“THE SHADOW PASSETH WHEN THE TREE SHALL FALL.”
What a happy honeymoon it was, along the porphyry walls of Western
England; what joyous days that were so long and seemed so short! There
never was a less costly honeymoon, for the bride’s tastes were simple
to childishness, and the bridegroom was too deeply in love to care for
anything she did not desire. To ramble in that romantic land, staying
here a few days, and there a week, all along the wild north coast, from
Tintagel to St. Ives, southward then to Penzance, and Falmouth, and
Fowey, was more than enough for bliss. And yet in all Eve’s childish
talk with her sisters of what she would do if ever she married a rich
man, the honeymoon tour in Italy had been a leading feature in her
programme; but in those girlish visions beside the schoolroom fire the
husband had been a nonentity, a mere purse-bearer, and all her talk had
been of the places she was to see. Now, with this very real husband,
all earth was paradisaic, and Sorrento could not have seemed more like
a dream of beauty than Penzance. She was exquisitely happy; and what
can the human mind require beyond perfect bliss?
These wedded lovers lingered long over that summer holiday. It was
an ideal summer--a summer of sunshine and cloudless skies, varied
only by an occasional thunderstorm--tempest enjoyed by Vansittart and
Eve, who loved Nature in her grand and awful as well as in her milder
aspects--and a tempest from the heights above Boscastle, or from the
grassy cliffs of the Lizard, is a spectacle to remember. They spun out
the pleasures of that simple Cornish tour. There was nothing to call
them home--no tie, no duty, only their own inclination; for the dowager
Mrs. Vansittart was staying at Redwold, absorbed in worship of the
third generation, and was to go from Redwold to Ireland for a round
of visits to the friends of her early married life. The lovers were
therefore free to prolong their wanderings, and it was only when the
shortening days suggested fireside pleasures that Vansittart proposed
going home.
“Going home,” cried Eve; “how sweet that sounds! To think that your
home is to be my home for evermore; and the servants, your old,
well-trained servants, will be bobbing to me as their mistress--I
who never had any servant but dear old motherly Nancy, who treats
me as if I were her own flesh and blood, and an untaught chit for a
parlour-maid, a girl who was always dropping knives off her tray, or
smashing the crockery, in a most distracting manner. We had only the
cheapest things we could buy at Whiteley’s sales, with a few relics
of former splendour; and it was generally the relics that suffered. I
cannot imagine myself the mistress of a fine house, with a staff of
capable servants. What an insignificant creature I shall seem among
them!”
“You will seem a queen--a queen out of the great kingdom of poetry--a
queen like Tennyson’s Maud, in a white frock, with roses in your hair,
and an ostrich fan for a sceptre. Don’t worry about the house, Eve. It
will govern itself. The servants are all old servants, and have been
trained by my mother, whose laws are the laws of Draco. Everything will
work by machinery, and you and I can live in the same happy idleness we
have tasted here.”
“Can we? May we, do you think? Is it not a wicked life? We care only
for ourselves; we think only of ourselves.”
“Oh, we can mend that in some wise. I’ll introduce you to all my
cottage tenants; and you will find plenty of scope for your benevolence
in helping them through their troubles and sicknesses. You can start
a village reading-room; you can start--or revive--a working man’s
club. You shall be Lady Bountiful--a young and blooming Bountiful--not
dealing in herbs and medicines, but in tea, and wine, and sago
puddings, and chicken broth; finding frocks for the children, and
Sunday bonnets for the mothers--flashing across poverty’s threshold
like a ray of sunshine.”
* * * * *
Life that seems like a happy dream seldom lasts very long. There is
generally a rough awakening. Fate comes, like the servant bidden to
call us of a morning, and shakes the sleeper by the shoulder. The dream
vanishes through the ivory gate, and the waking world in all its harsh
reality is there.
Eve’s awakening came in a most unexpected shape. It came one October
morning in the first week of her residence at Merewood. It came in
a letter from her old servant, a letter in a shabby envelope, lying
hidden among that heap of letters, monogrammed, coroneted, fashionable,
which lay beside Mrs. Vansittart’s plate when she took her seat at the
breakfast table.
