Master Johnny! Don't go. We have found the string under
the unused holly. Why!--what's that?"
No chance of concealment for Jessy now. Susan Page made for the
buttress, and saw the white face in the moonlight.
"It's Jessy," I whispered.
With a shriek that might have scared away all the ghosts in the
churchyard, Susan Page called for Abigail. They heard it through the
window, and came rushing out, thinking Susan must have fallen at least
into the clutches of a winter wolf. Miss Susan's voice trembled as she
spoke in a whisper.
"Here's Jessy--come back at last!"
Unbelieving Abigail Page went down on her knees in the snow to trace the
features, and convince herself. Yes, it was Jessy. She had fainted now,
and lay motionless. Leek came up then, and stood staring.
Where had she come from?--how had she got there? It was just as though
she had dropped from the skies with the snow. And what was to be done
with her?
"She must--come home," said Abigail.
But she spoke hesitatingly, as though some impediment might lie in the
way: and she looked round in a dreamy manner on the open country, all so
white and dreary in the moonlight.
"Yes, there's no other place--of course it must be the farm," she added.
"Perhaps you can bring her between you. But I'll go on and speak to my
father first."
It was easy for one to carry her, she was so thin and light. John Drench
lifted her and they all went off: leaving me and Leek to finish up in
the church, and put out the candles.
William Page was sitting in his favourite place, the wide chimney-corner
of the kitchen, quietly smoking his pipe, when his daughter broke in
upon him with the strange news. Just in the same way that, a year
before, she had broken in upon him with that other news--that a
gentleman had arrived, uninvited, on a visit to the farm. This news
was more startling than that.
"Are they bringing her home?--how long will they be?" cried the old man
with feverish eagerness, as he let fall his long churchwarden pipe, and
broke it. "Abigail, will they be long?"
"Father, I want to say something: I came on to say it," returned Miss
Page, and she was trembling too. "I don't like her face: it is wan, and
thin, and full of suffering: but there's a look in it that--that seems
to tell of shame."
"To tell of what?" he asked, not catching the word.
"May Heaven forgive me if I misjudge her! The fear crossed me, as I saw
her lying there, that her life may not have been innocent since she left
us: why else should she come back in this most strange way? Must we take
her in all the same, father?"
"Take her in!" he repeated in amazement. "YES. What are you thinking of,
child, to ask it?"
"It's the home of myself and Susan, father: it has been always an honest
one in the sight of the neighbours. Maybe, they'll be hard upon us for
receiving her into it."
He stared as one who does not understand, and then made a movement with
his hands, as if warding off her words and the neighbours' hardness
together.
"Let her come, Abigail! Let her come, poor stray lamb. Christ wouldn't
turn away a little one that had strayed from the fold: should her own
father do it?"
And when they brought her in, and put her in an easy-chair by the
sitting-room fire, stirring it into a blaze, and gave her hot tea and
brandy in it, William Page sat down by her side, and shed fast tears
over her, as he fondly stroked her hand.
* * * * *
Gay and green looked the church on Christmas morning, the sun shining
in upon us as brightly as it shone a year before. The news of Jessy
Page's return and the curious manner of it, had spread; causing the
congregation to turn their eyes instinctively on the Pages' pew. Perhaps
not one but recalled the last Christmas--and the gallant stranger who
had sat in it, and found the places in the Prayer-book for Jessy. Only
Mr. Page was there to-day. He came slowly in with his thick stick--for
he walked badly since his illness, and dragged one leg behind the other.
Before the thanksgiving prayer the parson opened a paper and read out a
notice. Such things were uncommon in our church, and it caused a stir.
"William Page desires to return thanks to Almighty God for a great mercy
vouchsafed to him."
We walked to the Copse Farm with him after service. Considering that he
had been returning thanks, he seemed dreadfully subdued. He didn't know
how it was yet; where she had been, or why she had come home in the
manner she did, he told the Squire; but, anyway, she had come. Come to
die, it might be; but _come home_, and that was enough.
Mrs. Todhetley went upstairs to see her. They had given her the best
bed, the one they had given to Marcus Allen. She lay in it like a lily.
