that were almost as often in his mind; those last appealing words of his
poor erring wife, that he so little understood at the time: “It ain’t
’er fault no ways, Tom!” and then the last short bell would say over and
over again: “All gone, all gone!” until he could have sworn at it to bid
it stop.
But it never stopped; it went on in his head all the time.
And the long summer was at an end, and was fading into the sad autumn,
and after autumn would come the long winter.
He used to sit upon the wooden bench outside the door into his garden
and smoke his pipe when his work was done, and watch the autumn come.
He would have no woman about the house now; he would do everything for
himself—so that he was alone,—always alone, for never a neighbour was
admitted even if one dared to intrude,—and for the most part they all
let him be. The hollyhocks still stood tall and quiet, with their black
and crimson tufts against the grey stone of his outer wall, and the
sunflowers bowed heavy heads to the setting sun where the white lilies
had bloomed against its rising one day in summer.
He sat there every evening and remembered it, but one evening in
particular he wished the autumn flowers away more regretfully than
usual, and wondered what he would do if the June lilies were blooming
there once more, and he had that to fight and that to do again which he
had fought and had done that day.
He always thanked his God who had numbed his arm and his senses—thanked
Him whenever the memory of that one moment forced itself upon him: the
only moment of all the bad moments when his hate had taken strange shape
against _her_: the awful moment when her innocent face upon the pillow
had been the face of the false comrade who had robbed him, and when the
dawn had swum red in his sight.
He thanked Him for the dew of that summer morning that had cooled his
rage and taught him, at least, to wait; but of late when he thought of
it and brooded on his grief, another sense but that of mere selfish
regret at his loss mingled with his weight of weary loneliness: the
sense of _her_ loss, the realization of what the neighbours had
remembered but he had forgotten till now, that it “weren’t ’er fault,”
and that it did seem “rough on a child.”
Rough on a child! A child! A creature who had not desired to come into
this world—who would have, sure enough, to fight its cruel thrusts in
later life, but who might have a few years of complete happiness—of time
in which to grow strong and beautiful and valiant.
To whom could this child look to give her these short years of happiness
that were hers by right?
He looked around him on the village children, who had once been her
comrades: they were sick sometimes, they were sometimes hungry, they
were often cuffed and scolded in the haste of a moment’s vexation, but
they were all of them beloved. There was always some one to pick them up
where they fell, to comfort them when they suffered, to bid them play
and be glad.
Who was there to comfort this motherless child now that he had forsaken
her?
He paid that she should be fed—that she should be clothed; but who
pitied her in her childish troubles, who heard her prayers and gave her
her morning and evening kiss,—who loved her?
And yet she, whom he had doated on and spoiled to his heart’s delight,
was she not likely to crave love more than any of them?
"Ye’ll make ’er that tender and fearsome she won’t be fit to stand up to
the world"—his enemy, Mrs. Goodenough, had many a time said to him.
He had hated her for her warning and had spurned it, thinking that he
had plenty of time to harden her to the world in future. But was it fair
now that he had made her tender, that he should leave her to stand up to
the world before she was fit?
The thought troubled him sore, and on this Sabbath evening, as the cruel
bells sang their cruel tune: “It ain’t ’er fault no ways, Tom,” it
troubled him more than ever.
What was she doing?—who was making the day of rest sweet to her?
And instead of asking himself bitterly why God had saved her from death
that He might take her from him after all and leave him desolate, he
asked himself why _he_ had snatched her from the river that he might
forsake her in her helplessness the very next day? And a heartbreaking
picture rose up before him of his little maid thin and sad, hungering
for love, pining for him—unconsciously made to feel, in her childish
sensitiveness, that she was different from other children; set apart by
something that she could not understand, to be less loved—perhaps even
to be shunned, despised, neglected! His pretty Daisy—his good little
maid—who had never done any harm!
The last bell was dinning it into his ears: “All gone—all gone!” But
there was silence at last. The folks were all safe in church, and he was
alone in the quiet evening.
Alone, but not at peace; though the land that lay stretched below him,
miles upon miles of serene pastures, studded with browsing cattle and
brown with tender shades, might well have brought him some measure of
serenity.
Mechanically he thought of the words that the parson would speak when
the service was ended: “And the peace of God which passeth all
understanding.”
Was it because no one could understand, that it was never to be found?
It was no use going to church to find it—for he had tried that ...
“parson” he could not grasp, and the sight of the neighbours and the
knowledge that they guessed his grief, put peace further from him than
ever. Where was it to be found? He did not know ... but something within
him knew, and whispered to him that it was to be found doing the right;
yes, and again—that it was to be found in the heart of his little maid.
