A SPECIAL VISION TOUCHING MRS. PECKABY.
Not until summer, when the days were long and the nights short, did the
marriage of Lionel Verner take place. Lady Verner declined to be present
at it: Decima and Lucy _were_. It was a grand ceremony, of course; that
is, it would have been grand, but for an ignominious interruption which
occurred to mar it. At the very moment they were at the altar, Lionel
placing the ring on his bride's finger, and all around wrapt in
breathless silence, in a transport of enthusiasm, the bride's-maids
uncertain whether they must go off in hysterics or not, there tore into
the church Master Dan Duff, in a state of extreme terror and ragged
shirt sleeves, fighting his way against those who would have impeded
him, and shouting out at the top of his voice: "Mother was took with the
cholic, and she'd die right off if Mr. Jan didn't make haste to her."
Upon which Jan, who had positively no more sense of what was due to
society than Dan Duff himself had, went flying away there and then,
muttering something about "those poisonous mushrooms." And so they were
made man and wife; Lionel, in his heart of hearts, doubting if he did
not best love Lucy Tempest.
A breakfast at Dr. West's: Miss Deborah and Miss Amilly not in the least
knowing (as they said afterwards) how they comported themselves at it;
and then Lionel and his bride departed. He was taking her to Paris,
which Sibylla had never seen.
Leaving them to enjoy its attractions--and Sibylla, at any rate, would
not fail to do so--we must give another word to that zealous missionary,
Brother Jarrum.
The seed, scattered broadcast by Brother Jarrum, had had time to
fructify. He had left the glowing promises of all that awaited them, did
they decide to voyage out to New Jerusalem, to take root in the
imaginations of his listeners, and absented himself for a time from
Deerham. This may have been crafty policy on Brother Jarrum's part; or
may have resulted from necessity. It was hardly likely that so talented
and enlightened an apostle as Brother Jarrum should confine his labours
to the limited sphere of Deerham: in all probability, they had to be put
in requisition elsewhere. However it may have been, for several weeks
towards the end of spring, Brother Jarrum was away from Deerham. Mr.
Bitterworth, and one or two more influential people, of whom Lionel was
one, had very strongly objected to Brother Jarrum's presence in it at
all; and, again, this may have been the reason of his quitting it.
However it was, he did quit it; though not without establishing a secret
understanding with the more faithful of his converts. With the exception
of these converts, Deerham thought he had left it for good; that it was,
as they not at all politely expressed it, "shut of him." In this Deerham
was mistaken.
On the very day of Lionel Verner's marriage, Brother Jarrum reappeared
in the place. He took up his abode, as before, in Mrs. Peckaby's spare
room. Peckaby, this time, held out against it. However welcome the four
shillings rent, weekly, was from Brother Jarrum, Peckaby assumed a
lordly indifference to it, and protested he'd rather starve, nor have
pison like him in the house. Peckaby, however, possessed a wife, who, on
occasion, wore, metaphorically speaking, his nether garments, and it was
her will and pleasure to countenance the expected guest. Brother Jarrum,
therefore, was received and welcomed.
He did not hold forth this time in Peckaby's shop. He did not in public
urge the delights of New Jerusalem, or the expediency of departure for
it. He kept himself quiet and retired, receiving visits in the privacy
of his chamber. After dark, especially, friends would drop in; admitted
without noise or bustle by Mrs. Peckaby; parties of ones, of twos, of
threes, until there would be quite an assembly collected upstairs; why
should not Brother Jarrum hold his levees as well as his betters?
That something unusual was in the wind, was very evident; some scheme,
or project, which it appeared expedient to keep a secret. Had Peckaby
been a little less fond Of the seductions of the Plough and Harrow, his
suspicions must have been aroused. Unfortunately, Peckaby yielded
unremittingly to that renowned inn's temptations, and spent every
evening there, leaving full sway to his wife and Brother Jarrum.
About a month thus passed on, and Lionel Verner and his wife were
expected home, when Deerham woke up one morning to a commotion. A
flitting had taken place from it in the night. Brother Jarrum had
departed, conveying with him a train of followers.
One of the first to hear of it was Jan Verner; and, curious to say, he
heard it from Mrs. Baynton, the lady at Chalk Cottage. Jan, who, let him
be called abroad in the night as he would, was always up with the sun,
stood one morning in his surgery, between seven and eight o'clock, when
he was surprised by the entrance of Mrs. Baynton--a little woman, with a
meek, pinched face, and gray hair. Since Dr. West's departure, Jan had
attended the sickly daughter, therefore he knew Mrs. Baynton, but he had
never seen her abroad in his life. Her bonnet looked ten years old. Her
daughters were named--at least, they were called--Flore and Kitty; Kitty
being the sickly one. To see Mrs. Baynton arrive thus, Jan jumped to the
conclusion that Kitty must be dying.