It was what Mrs. Todhetley said when she came down: "like a lily, so
white and delicate." There was no talking. Jessy for the most part kept
her eyes shut and her face turned away. Miss Page whispered that they
had not questioned her yet; she seemed too weak to bear it. "But what do
you _think_?" asked Mrs. Todhetley in return. "I am afraid to think,"
was all the answer. In coming away, Mrs. Todhetley stooped over the bed
to kiss her.
"Oh don't, don't!" said Jessy faintly: "you might not if you knew all. I
am not worth it."
"Perhaps I should kiss you all the more, my poor child," answered Mrs.
Todhetley. And she came downstairs with red eyes.
But Miss Susan Page was burning with impatience to know the ins and outs
of the strange affair. Naturally so. It had brought more scandal and
gossip on the Copse Farm than even the running away of the year before.
That was bad enough: this was worse. Altogether Jessy was the home's
heartsore. Mr. Page spoke of her as a lamb, a wanderer returned to the
fold, and Susan heard it with compressed lips: in her private opinion,
she had more justly been called an ungrateful girl.
"Now, then, Jessy; you must let us know a little about yourself," began
Susan on this same afternoon when she was with her alone, and Jessy lay
apparently stronger, refreshed with the dinner and the long rest.
Abigail had gone to church with Mr. Page. Susan could not remember that
any of them had gone to church before on Christmas-Day after the morning
service: but there was no festive gathering to keep them at home to-day.
Unconsciously, perhaps, Susan resented the fact. Even John Drench was
dining at his father's. "Where have you been all this while in London?"
Jessy suddenly lifted her arm to shade her eyes; and remained silent.
"It _is_ in London, I conclude, that you have been? Come: answer me."
"Yes," said Jessy faintly.
"And _where_ have you been? In what part of it?--who with?"
"Don't ask me," was the low reply, given with a suppressed sob.
"Not ask you! But we must ask you. And you must answer. Where have you
been, and what have you been doing?"
"I--can't tell," sobbed Jessy. "The story is too long."
"Story too long!" echoed Susan quickly, "you might say in half-a-dozen
words--and leave explanations until to-morrow. Did you find a place in
town?"
"Yes, I found a place."
"A lady's-maid's place?--as you said."
Jessy turned her face to the wall, and never spoke.
"Now, this won't do," cried Miss Susan, not choosing to be thwarted: and
no doubt Jessy, hearing the determined tone, felt something like a reed
in her hands. "Just you tell me a little."
"I am very ill, Susan; I can't talk much," was the pleading excuse. "If
you'd only let me be quiet."
"It will no more hurt you to say in a few words where you have been than
to make excuses," persisted Miss Susan, giving a flick to the skirt
of her new puce silk gown. "Your conduct altogether has been most
extraordinary, quite baffling to us at home, and I must hear some
explanation of it."
"The place I went to was too hard for me," said Jessy after a pause,
speaking out of the pillow.
"Too hard!"
"Yes; too hard. My heart was breaking with its hardness, and I couldn't
stop in it. Oh, be merciful to me, Susan! don't ask any more."
Susan Page thought that when mysterious answers like these were creeping
out, there was all the greater need that she should ask for more.
"Who found you the place at first, Jessy?"
Not a word. Susan asked again.
"I--got it through an advertisement," said Jessy at length.
Advertisements in those days, down in our rural district, were looked
upon as wonderful things, and Miss Susan opened her eyes in surprise. A
faint idea was upon her that Jessy could not be telling the truth.
"In that letter that you wrote to us; the only one you did write; you
asserted that you liked the place."
"Yes. That was at first. But afterwards--oh, afterwards it got cruelly
hard."
"Why did you not change it for another?"
Jessy made no answer. Susan heard the sobs in her throat.
"Now, Jessy, don't be silly. I ask why you did not get another place, if
you were unable to stay in that one?"
"I couldn't have got another, Susan. I would never have got another."
"Why not?" persisted Susan.
"I--I--don't you see how weak I am?" she asked with some energy, lifting
her face for a moment to Susan.
And its wan pain, its depth of anguish, disarmed Susan. Jessy looked
like a once fair blossom on which a blight had passed.
"Well, Jessy, we will leave these matters until later. But there's one
thing you must answer. What induced you to take this disreputable mode
of coming back?"