She had known it; she had breathed it forth from her sunny innocence;
she had brought it to him often and often. Would she not bring it again?
Was she changed because others had sinned?
A sound of distant singing came to him across the hollyhocks and the
sunflowers: it was the evening hymn. It was kinder than the bells—it
brought him nearer to peace: _she_ had been so fond of it, so proud to
raise her baby voice with the rest. Was she singing it to-night? Was she
happy? He lost himself in his dream of her; not that she was not always
in his thoughts, in work or in leisure, but that when he was at leisure
he could live only in his dreams.
Bitterness—or at least active anger and resentment—had long ago died out
of him; all _that_ was dead as the dead woman whom he had once
loved—buried in her grave. It was always of his little maid that he
dreamed.
The sun had set; the west was still glorious behind the cottages, and
even the grey downiness of the lightly-veiled sky overhead was warm with
the memory of the borrowed flush, but the twilight was gathering, dusky
and tender: the great plain took a sorrowful farewell of the day,
lingering over it softly: the red harvest moon crept slowly between the
sea and the sky.
Vaguely he remembered that it was on just such a night, ten years and
more ago, that he had wooed his wife down yonder by the distant harbour.
Yet it was less of her that he thought than of his maid—of his dear
little maid.
He dreamed of her as he saw her that last time framed in the doorway,
with the first of the sunlight upon her and the dew of the morning and
the springtime. And even as he dreamed—there she was! There was a little
rustle in the cabbages below the garden wall—and there she stood with
her golden head just in front of the red moon.
Only it was not quite like his little maid; this little one was taller
and thinner, and her cheeks were not so round and had not the sweet
flush that he knew, and her eyes were bigger and had a wistful look in
them that she had never had cause to wear. It was a vision—but it was
like her—oh, very like her as she had looked in her whiteness and her
innocence....
He took his pipe from his mouth; it dropped between his fingers on to
the bench beside him; and he sat staring at her; but he would not move
for fear the sweet figure should vanish, for fear the joyful dream
should come to an end and he should be awake again and alone with his
loneliness.
But _she_ moved.
She swung her little arms on high as she had been wont to do whenever
she was happy; then she ran forward—ran straight towards him across the
lawn—ran, with a cry of joy, straight to her old place upon his bosom.
Then he knew that it was no vision, but just his little maid in the
flesh, warm and living and loving—his little maid come back to him. He
asked no questions; he just held her there—where she had flown—to his
heart; he just held her there and was content.
But she spoke.
“I be come ’ome, Daddie,” she said. “Daisy didn’t like bein’ away down
there by the far beach where there wasn’t no Daddie. And she didn’t know
whativer er old Daddie would do wivout ’is little maid. ’Cos when I was
near drownded dead in the river ’oo said I mustn’t niver—niver go away
from my old Dad.”
He clasped her a little tighter, but still he did not speak.
“I be very tired, Daddie,” she said in a minute. “I be dreadful tired.”
Then he opened his lips.
“’Owever did you get ’ere, little ’un?” he said.
“I runned,” she answered simply.
“What, all the way?” asked he.
She nodded her head.
“First I runned very fast,” she said, “’cos I was f’ightened Mrs. Low’d
’ave me and whop me. And then I runned slower, but I runned all the
time. _I_ remembered the way, I did,” said she, wisely nodding her head
again.
A spasm of fury seized him, but it turned to self-reproach, and then
again, quickly, it turned to simple thankfulness.
“That _was_ clever of you,” said he mechanically as he had often been
wont to say when he knew she expected praise.
“Yes, that _was_ clever of me,” assented she, well-contented, “but I
wanted to get ’ome quick. They said down there I ’adn’t got no Dad, they
did. But I knew THAT weren’t true, so I come. And I didn’t stop on the
way, neither—not to look at the sweets nor nothin’—’cos I wanted my
Daddie, I did!”
She paused for an answer but none came—only the arm held her a little
more firmly in her place.
So she added, shaking him a little as she had used to do: “But I wants
my supper bad. I be very hungry, I be!”
“Pore little ’un!” murmured he, thinking of her face that was not so
plump or so rosy as it once had been, and of her eyes that were more
wistful: “Pore mite!”
“And we’ll go and buy sweets one day, Daddie, won’t we?” insisted she.
“’Cos you promised, ye know.”
“Did I?” said he dreamily.
“O’ course you did!” she declared. “And folk must allers do what they
promises.”
Again he did not reply, because, though he heard, his heart was too full
to heed. This was why his arm had been sure that day when he had saved
her from death.