"Is she ill again?" he hastily asked, with his usual absence of
ceremony, giving the lady no time to speak.
"She's gone," gasped Mrs. Baynton.
"Gone--dead?" asked Jan, with wondering eyes.
"She's gone off with the Mormons."
Jan stood upright against the counter, and stared at the old lady. He
could not understand. "Who is gone off with the Mormons?" was his
rejoinder.
"Kitty is. Oh, Mr. Jan, think of her sufferings! A journey like that
before her! All the way to that dreadful place! I have heard that even
strong women die on the road of the hardships."
Jan had stood with open mouth. "Is she mad?" he questioned.
"She has not been much better than mad since--since--But I don't wish to
go into family troubles. Can you give me Dr. West's address? She might
come back for him."
Now Jan had received positive commands from that wandering physician not
to give his address to chance applicants, the inmates of Chalk Cottage
having come in for a special interdiction. Therefore Jan could only
decline.
"He is moving about from one place to another," said Jan. "To-day in
Switzerland, to-morrow in France; the next day in the moon, for what we
can tell. You can give me a letter, and I'll try and get it conveyed to
him somehow."
Mrs. Baynton shook her head.
"It would be too late. I thought if I could telegraph to him, he might
have got to Liverpool in time to stop Kitty. There's a large migration
of Mormons to take place in a day or two, and they are collecting at
Liverpool."
"Go and stop her yourself," said Jan sensibly.
"She'd not come back for me," replied Mrs. Baynton, in a depressed tone.
"What with her delicate health, and what with her wilfulness, I have
always had trouble with her. Dr. West was the only one--But I can't
refer to those matters. Flore is broken-hearted. Poor Flore! she has
never given me an hour's grief in her life. Kitty has given me little
else. And now to go off with the Mormons!"
"Who has she gone with?"
"With the rest from Deerham. They have gone off in the night. That
Brother Jarrum and a company of about five-and-twenty, they say."
Jan could scarcely keep from exploding into laughter. Part of Deerham
gone off to join the Mormons! "Is it a fact?" cried he.
"It is a fact that they are gone," replied Mrs. Baynton. "She has been
out several times in an evening to hear that Brother Jarrum, and had
become infected with the Mormon doctrine. In spite of what I or Flore
could say, she would go to listen to the man, and she grew to believe
the foolish things he uttered. And you can't give me Dr. West's
address?"
"No, I can't," replied Jan. "And I see no good that it would be to you,
if I could. He could not get to Liverpool in time, from wherever he may
be, if the flight is to take place in a day or two."
"Perhaps not," sighed Mrs. Baynton. "I was unwilling to come, but it
seemed like a forlorn hope."
She let down her old crape veil as she went out at the door; and Jan,
all curious for particulars, went abroad to pick up anything he could
learn.
About fifteen had gone off, exclusive of children. Grind's lot, as it
was called, meaning Grind, his wife, and their young ones; Davies had
gone, Mary Green had gone, Nancy from Verner's Pride had gone, and
sundry others whom it is not necessary to enumerate. It was said that
Dinah Roy made preparations to go, but her heart failed her at the last.
Some accounts ran that she did start, but was summarily brought up by
the appearance of her husband, who went after her. At his sight she
turned without a word, and walked home again, meekly submitting to the
correction he saw fit to inflict. Jan did not believe this. His private
opinion was, that had Dinah Roy started, her husband would have deemed
it a red-letter day, and never have sought to bring her back more.
Last, but not least, Mrs. Peckaby had _not_ gone. No: for Brother Jarrum
had stolen a march upon her. What his motive in doing this might be was
best known to himself. Of all the converts, none had been so eager for
the emigration, so fondly anticipative of the promised delights, as
Susan Peckaby; and she had made her own private arrangements to steal
off secretly, leaving her unbelieving husband to his solitary fate. As
it turned out, however, she was herself left; the happy company stole
off, and abandoned her.
Brother Jarrum so contrived it, that the night fixed for the exodus was
kept secret from Mrs. Peckaby. She did not know that he had even gone
out of the house, until she got up in the morning and found him absent.