A dead silence.
"Could you not have written to say you were coming, as any sensible girl
would, that you might have been properly met and received? Instead of
appearing like a vagabond, to be picked up by anybody."
"I never meant to come home--to the house."
"But _why_?" asked Susan.
"Oh, because--because of my ingratitude in running away--and never
writing--and--and all that."
"That is, you were ashamed to come and face us."
"Yes, I was ashamed," said Jessy, shivering.
"And no wonder. Why did you go?"
Jessy gave a despairing sigh. Leaving that question in abeyance, Susan
returned to the former one.
"If you did not mean to come home, what brought you down here at all?"
"It didn't matter where I went. And my heart was yearning for a look at
the old place--and so I came."
"And if we had not found you under the church wall--and we never should
but for Johnny Ludlow's running out to get some string--where should you
have gone, pray?"
"Crawled under some haystack, and let the cold and hunger kill me."
"Don't be a simpleton," reproved Susan.
"I wish it had been so," returned Jessy. "I'd rather be dying there in
quiet. Oh, Susan, I am ill; I am indeed! Let me be at peace!"
The appeal shut up Susan Page. She did not want to be too hard upon her.
Mr. Duffham came in after church. Abigail had told him that she did not
like Jessy's looks; nor yet her cough. He went up alone, and was at the
bedside before Jessy was aware. She put up her hand to hide her face,
but not in time: Duffham had seen it. Doctors don't get shocks in a
general way: they are too familiar with appearances that frighten other
people: but he started a little. If ever he saw coming death in a face,
he thought he saw it in that of Jessy Page.
He drew away the shading hand, and looked at her. Duffham was pompous on
the whole and thought a good deal of his gold-headed cane, but he was a
tender man with the sad and sick. After that, he sat down and began
asking her a few things--where she had been, and what she had done. Not
out of curiosity, or quite with the same motive that Miss Susan had just
asked; but because he wished to find out whether her illness was more on
the body or the mind. She would not answer. Only cried softly.
"My dear," said Duffham, "I must have you tell me a little of the past.
Don't be afraid: it shall go no further. If you only knew the strange
confidences that are sometimes placed in me, Jessy, you would not
hesitate."
No, she would not speak of her own accord, so he began to pump her.
Doing it very kindly and soothingly: had Jessy spent her year in London
robbing all the banks, one might have thought she could only have
yielded to his wish to come to the bottom of it. Duffham listened to her
answers, and sat with a puzzled face. She told him what she had told
Susan: that her post of lady's-maid had been too hard for her and worn
her to what she was; that she had shrunk from returning home on account
of her ingratitude, and should not have returned ever of her own will.
But she had yearned for a sight of the old place, and so came down by
rail, and walked over after dark. In passing the church she saw it
lighted up; and lingered, peeping in. She never meant to be seen; she
should have gone away somewhere before morning. Nothing more.
Nothing more! Duffham sat listening to her. He pushed back the pretty
golden hair (no more blue ribbons in it now), lost in thought.
"_Nothing_ more, Jessy? There must have been something more, I think, to
have brought you into this state. What was it?"
"No," she faintly said: "only the hard work I had to do; and the thought
of how I left my home; and--and my unhappiness. I was unhappy always,
nearly from my first entering. The work was hard."
"What was the work?"
"It was----"
A long pause. Mr. Duffham, always looking at her, waited.
"It was sewing; dress-making. And--there was sitting up at nights."
"Who was the lady you served? What was her name?"
"I can't tell it," answered Jessy, her cheeks flushing to a wild hectic.
The surgeon suddenly turned the left hand towards him, and looked at the
forefinger. It was smooth as ivory.
"Not much sign of sewing there, Jessy."
She drew it under the clothes. "It is some little time since I did any;
I was too ill," she answered. "Mr. Duffham, I have told you all there is
to tell. The place was too hard for me, and it made me ill."
It was all she told. Duffham wondered whether it was, in substance, all
she had to tell. He went down and entered the parlour with a grave face:
Mr. Page, his daughters, and John Drench were there. The doctor said
Jessy must have perfect rest, tranquillity, and the best of nourishment;
and he would send some medicine. Abigail put a shawl over her head, and
walked with him across the garden.