But a sudden misgiving seemed to seize her at his silence, and she cried
defiantly: “’Cos I ain’t niver goin’ away no more, Daddie. Niver no
more!”
Then the torrent of his joy was loosed. He pressed her convulsively to
his heart and kissed her ... kissed her for all the weary days that were
past ... for all the many hours of longing emptiness, when he might have
had her to kiss and had not chosen to do so! Kissed her for all the
kisses that he had cheated her of.
“No, never no more!” echoed he fervently. “Daisy sha’n’t go away from
’er old Daddie never no more!”
The moon was high up in the sky; the red had waned in her but the gold
glowed, for she was the harvest moon. Over the dim marsh-land faint
mists were beginning to rise, like tender ghosts of the day that was
gone,—and the mystery of dusk hovered abroad.
Tom Wycombe sat as he had sat three months ago, when he had given thanks
to his God for restoring his child to him from the grave.
And now he understood what was the meaning of the peace which passeth
all understanding.
A FARM TRAGEDY
A FARM TRAGEDY
The moon shone fitfully into the wood; shone fitfully because wild
clouds were hurrying across the sky at intervals, so that the feeble
radiance could not even pierce, as it might have done, the tender
shadows of the forest that autumn gales had not yet stripped of its
golden glory.
At the foot of the dell two figures stood leaning against the gate that
led from the wood on to the undulating ground beyond.
The damp, russet leaves made a carpet under their feet, and fluttered
softly down upon them as the gusts flew past; for their heads were bare,
his cap had fallen off and bonnet she had none, and golden curls mingled
with black ones as her face lay upon his shoulder and his rested against
her cheek.
They were lovers and they were young—very young. Any one could have told
that—even in the fitful moonlight, even in the shadow: slender and
strong and supple of pose—boy and girl still.
“Oh, Charley, what ever shall I do when you’re gone!” moaned she. “I
don’t see as ’ow I can get along anyways! It’d be bad enough for any
girl, but it’s worse for me, ye must own, ’cos I can’t never say a word
to nobody about ye. It’s as much as my life’s worth to let it be knowed
as I wish ye a good-even. Ye don’t guess ’ow father ’ates you and yours,
I’ll be bound ye don’t. I b’lieve as ’e’d sooner see me dead than wed to
ye. Oh, Charley, _must_ ye go away?”
There was a plaintive prophecy of tears in the soft murmuring voice, and
the lad’s tones were nearly as rueful as he answered.
“I don’t see whatever I can do else, Bess,” said he, pressing her closer
than ever to his side. “Father won’t never give me no proper share in
the farm, I know. There’s Ben to come afore me, and if ever he had a
soft place for me, it’s pretty nigh froze over since that row last
night. That’s what ’ave made my mind up, ye see?”
“Tell me about it, dear,” said she, lifting her face.
“I don’t see as that’ll do no good,” answered he, kissing her face
instead.
“I’d sooner know,” she sighed.
“Well, there, ’e said as if ever ’e caught me a-courtin’ of ye, ’e’d
turn me out neck and crop that very day, and never a penny of ’is should
I see. It’s real onnat’ral it is, ’ow them two old blokes keep up that
’ere old row over a darned bit o’ land that was sold away a year ago.
They must ’ave a real mind to quarrel, they must. So, ye see, as ’e said
’e’d turn me out neck and crop, says I to myself, the best way for me is
to turn myself out first and save trouble. There’ll be no bones broke
that way. For it’s sartin’ sure I ain’t goin’ to give ye up.”
And then he kissed her again more passionately than before.
For a few minutes neither spoke; there was no need. They were together,
the world was far and parting was near and love sang aloud with
triumphant and commanding voice.
But at last she sighed and with infinite tenderness whispered simply:
“And I won’t never give you up neither, Charley. No, not if I was to die
for it.”
“I know ye won’t,” said he, “I ain’t a bit afraid, else I wouldn’t go.”
He paused a moment, looking into her eyes. A ray of moonlight filtered
through the trees and lit her face; it made it white as the face of
death. But the lips were parted in wondering rapture, and after a few
moments he laughed a little laugh and repeated dreamily: “No, I ain’t a
bit afraid. Ye’d never give me up.”
Then he sighed too, and in a different tone, striving for cheeriness,
added: “And it won’t be so bad, ye know, arter all, darlin’. I’ll be
bound I shall get on. Where there’s a will there’s a way, they say, and
there ain’t no mistake about the will, is there? Besides, I’m a man
now—twenty-one last March—and I’m strong, and school-master used to say
I’d got a precious good head-piece when I’d a mind. I _’ave_ got a mind
now, ye see, though I never ’ad before. I’ll soon come back and fetch
you, you bet. It ain’t so much as we shall want.”
