"Raged the loud storm...
The lightning o'er his path
Flashed horribly--the thunder pealed--the winds
Mournfully blew; yet still his desperate course
He held; and fierce he urged his gallant steed
For many a mile. The torrent lifted high its voice."
_Lydford Bridge_.
Hathercourt letters _sometimes_ came of an evening. When any thoughtful
or good-natured neighbour happened to pass the Withenden post-office at
or after three o'clock in the afternoon, it was a favourite attention to
call for the Rectory letters. And sometimes it happened that the owners
of the letters were not sorry to receive them in private, for even among
the least reserved or secretive natures it is not always pleasant to
have one's affairs discussed or guessed at by half a dozen inquisitive
young people round a breakfast-table.
Lilias had not written quite as much to Mary as usual of late, finding
it difficult to make time for more than the almost daily lengthy and
amusing letters she sent to her father. So when Mr Wills from the
Edge, who, since her residence under his roof, had taken "Miss Mary"
into special favour, called with a thick budget addressed in Lilias's
hand, Mary felt surprised as well as delighted.
But her pleasure was somewhat tinged with alarm when she read the few
words which, at the top of the sheet, first met her glance:
"Read this when you are alone, and likely to be uninterrupted. It is
nothing wrong. Don't be frightened."
But frightened of course she was, and thankful to be able at once to
satisfy herself.
"Nothing wrong!" It would have been difficult to judge from Mary's
face, when she looked up after finishing the letter, what had been the
nature of its contents. Like Lilias, her first impression was one of
such utter bewilderment that it seemed as if her brain were refusing to
take in the facts before her. She got up from her seat, pushed her hair
back from her forehead, and tried to think reasonably and rationally.
But it was difficult.
"Can I be dreaming?" she said to herself. "Mamma heir to all the
Brookes' property! _Can_ it be true? Oh, papa, poor papa--he must be
told. Only last night again he was talking to me of his racking anxiety
about our future; it is so impressed on him that he is not going to live
long. And, as Lilias says, this news may be fresh life to him."
She sat down again, and for some minutes allowed her fancy to run riot
in the new world so suddenly opened before her. To be rich! How
extraordinary the idea seemed to her--no more furrows on her father's
face of anxiety as to the future, no more daily worries for her mother
about butchers' and grocers' books and servants' wages and everlasting
new boots for the boys; plenty of books and music, and pretty dresses
even, which in her heart Mary was by no means given to despise, for
herself and Lilias; a first-rate governess for the girls--unlimited
power as well as will to help their poorer neighbours--a pretty and
luxurious home, something like Romary, perhaps! A flush rose to Mary's
cheek at the thought--what would the Cheviotts think of this marvellous
news? Would it increase or diminish the separation between them? Was
it possible that even yet all might come right between Lilias and Arthur
Beverley, or had Lilias quite left off caring for him? Was it--? Her
speculations were suddenly brought to a close--a tap at the door
reminded her of the present, and recalled her to the consideration of
how and when she should first break this astonishing revelation to her
parents.
"Consult with mamma," Lilias had said. Yes, of course, that was the
first thing to be done. But to get hold of her mother alone for an
uninterrupted talk was by no means so easy as it seemed, just now
especially, since Mr Western's failing health had rendered him
_exigeant_ and capricious in a way quite foreign to his ordinary
character.
The tap at the door was repeated.
"Come in," cried Mary, starting up as she spoke.
"How can I when the door is locked?" said her mother's voice.
Mary hastened to unlock it.
"I am so sorry for keeping you waiting," she said, penitently, as she
did so. "I had no idea it was you, mother."
"I have been looking for you all over the house, and began to think you
must have gone out," said her mother, in a slightly aggrieved tone. "It
is nearly tea-time, and I want to hasten it, for possibly a cup of tea
may do your father good. It is about him I wanted you, Mary. He seems
to me decidedly less well this evening, and I have just been wondering
if we should not ask Dr Brandreth to come to see him to-morrow. The
postman will be here directly. What do you think?"
"Would papa not mind?" said Mary, consideringly.
"I don't know--that is the difficulty. He is always pleased to see Dr
Brandreth, and often enjoys a talk with him; but whenever I have
proposed it lately, he has begun worrying about the expense. Dr
Brandreth is very kind--to do any good to your father I know he would
gladly come for nothing at all; but your father would not have that. He
has always paid our doctor's charges to the full, and would be miserable
not to do so. But it _can't_ be helped; we are certainly unusually
short of money just now, but where your father is concerned, Mary dear,
I seem to grow reckless."