"You will tell _me_ what your opinion is, Mr. Duffham."
"Ay. It is no good one, Miss Abigail."
"Is she very ill?"
"Very. I do not think she will materially rally. Her chest and lungs are
both weak."
"Her mother's were before her. As I told you, Jessy looks to me just as
my mother used to look in her last illness."
Mr. Duffham went through the gate without saying more. The snow was
sparkling like diamonds in the moonlight.
"I think I gather what you mean," resumed Abigail. "That she is, in
point of fact, dying."
"That's it. As I truly believe."
They looked at each other in the clear light air. "But not--surely, Mr.
Duffham, not immediately?"
"Not immediately. It may be weeks off yet. Mind--I don't assert that she
is absolutely past hope; I only think it. It is possible that she may
rally, and recover."
"It might not be the happier for her," said Abigail, under her breath.
"She is in a curiously miserable state of mind--as you no doubt saw. Mr.
Duffham, did she tell you anything?"
"She says she took a place as lady's-maid; that the work proved too hard
for her; and that, with the remorse for her ingratitude towards her
home, made her ill."
"She said the same to Susan this afternoon. Well, we must wait for more.
Good-night, Mr. Duffham: I am sure you will do all you can."
Of course Duffham meant to do all he could; and from that time he began
to attend her regularly.
Jessy Page's coming home, with, as Miss Susan had put it, the vagabond
manner of it, was a nine days' wonder. The neighbours went making calls
at the Copse Farm, to talk about it and to see her. In the latter hope
they failed. Jessy showed a great fear of seeing any one of them; would
put her head under the bed-clothes and lie there shaking till the house
was clear; and Duffham said she was not to be crossed.
Her sisters got to know no more of the past. Not a syllable. They
questioned and cross-questioned her; but she only stuck to her text. It
was the work that had been too much for her; the people she served were
cruelly hard.
"I really think it must be so; that she has nothing else to tell,"
remarked Abigail to Susan one morning, as they sat alone at breakfast,
"But she must have been a downright simpleton to stay."
"I can't make her out," returned Susan, hard of belief. "Why should
she not say where it was, and who the people are? Here comes the
letter-man."
The letter-man--as he was called--was bringing a letter for Miss Page.
Letters at the Copse Farm were rare, and she opened it with curiosity.
It proved to be from Mrs. Allen of Aberystwith; and out of it dropped
two cards, tied together with silver cord.
Mrs. Allen wrote to say that her distant relative, Marcus, was married.
He had been married on Christmas-Eve to a Miss Mary Goldbeater, a great
heiress, and they had sent her cards. Thinking the Miss Pages might like
to see the cards (as they knew something of him) she had forwarded them.
Abigail took the cards up. "Mr. Marcus Allen. Mrs. Marcus Allen." And on
hers was the address: "Gipsy Villas, Montgomery Road, Brompton." "I
think he might have been polite enough to send us cards also," observed
Abigail.
Susan put the cards on the waiter when she went upstairs with her
sister's tea. Jessy, looking rather more feverish than usual in a
morning, turned the cards about in her slender hands.
"I have heard of her, this Mary Goldbeater," said Jessy, biting her
parched lips. "They say she's pretty, and--and very rich."
"Where did you hear of her?" asked Susan.
"Oh, in--let me think. In the work-room."
"Now what do you mean by that?" cried Miss Susan. "A work-room implies a
dressmaker's establishment, and you tell us you were a lady's-maid."
Jessy seemed unable to answer.
"I don't believe you were at either the one place or the other. You are
deceiving us, Jessy."
"No," gasped Jessy.
"Did you ever see Mr. Marcus Allen when you were in town?"
"Mr. Marcus Allen?" repeated Jessy after a pause, just as if she were
unable to recall who Mr. Marcus Allen was.
"The Mr. Marcus Allen you knew at Aberystwith; he who came here
afterwards," went on Susan impatiently. "Are you losing your memory,
Jessy?"
"No, I never saw the Marcus Allen I knew here--and there," was Jessy's
answer, her face white and still as death.