Brother Jarrum's personal luggage was not of an extensive character. It
was contained in a blue bag; and this bag was likewise missing. Not,
even then, did a shadow of the cruel treachery played her darken the
spirit of Mrs. Peckaby. Her faith in Brother Jarrum was of unlimited
extent; she would as soon have thought of deceiving her own self, as
that he could deceive. The rumour that the migration had taken place,
the company off, awoke her from her happy security to a state of raving
torture. Peckaby dodged out of her way, afraid. There is no knowing but
Peckaby himself may have been the stumbling-block in the mind of Brother
Jarrum. A man so dead against the Latter Day Saints as Peckaby had shown
himself, would be a difficult customer to deal with. He might be capable
of following them and upsetting the minds of all the Deerham converts,
did his wife start with them for New Jerusalem.
All this information was gathered by Jan. Jan had heard nothing for many
a day that so tickled his fancy. He bent his steps to Peckaby's, and
went in. Jan, you know, was troubled neither with pride nor ceremony;
nobody less so in all Deerham. Where inclination took him, there went
Jan.
Peckaby, all black, with a bar of iron in his hand, a leather apron on,
and a broad grin upon his countenance, was coming out of the door as Jan
entered. The affair seemed to tickle Peckaby's fancy as much as it
tickled Jan's. He touched his hair. "Please, sir, couldn't you give her
a dose of jalap, or something comforting o' that sort, to bring her to?"
asked he, pointing with his thumb indoors, as he stamped across the road
to the forge.
Mrs. Peckaby had calmed down from the rampant state to one of
prostration. She sat in her kitchen behind the shop, nursing her knees,
and moaning. Mrs. Duff, who, by Jan's help, had survived the threatened
death fro "cholic," and was herself again, stood near the sufferer, in
company with one or two more cronies. All the particulars, Susan
Peckaby's contemplated journey, with the deceitful trick played her, had
got wind; and the Deerham ladies were in consequence flocking in.
"You didn't mean going, did you?" began Jan.
"Not mean going!" sobbed Susan Peckaby, rocking herself to and fro. "I
did mean going, sir, and I'm not ashamed to own to it. If folks is in
the luck to be offered a chance of paradise, I dun know many as ud say
they wouldn't catch at it."
"Paradise, was it?" said Jan. "What was it chiefly to consist of?"
"Of everything," moaned Susan Peckaby. "There isn't a thing you could
wish for under the sun, but what's to be had in plenty at New Jerusalem.
Dinners and teas, and your own cows, and big houses and parlours, and
gardens loaded with fruit, and garden stuff as decays for want o'
cutting, and veils when you go out, and evening dances, like the grand
folks here has, and new caps perpetual! And I have lost it! They be gone
and have left me!--oh, o-o-o-h!"
"And husbands, besides; one for everybody!" spoke up a girl. "You forget
that, Mrs. Peckaby."
"Husbands besides," acquiesced Susan Peckaby, aroused from her moaning.
"Every woman's sure to be chose by a saint as soon as she gets out.
There's not such a thing as a old maid there, and there needn't be no
widders."
Mrs. Duff turned up bar nose, and turned it wrathfully on the girl who
had spoken.
"If they call husbands their paradise, keep me away from 'em, say I. You
girls be like young bears--all your troubles have got to come. You just
try a husband, Bess Dawson; whether he's a saint, or whether he's a
sinner, let him be of a cranky temper, thwarting you at every trick and
turn, and you'll see what sort of a paradise marriage is! Don't you
think I'm right, sir?"
Jan's mouth was extended from ear to ear, laughing.
"I never tried it," said he. "Were you to have been espoused by Brother
Jarrum?" he asked, of Susan Peckaby.
"No, sir, I was not," she answered, in much anger. "I did not favour
Brother Jarrum. I'd prefer to pick and choose when I got there. But I
had a great amount of respect for Brother Jarrum, sir, which I'm proud
to speak to. And I don't believe that he has served me this shameful
trick of his own knowledge," she added, with emphasis. "I believe there
has been some unfortinate mistake, and that when he finds I'm not among
the company, he'll come back for me. I'd go after them, only that
Peckaby's on the watch. I never see such a altered man as Peckaby; it
had used to be as I could just turn him round my little finger, but he
won't be turned now."
She finished up with a storm of sobs. Jan, in an Ecstasy of mirth yet,
offered to send her some cordials from the surgery, by way of
consolation; not, however, the precise one suggested by Peckaby. But
cordials had no charm in that unhappy moment for Mrs. Peckaby's ear.
Jan departed. In quitting the door he encountered a stranger, who
inquired if that was Peckaby's shop. Jan fancied the man looked
something the cut of Brother Jarrum, and sent him in. His coat and boots
were white with dust. Looking round on the assembled women when he
reached the kitchen, the stranger asked which was Mrs. Peckaby. Mrs.