Mary had drawn her mother within the threshold of her room. They stood
talking near the door-way in low tones.
"If _that_ is the only hesitation," the girl replied, eagerly, with a
suppressed excitement in her voice which, had she been a whit less
preoccupied, her mother could not but have noticed, "if that is the only
difficulty, oh! mother dear, don't hesitate an instant."
Mrs Western sighed. Her heart only too thoroughly agreed with Mary,
but, alas! to her life experience of poverty it seemed no longer
unendurable and inconceivable, no longer anything but sadly inevitable
that, even in such a matter as a question of health or sickness,
possibly even of life or death, considerations of pounds, shillings, and
pence should force themselves to the front. She only sighed and
hesitated.
"Mother dear," persisted Mary, "let me write to Dr Brandreth at once.
I _know_ it is right. And oh, mother, I have such wonderful news to
tell you. I have a letter from Lilias--it was to read it quietly I had
locked myself into my room. Mother I don't know how to tell you what
she has written about."
Mrs Western's mind was still running on the fors and againsts of
sending for Dr Brandreth. She hardly took in the sense of Mary's
words.
"A letter from Lilias!" she repeated. "Poor Lily, I am glad she is
enjoying herself. But, Mary, if you really think we should send for Dr
Brandreth, there is no time to lose. Josey called out as I came
up-stairs that she heard Jacob's `make-ready' whistle at the end of the
lane, and when he whistles so far off it's always a sign that he is in a
hurry."
"Then he must just not be in a hurry," said Mary; "but all the same,
mother, I'll write the note at once. And, in the mean time, can't you
try to guess what Lilias's letter is about?"
"It surely isn't that she has met Captain Beverley again," said Mrs
Western, anxiously, "or _surely_ not that any one else has taken a fancy
to her? I never thought Lilias anything of a flirt, but--"
"Oh, no, mother dear, it is _nothing_ of that sort," said Mary, as she
ran down-stairs before her mother. "Don't make yourself uneasy. I will
tell you all as soon as I have sent off the note to Dr Brandreth."
"We must have tea as soon as possible," replied her mother. "I will be
getting it ready, Mary, and when you have sent the note, go into your
father's study and try to get him to come into the dining-room. It will
be better for him than sitting alone in the study when he is feeling
ill."
"Very well," said Mary. She could not bring herself to share her
mother's apprehensions, she was in a state of such excitement that the
whole world seemed to have changed to her. Her father could not but get
better and stronger now; mental anxiety, she felt certain, had far more
to do with his failing health than any one imagined.
Still when the note--less urgently worded, it must be owned, than had it
been written to her mother's dictation--was dispatched, and she went to
the study to seek her father, she felt a little startled. He was
sitting in his chair by the fire, half dozing, it seemed to Mary, but
when he looked up in answer to her greeting, she saw that his face
looked changed somehow, its expression told of pain and oppression
greater than he had yet endured.
"Is your head so bad, dear father?" she said, anxiously.
"Very, very bad indeed. I feel perfectly stupid with that sense of
oppression, and my sight is so strangely hazy. I could not conceal it
from your mother," he went on, half apologetically, "though you know, my
dear, how I always shrink from making her uneasy."
"Yes," said Mary, half absently, "I know. Will you come into the
dining-room to tea, papa? Mamma sent me to fetch you."
"Very well. If she wishes it, though I feel as if I would rather stay
here. I hope the children will be quiet, poor things. I can't stand
any noise or excitement to-night."
Mary looked at him as he spoke, and dismissed the half-formed idea--
that, since she had been alone with her father, had seized her with
sudden temptation--of telling him the contents of the letter in her
pocket, now, at once. She saw he spoke the truth. He was unfit to bear
any great excitement.
Tea passed over with unwonted quiet. The "children" were impressed by
their father's weary looks, and conversation was carried on in unusually
amicable whispers. After tea Mr Western went back to his study, and
Mary at last succeeded in getting her mother to herself.
"For a quarter of an hour only, dear," said Mrs Western. "Then I must
take my work into the study and sit with your father. And I want to
persuade him to go early to bed."
"It is barely seven yet, mother," said Mary. "Now listen--first of all,
do you remember Lilias writing--of course you do--about having met a
cousin of yours, a Mrs Brabazon, in town?"