“No,” said she eagerly, “a very little ’d do to keep me on. I don’t eat
much, and I’m very quick at things and real hearty, though some might
think I _looked_ a bit slim. Why, I could do a bit of earnin’ too,—take
in needlework or some such-like, though I’d rather work out-doors, with
you. Oh, Charley,” cried she again entreating, “I don’t see why we
shouldn’t just be wed now, somewheres on the quiet, and me go away with
you wherever you be bound for. It’d be much safer, and they won’t never
say ‘yes’ to us, not if we was to wait till Doomsday.”
A great gust of wind swept them furiously, and she clutched his arm and
looked up at him with bewildering pleading in her eyes.
But the boy turned his away and shook his head with a superior air of
wisdom.
“It’d never do, Bess,” said he. “Ye’re too young. Why, you ain’t
seventeen yet! Ye might be fallin’ sick on my ’ands. We mightn’t ’ave
enough to eat. A man can starve a bit, but a girl can’t—not one like
you.”
She sighed again, it was almost a moan, and lay her cheek against his
once more. Then, suddenly, a tremor ran through her. They were standing
within the edge of the wood with their backs to the open land beyond it.
But in seeking his face she had turned hers towards the sky upon which
low thorn-trees stood black, studding the rising ground.
“What’s that there?” she whispered terrified.
A cloud was hurrying across the moon and had laid a shadow on the
whiteness of the open.
“Where?” he asked, turning to follow her gaze.
“There, there,” she repeated. “Didn’t ye see some one a-movin’ across
behind the bushes? Charley, Charley, there’s father’s eyes
everywheres—a-gleamin’ out at us all the time. Let’s get away from
’em—do!”
The lad moved forward, though still holding her fast with one hand.
“No, no,” said he reassuringly. “Ye’re a bit excited, that’s what it
is,—ye fancy things. We should ha’ been bound to see any one move across
the open there, you take my word for it.”
She pressed closer to his side, but she trembled still.
“I b’lieve father ’d kill me if he knowed as I’d been with ye to-night,”
she whispered. “Ye don’t know what ’e’s like, father. It’s bad enough
when ’e ’aven’t got the drink in ’im. ’E’s mad agin you and
yours—downright crazy-mad. Oh, Charley,” she moaned again, clinging to
him with trembling hands, “take me with ye, do, now! Don’t leave me wi’
father! I’d not be a bit o’ trouble to ye, that I wouldn’t! You try me.
I’d rather live on a crust for weeks than stay ’ere alone. I’m
frightened, I am. It seems as if somethin’ bad was bound to ’appen if ye
go away and leave me. Take me along with ye, Charley!”
The boy wavered. He too was frightened, though he would not have
acknowledged it. He too, with the headlong recklessness of youth, would
have adventured all to hold what he had won, to have what he wanted; but
a vague sense of responsibility born of this new and strangely
constraining love, an uncomprehended instinct to protect what clung to
him, prevailed at last. He kissed her again, but it was no longer
feverishly; he was as he had said—a man.
“There, now, there,” said he soothingly, “ye mustn’t be onreasonable, ye
know. I shouldn’t be actin’ right by ye if I was to take ye from yer
’ome afore I’d somethin’ to keep ye on. I ’aven’t acted just as I should
ha’ done by ye, may be, but I can make that right. Only ye must let me
go and work for ye. If I was a ’cute un like my brother Ben, I’d say to
the Guv’nor: ‘Give me the bit o’ money what’d be mine some day, and let
me go and take my own chance wi’ it.’ But it’d be trickin’ ’im to do
that for to marry the darter o’ the man as ’e ’ates—and I ain’t a bad
lot. No, I’ll make my own way, and we’ll be man and wife, fair and open,
and please God father ’ll come to love ye too—some day. ’Tain’t in
nature as both on ’em shouldn’t forgive when it’s done. Ay, we’ll be man
and wife come Lady Day, Bess. I swear it, and it shall be done square. I
ain’t a bad lot, dear, and I’ll make ye a good ’usband, s’elp me God.”
His voice shook a little, but he lifted one hand to the moon that was
bright on them for a moment, while he strained her wildly to his breast
with the other; and she felt the purpose in him and bowed to the
inevitable.
But her tears flowed softly, and though he stroked her cheek to dry
them, they flowed still and her body shook with her grief.
“Tell me ye’ve faith in me, dear?” whispered he. “Tell me ye feel as ye
can trust me?”