Peckaby looked up, and signified that she was.
"I have a message from the saint and elder, Brother Jarrum," he
mysteriously whispered in her ear. "It must be give to you in private."
Mrs. Peckaby, in a tremble of delight, led the stranger to a small shed
in the yard, which she used for washing purposes, and called the back
'us. It was the most private place she could think of, in her fluster.
The stranger, propping himself against a broken tub, proceeded, with
some circumlocution and not remarkable perspicuity of speech, to deliver
the message with which he was charged. It was to the effect that a
vision had revealed to Brother Jarrum the startling fact, that Susan
Peckaby was _not_ to go out with the crowd at present on the wing. A
higher destiny awaited her. She would be sent for in a different
manner--in a more important form; sent for special, on a quadruped. That
is to say, on a white donkey.[A]
[Footnote A: A fact.]
"On a white donkey?" echoed the trembling and joyful woman.
"On a white donkey," gravely repeated the brother--for that he was
another brother of the community, there could be little doubt. "What the
special honour intended for you may be, me and Brother Jarrum don't
pertend to guess at. It's above us. May be you are fated to be chose by
our great prophet hisself. Any how, it's something at the top of the
tree."
"When shall I be sent for, sir?" eagerly asked Mrs. Peckaby.
"That ain't revealed neither. It may be next week--it mayn't be for a
year; you must always be on the look-out. One of these days or nights,
you'll see a white donkey a-standing at your door. It'll be the
messenger for you from New Jerusalem. You mount him without a minute's
loss of time, and come off."
But that Mrs. Peckaby's senses were exalted at that moment far above the
level of ordinary mortals', it might have occurred to her to inquire
whether the donkey would be endowed with the miraculous power of bearing
her over the sea. No such common question presented itself. She asked
another.
"Why couldn't Brother Jarrum have told me this hisself, sir? I have been
a'most mad this morning, ever since I found as they had gone."
The brother--this brother--turned up the whites of his eyes. "When
unknown things is revealed to us, and mysterious orders give, they never
come to us a minute afore the time," he replied. "Not till Brother
Jarrum was fixing the night of departure, did the vision come to him. It
was commanded him that it should be kept from you till the rest were
off, and then he were to send back a messenger to tell you--and many a
mile I've come! Brother Jarrum and me has no doubt that it is meant as a
trial of your faith."
Nothing could be more satisfactory to the mind of Mrs. Peckaby than this
explanation. Had any mysterious vision appeared to herself, showing her
that it was false, commanding her to disbelieve it, it could not have
shaken her faith. If the white donkey arrived at her door that very
night, she would be sure to mount him.
"Do you think it'll be very long, sir, that I shall have to wait?" she
resumed, feverishly listening for the answer.
"My impression is that it'll be very short," was the reply. "And it's
Brother Jarrum's also. Any way, you be on the look-out--always prepared.
Have a best robe at hand continual, ready to clap on the instant the
quadruped appears, and come right away to New Jerusalem."
In the openness of her heart, Mrs. Peckaby offered refreshment to the
brother. The best her house afforded: which was not much. Peckaby should
be condemned to go foodless for a week, rather than that _he_ should
depart fasting. The brother, however, declined: he appeared to be in a
hurry to leave Deerham behind him.
"I'd not disclose this to anybody if I was you," was his parting
salutation. "Leastways, not for a day or two. Let the ruck of 'em embark
first at Liverpool. If it gets wind, some of them may be for turning
crusty, because they are not favoured with special animals, too."
Had the brother recommended Susan Peckaby to fill the tub with water,
and stand head downwards in it for a day or two, she was in the mood to
obey him. Accordingly, when questioned by Mrs. Duff, and the other
curious ones, what had been the business of the stranger, she made a
great mystery over it, and declined to answer.
"It's good news, by the signs of your face," remarked Mrs. Duff.
"Good news!" rapturously repeated Susan Peckaby, "it's heaven. I say,
Mother Duff, I want a new gownd: something of the very best. I'll pay
for it by degrees. There ain't no time to be lost, neither; so I'll come
down at once and choose it."
"What _has_ happened?" was the wondering rejoinder of Mother Duff.
"Never you mind, just yet. I'll tell you about it afore the week's out."
And, accordingly, before the week was out, all Deerham was regaled with
the news; full particulars. And Susan Peckaby, a robe of purple, of the
stuff called lustre, laid up in state, to be donned when the occasion
came, passed her time, night and day, at her door and windows, looking
out for the white donkey that was to bear her in triumph to New
Jerusalem.