On a sombre autumn afternoon, the solitary figure of a woman stood
looking backward and westward, towards the round red ball of the sun,
which was sinking slowly into the very heart, as it were, of the great
far-away cloud which she knew was London.
All around her, on every side, stretched desolate marshes, silent save
for the hoarse cry of a heron dapping slowly towards his crimson fishing
pools, or for the faint forlorn whistle of a distant curlew. No other
human figure was in sight, not even a human habitation; but over the
trees of a lonely plantation, skirting the marshes to the southward, the
spire of Grayfleet Church glittered back the rays of the setting sun.
The woman, though pale and haggard, was young and beautiful; and as she
watched the far-off sunset its dim ray touched her cheeks with a faint
tinge of red. She stood like one in a dream, shading her eyes and gazing
on the dusky pageant--cloud, smoke, and mist irradiated into gloomy
splendour, and assuming, as the fancy willed, strange forms of crumbling
buildings, fiery streets, columns, roofs, arches, spires, and turrets,
all duskily aflame.
It did not seem real; no more real than the city she had left behind
her, than the grave from which she had risen into some dimmer and sadder
life. Yet her eyes dimmed with tears as she thought of one solitary
figure waiting lonely and despairing yonder, listening for a foot that
came not, praying for a love cast away and lost.
Nothing seemed real; not the cloudy pageant, or the darkening sun, or
the desolate earth; not the life that she had lived, or the life that
she had voluntarily left behind; not the long years of a confused and
broken experience, chiefly of helplessness and sorrow; nothing but the
clinging, contaminating sense of some great sin and shame. As a creature
half choked and drowned, just dragged living out of some watery ooze,
with all the foul moisture and the slimy filth clinging to her garments,
this woman seemed and felt. The consciousness of a complete moral
contamination, from which she had barely emerged, still remained with
her, and not all the perfumes of Arabia could have cleansed it away.
She had been wandering in that dreary district for days, sleeping at
night in lonely farmhouses and squalid inns, and ever creeping out
in the early dawn to follow some aimless pilgrimage she scarcely knew
whither. Yet all that afternoon she had been hanging around Grayfleet,
looking in vain for some face that she might know and remember. She had
stood gazing sadly at the little row of white-washed cottages where Mark
and Luke Peartree once had dwelt; but strange folk now lived there, and
the name of Peartree was quite forgotten. She had looked at the shining
river, and she had seen, in a dream, the boat rowing in with its maimed
and broken burden, while Uncle Luke stood in the bow wringing his hands.
She had wandered into the old churchyard and looked in upon the very
tombs where a troop of merry girls were playing, one happy Sabbath, so
many years ago. Ah, that sweet, that far-off, half-forgotten life--was
it all a dream too?
Tramps and wanderers of all kinds were common in those parts, and few
had paid any attention to the pale worn woman, plainly and poorly
clad, who haunted the old village that afternoon. Now and then she had
received a country greeting, and quietly replied. She had entered the
Ferry Inn, and bought some bread and cheese, and while making her
poor meal she had tried to question the landlord, a rough waterside
character, about people she remembered. But he was a stranger where all
seemed strangers. Then her feet had strayed again to the old churchyard,
and this time she had strolled through the gate and searched among the
graves. But she found no headstone or memorial to show her where Mark
Peartree was lying, or where slept the kindly dame who had followed him
so soon.
So the day passed, and in the afternoon she had come out again upon the
lonely marshes, where she now stood watching the smoky sun.
Ah, yes, it must all have been a dream. Wandering out of the great
city, fearful of pursuit, with no definite aim or hopes save that of
forgetting and of being forgot, she had strayed half unconsciously
towards the old landmarks--towards the only spot in the world where
she had known a happy and peaceful time. What impulse had brought her
thither she could scarcely divine; it was an instinct that sometimes
brings the bird to its deserted nest, the hare to its long-abandoned
form. She herself quite knew that it was hopeless. She knew that the
little household at Grayfleet had been desolate for years; and that
the only surviving member of it, if indeed he still survived, was Luke
Peartree, after whose whereabouts unavailing inquiries had been made
again and again. After Madeline Hazelmere was sent to France she had
heard nothing of her uncle; then her great trouble had come, and in its
shadow, while it lasted, all else was forgotten; but once more, after
her return to England, she had tried to discover poor Uncle Luke’s
whereabouts--always in vain.
Turning her back at last on the sullen sunset, the woman wandered
slowly along the narrow road which wound and wound for miles and miles,
seaward, through the marshes. In the near distance on her right hand
moved great sails, tall masts, smoking funnels, going and coming with
a strange silentness; for the river was there, sunk so low down in its
muddy bed that the traffic moving upon it had this curious appearance,
as of ghostly objects moving to and fro, in silhouette, upon the solid
earth.
She walked on and on still as if in a dream, and still with the sense of
a suffocating taint. The sun sank into the sombre cloud of the distant
city; darkness descended upon and rose from the marshes, save where here
and there a roadside pool flashed duskily; and still she walked on.
The moon rose large and yellow out of the far-off sea, and the air
became full of a visible and delicate dimness. So dense was the
stillness, so sad the darkening prospect all around, that now, more
than ever, the woman seemed walking in a dead world, a world of weariful
dreams.
