HOW RACHEL SLEPT THAT NIGHT IN REDMAN'S FARM.
'Allow me--pray do,' and he took her little bag from her hand. 'I hope
you are not very tired, darling; you've been so very good; and you're not
afraid--you know the place is so quiet--of the little walk by yourself.
Take my arm; I'll go as far as I can, but it is very late you know--and
you are sure you are not afraid?'
'I ought to be afraid of nothing now, Stanley, but I think I am afraid of
everything.'
'Merely a little nervous--it's nothing--I've been wretchedly since,
myself; but, I'm so glad you are home again; you shall have no more
trouble, I assure you; and not a creature suspects you have been from
home. Old Tamar has behaved admirably.'
Rachel sighed again and said--
'Yes--poor Tamar.'
'And now, dear, I'm afraid I must leave you--I'm very sorry; but you see
how it is; keep to the shady side, close by the hedge, where the trees
stop; but I'm certain you will meet no one. Tamar will tell you who has
called--hardly anyone--I saw them myself every day at Brandon, and told
them you were ill. You've been very kind, Radie; I assure you I'll never
forget it. You'll find Tamar up and watching for you--I arranged all
that; and I need not say you'll be very careful not to let that girl of
yours hear anything. You'll be very quiet--she suspects nothing; and I
assure you, so far as personal annoyance of any kind is concerned, you
may be perfectly at ease. Good-night, Radie; God bless you, dear. I wish
very much I could see you all the way, but there's a risk in it, you
know. Good-night, dear Radie. By-the-bye, here's your bag; I'll take the
rug, it's too heavy for you, and I may as well have it to Dollington.'
He kissed her cheek in his slight way, and left her, and was soon on his
way to Dollington, where he slept that night--rather more comfortably
than he had done since Rachel's departure.
Rachel walked on swiftly. Very tired, but not at all sleepy--on the
contrary, excited and nervous, and rather relieved, notwithstanding that
Stanley had left her to walk home alone.
It seemed to her that more than a month had passed since she saw the
mill-road last. How much had happened! how awful was the change! Familiar
objects glided past her, the same, yet the fashion of the countenance was
altered; there was something estranged and threatening.
The pretty parsonage was now close by: in the dews of night the spirit of
peace and slumbers smiled over it; but the sight of its steep roof and
homely chimney-stacks smote with a shock at her brain and heart--a
troubled moan escaped her. She looked up with the instinct of prayer, and
clasped her hands on the handle of that little bag which had made the
mysterious journey with her; a load which no man could lift lay upon her
heart.
Then she commenced her dark walk up the mill-road--her hands still
clasped, her lips moving in broken appeals to Heaven. She looked neither
to the right nor to the left, but passed on with inflexible gaze and
hasty steps, like one who crosses a plank over some awful chasm.
In such darkness Redman's dell was a solemn, not to say an awful, spot;
and at any time, I think, Rachel, in a like solitude and darkness, would
have been glad to see the red glimmer of old Tamar's candle proclaiming
under the branches the neighbourhood of human life and sympathy.
The old woman, with her shawl over her head, sat listening for her young
mistress's approach, on the little side bench in the trellised porch, and
tottered hastily forth to meet her at the garden wicket, whispering
forlorn welcomes, and thanksgivings, which Rachel answered only with a
kiss.
Safe, safe at home! Thank Heaven at least for that. Secluded once
more--hidden in Redman's Dell; but never again to be the same--the
careless mind no more. The summer sunshine through the trees, the leafy
songs of birds, obscured in the smoke and drowned in the discord of an
untold and everlasting trouble.
The hall-door was now shut and bolted. Wise old Tamar had turned the key
upon the sleeping girl. There was nothing to be feared from prying eyes
and listening ears.
'You are cold, Miss Radie, and tired--poor thing! I lit a bit of fire in
your room, Miss; would you like me to go up stairs with you, Miss?'
'Come.'
And so up stairs they went; and the young lady looked round with a
strange anxiety, like a person seeking for something, and forgetting
what; and, sitting down, she leaned her head on her hand with a moan, the
living picture of despair.
'You've a headache, Miss Radie?' said the old woman, standing by her with
that painful enquiry which sat naturally on her face.
'A heartache, Tamar.'
'Let me help you off with these things, Miss Radie, dear.'
The young lady did not seem to hear, but she allowed Tamar to remove her
cloak and hat and handkerchief.
The old servant had placed the tea-things on the table, and what remained
of that wine of which Stanley had partaken on the night from which the
eclipse of Rachel's life dated. So, without troubling her with questions,
she made tea, and then some negus, with careful and trembling hands.
'No,' said Rachel, a little pettishly, and put it aside.
'See now, Miss Radie, dear. You look awful sick and tired. You are tired
to death and pale, and sorry, my dear child; and to please old Tamar,
you'll just drink this.'
'Thank you, Tamar, I believe you are right.'
The truth was she needed it; and in the same dejected way she sipped it
slowly; and then there was a long silence--the silence of a fatigue, like
that of fever, near which sleep refuses to come. But she sat in that
waking lethargy in which are sluggish dreams of horror, and neither eyes
nor ears for that which is before us.
When at last with another great sigh she lifted her head, her eyes rested
on old Tamar's face, at the other side of the fire-place, with a dark,
dull surprise and puzzle for a moment, as if she could not tell why she
was there, or where the place was; and then rising up, with piteous look
in her old nurse's face, she said, 'Oh! Tamar, Tamar. It is a dreadful
world.'
'So it is, Miss Radie,' answered the old woman, her glittering eyes
returning her sad gaze wofully. 'Aye, so it is, sure!--and such it was
and will be. For so the Scripture says--"Cursed is the ground for thy
sake"--hard to the body--a vale of tears--dark to the spirit. But it is
the hand of God that is upon you, and, like me, you will say at last, "It
is good for me that I have been in trouble." Lie down, dear Miss Radie,
and I'll read to you the blessed words of comfort that have been sealed
for me ever since I saw you last. They have--but that's over.'
And she turned up her pallid, puckered face, and, with a trembling and
knotted pair of hands uplifted, she muttered an awful thanksgiving.
Rachel said nothing, but her eyes rested on the floor, and, with the
quiet obedience of her early childhood, she did as Tamar said. And the
old woman assisted her to undress, and so she lay down with a sigh in her
bed. And Tamar, her round spectacles by this time on her nose, sitting at
the little table by her pillow, read, in a solemn and somewhat quavering
voice, such comfortable passages as came first to memory.
Rachel cried quietly as she listened, and at last, worn out by many
feverish nights, and the fatigues of her journey, she fell into a
disturbed slumber, with many startings and sudden wakings, with cries and
strange excitement.
Old Tamar would not leave her, but kept her seat in the high-backed
arm-chair throughout the night, like a nurse--as indeed she was--in a
sick chamber. And so that weary night limped tediously away, and morning
dawned, and tipped the discoloured foliage of the glen with its glow,
awaking the songs of all the birds, and dispersing the white mists of
darkness. And Rachel with a start awoke, and sat up with a wild look and
a cry--
'What is it?'
'Nothing, dear Miss Radie--only poor old Tamar.' And a new day had begun.