She did not answer; the sobs that she strove against would not be
stilled.
“Why, Bess!” whispered he again, half frightened. “Ye’ll never be afraid
to trust me?”
Then she understood and raised her head.
“Trust ye?” she echoed bravely, and her eyes shone in the moonlight.
“Trust ye? D’ye think I take ye for a blackguard?”
He kissed her passionately and she dried her eyes.
“It ain’t that,” said she, and tried to smile. “It’s only as Lady Day’s
a long way off.”
The moon had topped the tallest tree that bent and quivered in the wind;
she might have been hurrying herself, so wildly the clouds hurried past
her, so cruelly the moments hurried onward.
“They’ll be waitin’ supper for me,” said the girl with a little shudder,
looking up at the trees. “Father’s been to market. He was to be late
’ome, but ’e’ll ’ave been back long afore this. Oh dear!”
“Well, ye mustn’t notice ’im too much,” declared he bravely. “’E won’t
plague ye, if ye stand up agin’ ’im. Ye must be a bit saucier. I’m sure
ye used to be saucy enough to me when first I fancied ye!”
“That was ’cos I knowed ye loved me,” smiled she, and then they kissed
again. But they couldn’t keep the sauciness up, and the next thing she
said was said sadly enough.
“It’s near six months to Lady Day,” she whimpered. “And I sha’n’t ’ave
no news of ye till then!”
“I’ll write when I get a bit settled,” he said.
“I’d never get the letter,” moaned she.
“Ye must go to the Post-office for it,” he answered.
“Post-mistress might tell,” objected she. But then with a sudden
inspiration: “May be Nan Fordham ’d fetch it for me. She’s a good child.
And ye might put A. B. on it, same as the girls do when they ’vertise
for a situvation.”
“Why, yes, that’s capital,” he cried. “What a clever one you is, to be
sure! Nobody’d find _that_ out, I’ll be bound.”
The comfort was a little one, but they hugged it and planned their plan
with fresh courage. But it was parting all the time, bitter-sweet,
though they painted the future brightly for one another, and took their
fill of the kisses the memory of which was to keep them alive: it was
parting and it hurt.
They made it last as long as they could; sheltering her from the blasts
with his arm around her, he took her to the edge of the wood, and many a
time did he leave her, yet was fain to come back for a last word, a last
embrace. But it was all over at last; he was gone, and she was left on
the empty road, swallowing her tears, alone.
Some one stood at the house-door as she crossed the common; the moon had
sailed forth from among the clouds again and stared at her grief, and
would not cover her sorrow. She could see the figure plain enough in the
hard, white light, and her heart leapt to her mouth and she thanked the
chance that had made Charley run down the grass slope to the
railway-station instead of coming round with her by the road.
She knew to whom the figure belonged, and she knew what it would say,
and try as she would to call to mind her lover’s brave banter, try as
she would to steel herself as he had bade her, her cheek was as white as
the moonlight and her heart fell against her side.
“Where’ve ye been?” thundered the figure as she came up, and the first
word told her that the man was in drink.
“Down the village,” she faltered, faintly.
“That’s a lie,” he shouted. “Why’s your feet soppin’ wet, and what are
them dead leaves a-stickin’ in yer ’air for?”
She put her hand up vaguely; it was true—the leaves of the wood had left
upon her the loving memory of her happiness. She took the two withered
witnesses from her curls and pressed them to her bosom.
“Ye’ve been down in the copse, and ye’ve been and met a man there, ye
shameless slut,” shrieked the father, shuffling a step nearer to her and
seizing her by the arm. “Now, don’t tell me no more darned lies. It
ain’t no use. You’ve been see’d a-cuddlin’ and a-kissin’, fit to shame
the mother that bore ye. And I tell ye what, I’ve ’ad my suspicions this
fortnight past, and if this lover o’ yours—damn ’im!—’ave got aught to
do with that stuck-up good-for-nothing son of a scamp—ye know well
enough who I mean!—I’ll break every bone in his blasted body! So now
ye’re warned, and ye know me well enough to guess I’ll do what I say.”
Bess stood still and said not a word; she was cold and she trembled, but
a blessed peace glowed within her, and she was not afraid, for she was
happy. The glamour of her bliss was fresh upon her, his kisses still
burned her lips, his heart still beat against hers. She stood still,
rapt and listening—listening for the whistle of the train that should
tell her he was being carried far from _her_ but far from harm also.
It struck upward from the valley, and she sighed a sigh of relief. For
herself she could bear much—and _he_ was safe. No one could break every
bone in his blessed body now.