"At the doctor's, wasn't it? Waiting for Mr Greville at the doctor's,
and your father was so pleased at it, and thought something might come
of it--of course, I remember," replied Mrs Western, growing interested.
"Well, Mary?"
"Well, mother," continued Mary, "Lilias's letter is all about these
relations of yours. She has met them again, they are at Hastings just
now, and she has been to spend a day with them. And, mother," she
proceeded cautiously, "it does indeed seem as if something were going to
come of it. Do you happen to know, did you ever hear how the Brooke
property is left--entailed, I suppose I should say?"
"In the usual way, entailed on to the eldest son. I have always known
that," said Mrs Western, in some surprise.
"But _failing_ an eldest son, mother, failing any direct male heir at
all, do you--?"
Her question was never completed. At that moment a bell rang sharply
and violently through the house. Mary and her mother stared at each
other for a moment in silence. Bells were at no time in great request
at the Rectory, and the sound of the special bell now heard seemed
strange and unfamiliar.
"What can that be?" said Mary. "Some trick of the children's I am
afraid. Wait here, mother; I'll go and see."
She ran to the door, but before she had more than opened it her mother
had overtaken her.
"Let me pass," she whispered, in a hoarse, breathless voice--"let me go
first, Mary. I know what it is. It is the study bell. Mary, your
father--"
They rushed across the hall and down the study passage together. Which
first reached the door Mary never knew. But between them it was thrown
open and--ah, yes!--Mrs Western's instinct was correct; the blow that
for so long had threatened them had fallen at last--the Rector lay
unconscious on the floor, and at the first glance Mary thought her
mother was right when in agony she wailed out--"He is dead! Oh, Mary,
he is dead!"
But he was not dead. They did what in their ignorance they could, poor
things! and then, a quarter of an hour or so after the first alarm, Mary
came rushing into the school-room, where the frightened children were
all collected together.
"George, where is George?" she said. "He must go, or find some one to
go, for the doctor. Simmons is out--it is always the way. But where
_is_ George? Can none of you tell me?"
"Oh, Mary, I am so sorry," said poor Alexa. "I am afraid George has
gone to bed. Have you forgotten about his sore knee? I don't think he
_could_ go for the doctor. Couldn't Josey and I go? Oh, dear! what
shall we do?"
Mary for an instant wrung her hands in perplexity. It all came back to
her memory about George's having hurt his knee by a fall from a tree the
day before, hurt it badly too. What was to be done? The nearest
possibility of a man and horse was a mile off, and even then _only_ a
possibility, hardly worth wasting precious time on the chance of.
Simmons, their own factotum, was out for the evening--what was to be
done? Mary's quick mind glanced it all over and decided.
"Get my cloak and hat, quick, Josey--any of you," she said. "I know
what I'll do. I'll run myself to the Edge and get Wills to go. He has
a good horse, and has often had to bring Dr Brandreth when Al--Miss
Cheviott was there. Yes, that will be best, better than running a mile
the other way on the mere chance of Giles Swanwick being able to go."
She was off before any one could stop her. But indeed it was the best
thing to do. It was terrible to have to leave her mother alone with the
silent, already in a strange sense, _unfamiliar_ figure that Mary found
it hard to believe could be "papa," but what might not delay or a
bungled message result in? She only glanced in again to impress upon
Martha, a fairly intelligent woman of her class, on no account to leave
her mistress alone; if anything were wanted to call to Miss Alexa, or
Miss Josephine, who would remain within ear-shot.
At the front door Mary was stopped by Alexa, trembling and pale with
repressed anxiety, yet, Mary was glad to see, crying but little.
"Tell me, Mary, dear Mary--forgive me for stopping you," she said,
breathlessly, "but do tell me, do you _think_ he is going to die?"
"I don't know--oh! Alexa, how can I tell?" said Mary. "Let me go,
dear, and try all of you to be good. That's the only thing you can do
just now."
"I will, indeed I will," said Alexa, bravely, "and, Mary, you shall see
a difference in me from this time, see if you don't."
Mary kissed her and hurried out.