"Why!--Did you know any other Marcus Allen, then?" questioned Susan, in
surprise. For the words had seemed to imply it.
"No," replied Jessy. "No."
"She seems queerer than usual--I hope her mind's not going," thought
Susan. "Did you ever go to see Madame Caron, Jessy, while you were in
London?"
"Never. Why should I? I didn't know Madame Caron."
"When Marcus Allen wrote to excuse himself from visiting us in the
summer, he said he would be sure to come later," resumed Susan. "I
wonder if he will keep his promise."
"No--never," answered Jessy.
"How do you know?"
"Oh--I don't think it. He wouldn't care to come. Especially now he's
married."
"And you never saw him in town, Jessy? Never even met him by chance?"
"I've told you--No. Do you suppose I should be likely to call upon
Marcus Allen? As to meeting him by chance, it is not often I went out, I
can tell you."
"Well, sit up and take your breakfast," concluded Susan.
A thought had crossed Susan Page's mind--whether this marriage of Marcus
Allen's on Christmas-Eve could have had anything to do with Jessy's
return and her miserable unhappiness. It was only a thought; and she
drove it away again. As Abigail said, she had been inclined throughout
to judge hardly of Jessy.
* * * * *
The winter snow lay on the ground still, when it became a question not
of how many weeks Jessy would live, but of days. And then she confessed
to a secret that pretty nearly changed the sober Miss Pages' hair from
black to grey. Jessy had turned Roman Catholic.
It came out through her persistent refusal to see the parson, Mr.
Holland, a little man with shaky legs. He'd go trotting up to the Copse
Farm once or twice a-week; all in vain. Miss Abigail would console him
with a good hot jorum of sweet elder wine, and then he'd trot back
again. One day Jessy, brought to bay, confessed that she was a Roman
Catholic.
There was grand commotion. John Drench went about, his hands lifted in
the frosty air; Abigail and Susan Page sat in the bedroom with
(metaphorically speaking) ashes on their heads.
People have their prejudices. It was not so much that these ladies
wished to cast reflection on good Catholics born and bred, as that Jessy
should have abandoned her own religion, just as though it had been an
insufficient faith. It was the slight on it that they could not bear.
"Miserable girl!" exclaimed Miss Susan, looking upon Jessy as a
turncoat, and therefore next door to lost. And Jessy told, through her
sobs, how it had come to pass.
Wandering about one evening in London when she was very unhappy, she
entered a Catholic place of worship styled an "Oratory."--The Miss
Pages caught up the word as "oratorio," and never called it anything
else.--There a priest got into conversation with Jessy. He had a
pleasant, kindly manner that won upon her and drew from her the fact
that she was unhappy. Become a Catholic, he said to her; it would bring
her back to happiness: and he asked her to go and see him again. She
went again; again and again. And so, going and listening to him, she at
length _did_ turn, and was received by him into his church.
"Are you the happier for it?" sharply asked Miss Abigail.
"No," answered Jessy with distressed eyes. "Only--only----"
"Only what, pray?"
"Well, they can absolve me from all sin."
"Oh, you poor foolish misguided child!" cried Abigail in anguish; "you
must take your sins to the Saviour: He can absolve you, and He alone.
Do you want any third person to stand between you and Him?"
Jessy gave a sobbing sigh. "It's best as it is, Abigail. Anyway, it is
too late now."
"Stop a bit," cried sharp Miss Susan. "I should like to have one thing
answered, Jessy. You have told us how hard you were kept to work: if
that was so, pray how did you find leisure to be dancing abroad to
Oratorios? Come?"
Jessy could not, or would not, answer.
"Can you explain that!" said Miss Susan, some sarcasm in her tone.
"I went out sometimes in an evening," faltered Jessy. And more than that
could not be drawn from her.
They did not tell Mr. Page: it would have distressed him too much. In a
day or two Jessy asked to see a priest. Miss Abigail flatly refused, on
account of the scandal. As if their minister was not good enough!
One afternoon I was standing by Jessy's bed--for Miss Abigail had let me
go up to see her. Mrs. Todhetley, that first day, had said she looked
like a lily: she was more like one now. A faded lily that has had all
its beauty washed out of it.