At last she reached another village, lying close down by the riverside.
It was a small place, strongly saturated with brackish moisture, and
much frequented by forlorn seagulls of a ragged species, too lazy and
disreputable to earn a decent living out at sea. Here, in a peasant
woman’s house, she procured a bed, or rather a ‘shake-down’ before the
kitchen fire. The woman, a childless widow, stolid with ill fortune,
dazed with a life of wretchedness, asked no questions, and seemed
to note little difference between this delicate-skinned white-handed
wanderer and tramps of the common sort.
Early next morning she was away again, in broken aimless flight.
But it was at last evident that the physical frame of this woman was
unable to bear the strain put upon it by her impatient and apparently
indomitable spirit. Her walk was weary and unsure, and very often she
paused to rest; her breath came and went heavily; and in a word, her
trembling frame and aching limbs betokened that her strength was failing
fast.
About midday a country fellow, driving a light farm cart, passed her,
looked back, paused, drove on again, paused once more, and finally
waited till she came up; then, after looking at her curiously from head
to foot, accosted her as follows:--
‘Missis! Be you a-going to Seachester?’
She did not know the name, but scarcely knowing what she did she
answered in the affirmative.
‘Ah!--Do you know, missis, how far it be?’
She shook her head.
‘From London, I s’pose?’
She did not answer, and he continued:--
‘Well, it be seven miles, missis, to Seachester, and sure enough you
seem dead beat. Telee what, missis! I’ll give you a lift along.’
Weary and overpowered, she accepted his offer, and with his assistance
she climbed into they cart. They jogged along slowly, for the roads were
heavy and clogged with mud. From time to time the man looked at her,
surveying her quietly from head to foot, noting with no little surprise
her delicate form, her small hands, her beautiful face. More than once
he seemed about to question her, but refrained. To avoid meeting his
inquisitive gaze, she closed her eyes, and presently, through sheer
fatigue, she fell into a heavy doze.
She was wakened by a hoarse voice in her ear:--
‘Now, then, missis, here we be!’
She stirred, opened her eyes, and saw that they were standing near to
a very small village, not far from a great water, the river or the sea.
Shivering, and dazed, she alighted from the cart, and taking out a small
purse offered the man a piece of silver.
‘Noa, keep your money, missis,’ he said, with a stern shake of his head.
‘Look, now, this be Seachester, and up there be the house where you’re
a-going.’
He pointed as he spoke to a small cottage, like a lodge, standing
surrounded by trees, at the gate of a kind of avenue.
‘The house?’ she echoed. ‘Do you mean where they will give me a night’s
lodging?’
He looked at her with a curious expression, indicative of rural
suspicion.
‘You’re like the rest on ’em, missis! You know well enough where you’re
a-coming, but you won’t let on to know. Never mind, you ain’t the fust
by many as has had a lift in my old cart. There, go up right through
that gate, missis, and they’ll give you a night’s lodgings, never fear!’
So saying, with a grim nod, the countryman drove away, leaving the woman
perplexed and even alarmed.
What could he mean? Could he have any suspicion that she was a fugitive?
She was too dazed and weak quite ta understand, or even heed his
mysterious allusions. A sickening weight was on her heart, and though
her hands and feet were stony cold, her frame was on fire. She stood
tottering, as if about to faint.
It was again afternoon, and the red sunlight fell on the little lodge
and on the long avenue beyond, overshadowed with sere and yellow trees.
The place seemed still and peaceful. She crept nearer, and presently
stood with her face against the iron gate, looking in.
As she stood thus, there came on her ear the sound of female voices;
and she saw approaching down the avenue, a troop of about thirty women
walking in couples, talking and laughing as they came along. They were
plainly dressed, for the most part in plain stuff dresses and dark
shawls, and each wore a tight-fitting bonnet of the same description. On
they came, chattering like children. Most of them, even in their not
too becoming costume, showed the signs of personal comeliness, and a few
were really pretty.
Suddenly they turned into a side path and disappeared. The sound of
their voices died quietly away among the trees.
Trembling and wondering, the woman opened the iron gate and approached
the door of the lodge. She knocked feebly, but in a moment the door was
opened, and a goodlooking country dame, very clean and bright, stood on
the threshold.
‘Can I--can I--’--the wanderer began feebly, but breath failed her, and
she stood trembling.
‘Come in, my dear,’ said the woman compassionately, leading her to a
chair in a cosy little kitchen. ‘Come in, and welcome. Lord, how pale
you be! Have you come far?’
‘Yes. I want----’
‘Never mind about that, _now_--wait till I get thee a nice drink of warm
milk, and then you can go on the Home.’
But even as she spoke the wanderer fainted away.
The good dame uttered an exclamation.
‘Poor dear, she’s fainted. How wet and draggled she be! Why, she must
have tramped it all the way. Here, Johnnie--Johnnie!’
A flaxen-haired boy of about twelve appeared on the threshold.
‘Run up to the house, quick, and ask Sister Ursula, with mother’s
compliments, to step down here at once. Poor unfortunate,’ she
continued, chafing the woman’s fingers, ‘what pretty white hands she
has! She looks like a lady born!’