"Perhaps there is really more strength and sense in Alexa than we have
given her credit for," she said to herself. It was a very tiny drop of
comfort, still there was _some_ in her young sister's sympathy and
evident desire to be of use. "For," thought Mary, "it is impossible not
to recall all dear papa's forebodings--he has spoken so much of them
lately, as to what would become of them all, and Alexa and Josey seemed
as much on his mind as any--in case--"
She stopped suddenly as there flashed across her mind the recollection
of Lilias's letter, which by some strange brain freak the new excitement
of the last half hour had completely banished from her memory. Could it
still be true--this wonderful news which so short a time ago had seemed
to illumine the dark future so brilliantly and scatter every cloud?
_Could_ it be true?
"And what if it be?" thought Mary, recklessly, a sob rising in her
throat. "What shall we care for money or comfort without _him_! What a
mockery it seems coming _now_ when the greatest sorrow of our lives is
upon us! What madness it seems ever to have murmured at our small means
or privations or difficulties or anything while we were all together and
well! Oh, to think that only the last time I walked down this lane I
was grumbling to myself at the home worries and the children's
troublesomeness and the monotonous commonplaceness of my life! If only
we were back to all that--if only--would I _ever_ grumble again?"
The tears _would_ come. Mary ran faster in hopes of driving them away
and preserving the self-possession which she felt she dare not lose, and
another ten minutes brought her to the Edge. She knew the ins and outs
of the place so well that without knocking she quickly found her way
into the kitchen, where Mrs Wills was busy ironing. The familiar
kitchen--how little she had thought the last time she saw it, on what an
errand she would next be there!
This errand was soon told, and Mrs Wills was full of sympathy. But
sympathy, alas! was all she had to give, and Mary was in sore need of
something more. It was terribly disappointing to find that Wills
himself was not at home, nor likely to be for some hours to come. On
his return from Withenden he had ridden on to Bewley, a village some
miles the other way, about a horse buying or selling, or some business
of the kind, which, rendered diffusive by her excitement, Mrs Wills
would have given Mary the whole details of, had not the girl cut her
short with an anguished exclamation:
"What am I to do? What _can_ I do?" she cried. "They are all depending
on me to find some way--mamma and all--and even now he may be dying.
Oh, Mrs Wills!"
Mrs Wills wiped away her tears with one corner of her apron, while she
stopped to consider.
"There's neither man nor boy about this blessed place to-night, as ill
luck would have it," she said. "I would offer to run myself, and
gladly, but I'm not as quick as when I was younger, Miss Mary. But
stay--there's farmer Bartlemoor's not more than a mile and a quarter
away, where there's sure to be one of the sons at home and plenty of
horses. To be sure it's not exactly on the way to Withenden, but not so
far about neither. Do you know it, miss?--Bartle's farm, I mean?
Bartles we calls them mostly for shorter."
"No," said Mary, "I don't. But tell me and I am sure I can find it."
Mrs Wills's description recalled the place to Mary's recollection. The
Bartlemoors were not her father's parishioners, but she remembered
noticing the house, a rather picturesque old-fashioned one, in some of
the long summer rambles the Rectory children were so fond of.
It was not yet quite dark when again she set out. But had it been the
blackest of midnights, little, save for the increased difficulty and
delay, would Mary have cared. She hurried on, trying hard not to think,
nor to distract herself by picturing what might at that moment be
happening at the Rectory. It seemed to her that she had implicitly
followed Mrs Wills's directions, yet the landmarks she was on the
look-out for were strangely long of coming. It was all but dark now--
the road, hardly indeed worthy of the name, along which she was
hastening was perfectly bare of any sign of human habitation; she had
met no one since she left the Edge, not a single belated market-cart
even had passed her, and now, as Mary stood still in despair, she
noticed that the clouds, which all the evening had been gathering
ominously together, had joined their phalanxes--there was no longer a
break in the sky--the rain began slowly but steadily, in five minutes it
was a perfect pour.
Mechanically almost, poor Mary crept under a tree and stood still to
think what she should do. Where indeed was the use of hurrying on, when
every step, for all she knew, might but be taking her further and
further in the wrong direction? It was too evident she had lost her
way. What she would have done she often afterwards asked herself, if,
at that moment, the sound of wheels approaching rapidly in her direction
had not caught her ears. _Too_ rapidly indeed was her next fear--how,
amidst the pouring rain and the darkness, could she attract the driver's
attention? She ran forward--yes, to her delight the vehicle, whatever
it was, had lamps! Could it possibly, by any blessed chance, be Dr
Brandreth himself returning from a country round? Anyway, whoever and
whatever it was, she must do her utmost to attract attention. And as
Mary said this to herself there flashed across her memory a gruesome
legend of the neighbourhood, which many a night, when a child, had made
her put her fingers in her ears for terror of what she might hear--a
legend of a certain Sir Ingram de Romary who, maddened by wine and some
wild quarrel, had driven himself and his horse to destruction over the
Chaldron water-fall, a mile or more the other side of Hathercourt. All
the way from Romary Dene, an old ruin now long given up to the owls and
bats, the mad race had been run, and still on wild, dark, stormy nights
"folks said 'twas to be heard again."