"Good-bye, Johnny Ludlow," she said, opening her eyes, and putting out
her feeble hand. "I shall not see you again."
"I hope you will, Jessy. I'll come over to-morrow."
"Never again in this world." And I had to lean over to catch the words,
and my eyes were full.
"In the next world there'll be no parting, Jessy. We shall see each
other there."
"I don't know," she said. "You will be there, Johnny; I can't tell
whether I shall be. I turned Roman Catholic, you see; and Abigail won't
let a priest come. And so--I don't know how it will be."
The words struck upon me. The Miss Pages had kept the secret too closely
for news of it to have come abroad. It seemed worse to me to hear
it than to her to say it. But she had grown too weak to feel things
strongly.
"Good-bye, Johnny."
"Good-bye, Jessy dear," I whispered. "Don't fear: God will be sure to
take you to heaven if you ask Him."
Miss Abigail got it out of me--what she had said about the priest. In
fact, I told. She was very cross.
"There; let it drop, Johnny Ludlow. John Drench is gone off in the gig
to Coughton to bring one. All I hope and trust is, that they'll not be
back until the shades of night have fallen upon the earth! I shouldn't
like a priest to be seen coming into _this_ door. Such a reproach on
good Mr. Holland! I'm sure I trust it will never get about!"
We all have our prejudices, I repeat. And not a soul amongst us for
miles round had found it necessary to change religions since the
Reformation.
Evening was well on when John Drench brought him in. A mild-faced man,
wearing a skull-cap under his broad-brimmed hat. He saw Jessy alone.
Miss Page would not have made a third at the interview though they had
bribed her to it--and of course they wouldn't have had her. It was quite
late when he came down. Miss Page stopped him as he was going out, after
declining refreshment.
"I presume, sir, she has told you all about this past year--that has
been so mysterious to us?"
"Yes; I think all," replied the priest.
"Will you tell me the particulars?"
"I cannot do that," he said. "They have been given to me under the seal
of confession."
"Only to me and to her sister Susan," pleaded Abigail. "We will not even
disclose it to our father. Sir, it would be a true kindness to us, and
it can do her no harm. You do not know what our past doubts and distress
have been."
But the priest shook his head. He was very sorry to refuse, he said, but
the tenets of his Church forbade his speaking. And Miss Page thought he
_was_ sorry, for he had a benevolent face.
"Best let the past lie," he gently added. "Suffice it to know that she
is happy now, poor child, and will die in peace."
* * * * *
They buried her in the churchyard beside her mother. When the secret got
about, some said it was not right--that she ought to have been taken
elsewhere, to a graveyard devoted to the other faith. Which would just
have put the finishing stroke on old Page--broken all that was left of
his heart to break. The Squire said he didn't suppose it mattered in
the sight of God: or would make much difference at the Last Day.
And that ended the life of Jessy Page: and, in one sense, its episode of
mystery. Nothing more was ever heard or known of where she had been or
what she had done. Years have gone by since then; and William Page is
lying beside her. Miss Page and Charley live on at the Copse Farm; Susan
became Mrs. John Drench ages ago. Her husband, a man of substance now,
was driving her into Alcester last Tuesday (market-day) in his
four-wheeled chaise, two buxom daughters in the back seat. I nodded to
them from Mr. Brandon's window.
The mystery of Jessy Page (as we grew to call it) remained a mystery. It
remains one to this day. What the secret was--if there was a secret--why
she went in the way she did, and came back in what looked like shame and
fear and trembling, a dying girl--has not been solved. It never will be
in this world. Some old women put it all down to her having changed her
religion and been afraid to tell: while Miss Abigail and Miss Susan have
never got rid of a vague doubt, touching Marcus Allen. But it may be
only their fancy; they admit that, and say to one another when talking
of it privately, that it is not right to judge a man without cause. He
keeps a carriage-and-pair now; and gives dinners, and has handsome
daughters growing up; and is altogether quite up to the present style of
expensive life in London.
And I never go into church on a Christmas morning--whether it may be
decorated in our simple country fashion, or in accordance with your new
"artistic" achievements--but I think of Jessy Page. Of her sweet face,
her simplicity, and her want of guile: and of the poor wreck that came
back, broken-hearted, to die.