Mary, standing in the road, shivered as the story rushed through her
brain--shivered with strange nervous terror, for which, at the same
moment, she vigorously despised herself.
"Papa dying," she said to herself, "and I to be frightened of a
ridiculous ghost story! What can I be made of? Have I no heart?"
Afterwards she did herself more justice. A strong excitement may,
indeed, override every other sensation, but it may also, by some
slightest variation, kindle every perception, every nerve, every feeler,
so to speak, of our Briareus-like imagination into abnormal acuteness.
Who cannot but recall with astonishing minuteness the trifling outside
details of any scene morbidly impressed on our memory--the pattern on
the walls above the bed where our best beloved lay dying, the details of
the dress of the indifferent messenger who brought us that news we can
never forget? Who cannot but remember the wild, even ludicrous,
vagaries that flashed through our fancy at some "supreme moment" of our
lives?
But, shiver as she might, Mary had already committed herself to action.
She stood some little way forward on the road, and, as the gig,
dog-cart, whatever it was, came within hail, she called out as loudly as
she could the first thing that came into her head to say:
"Is that you, Dr Brandreth?"
She could not at first have been heard. There was no visible abatement
of the driver's speed. Again, and yet again, Mary repeated her cry, but
apparently with no effect. On flew the wheels, down poured the rain.
Mary was obliged, to save herself the risk of being knocked down as it
passed her, to draw back a little.
"It surely must be Sir Ingram, after all," she said to herself, but with
no terror this time, with rather a wild, incomprehensible desire to
laugh. But as the vehicle actually drew near her, as the lamps flashed
into her face, common sense and self-possession returned.
"Oh, stop--stop!" she cried, "for mercy's sake, whoever you are, stop!"
This last appeal, though she knew it not, was unneeded. Already the
pace had been slackening, but it was not so easy, as might appear,
suddenly to pull up a powerful, fast-trotting horse instinctively
sharing its master's desire to get home and out of the storm of rain as
fast as possible. But two or three yards beyond the spot where Mary
stood it was achieved. There were two men on the dog-cart, one driving,
the other sitting behind. Almost before the horse stopped, the latter
jumped down and was at its head.
"What can it be?" said the driver, as the man ran past him. "Yes, stay
you by Madge, Andrew, or we shall have her getting excited. I'll get
down."
Andrew, to tell the truth, was by no means averse to do as he was told.
Madge's kicks and plunges impressed him infinitely less than a
hand-to-hand or face-to-face encounter with a ghost, or, failing a
ghost, a lunatic escaped from the county asylum, which was the next idea
presented to his bucolic brain. And, to do him justice, Mary might
reasonably enough have been mistaken for the latter, if not for the
former, as she stood in the pouring rain, umbrellaless, hatless even, at
first sight; for, habitually careful, she had, when the rain first came
on, half unconsciously drawn over her head the hood of the large
waterproof cloak with which, most fortunately, she had enveloped herself
for her run to the Edge. And from under this curious head-dress gleamed
out her white face and brown eyes, unnaturally bright with anxiety and
excitement, looking almost black in the flashing light of the lamps--
different, how different, from the sunny hazel eyes that had looked up
in Mr Cheviott's face, half shyly, but all frankly, that Sunday morning
in the old church porch!
They looked up now with a wild yet most piteous beseeching in their
gaze. There was no need for Madge's master to get down from his seat to
question this strange suppliant. Before he could move she had run up to
the side of the wheel, and before he could speak she had, so far, told
her story:
"I have lost my way," she said, "and, oh! I shall be so grateful if you
can help me. Can you tell me if I am anywhere near Farmer Bartlemoor's?
You must forgive my stopping you. I did not know _what_ to do."
And for all answer, the man she was addressing sprang down at one bound
to her side, exclaiming:
"Mary! You here? You poor child, what is--what can be the matter?"