She left that letter for the last, not recognizing Nancy’s penmanship,
an article of which the faithful servant had always been sparing.
Eve read all those other trivial letters--invitations, acceptances,
friendly little communications of no meaning--and commented upon
them to her husband as he took his breakfast--and finally opened
Nancy’s letter. It was October, and Vansittart was dressed for
shooting. October, yet there was no house-party. Eve had pleaded for
a little more of that dual solitude which husband and wife had found
so delightful; and Vansittart had been nothing loth to indulge her
whim. November would be time enough to invite his friends; and in the
mean time they had their pine woods and copses and common all to
themselves; and Eve could tramp about the covers with him when he went
after his pheasants, without feeling herself in anybody’s way. October
had begun charmingly, with weather that was balmy and bright enough
for August. They were breakfasting with windows open to the lawn and
flower-beds, and the bees were buzzing among the dahlias, and the air
was scented with the Dijon roses that covered the wall.
“Why, it is from Nancy,” exclaimed Eve, looking at the signature. “Dear
old Nancy. What can she have to write about?”
“Read, Eve, read,” cried Vansittart. “I believe Nancy’s letter will be
more interesting than all those inanities you have been reading to me.
There is sure to be some touch of originality, even if it is only in
the spelling.”
Eve’s eyes had been hurrying over the letter while he spoke.
“Oh, Jack,” she exclaimed, in a piteous voice, “can there be any truth
in this?”
The letter was as follows, in an orthography which need not be
reproduced:--
“HONOURED MADAM,
“I should not take the liberty to write to you about dear Miss Peggy,
only at Miss Sophy’s and Miss Jenny’s age they can’t be expected to
know anything about illness, and I’m afraid they may pass things over
till it’s too late to mend matters, and then I know you would blame
your old servant for not having spoken out.”
“What an alarming preamble!” said Jack. “What does it all mean?”
“It means that Peggy is very ill. Peggy, who seemed the strongest of
all of us.”
She went on reading the letter.
“You know what beautiful weather we had after your marriage, honoured
Madam. The young ladies enjoyed being out of doors all day long,
and all the evening, sometimes till bedtime. They seldom had dinner
indoors. It was ‘Picnic basket, Nancy,’ every morning, and I had to
make them Cornish pasties--any scraps of meat was good enough so long
as there was plenty of pie-crust--and fruit turnovers; and off they
used to go to the copses and the hills directly after breakfast.
They were all sunburnt, and they all looked so well, no one could
have thought any harm would come of it. But Miss Peggy she used to
run about more than her sisters, and she used to get into dreadful
perspirations, as Miss Hetty told me afterwards, and then, standing or
sitting about upon those windy hills, no doubt she got a chill. Even
when she came home, with the perspiration teeming down her dear little
face, she didn’t like the tew of changing all her clothes, and I was
too busy in the kitchen--cooking, or cleaning, or washing--to look
much after the poor dear child, and so it came upon me as a surprise
in the middle of August when I found what a bad cold she had got.
I did all I could to cure her. You know, dear Miss Eve, that I’m a
pretty good nurse--indeed, I helped to nurse your poor dear ma every
winter till she went abroad--but, in spite of all my mustard poultices
and hot footbaths, this cough has been hanging about Miss Peggy for
more than six weeks, and she doesn’t get the better of it. Miss Sophy
sent for the doctor about a month ago, and he told her to keep the
child warmly clad, and not to let her go out in an east wind, and he
sent her a mixture, and he called two or three times, and then he
didn’t call any more. But Miss Peggy’s cough is worse than it was when
the doctor saw her, and the winter will be coming on soon, and I can’t
forget that her poor ma died of consumption: so I thought the best
thing I could do was to write freely to you.--Your faithful friend and
servant,
“NANCY.”
“Died of consumption!” The words came upon Vansittart like the icy hand
of Death himself, taking hold of his heart.
“Is that true, Eve?” he asked. “Did your mother die of consumption?”
“I never heard exactly what her complaint was. She was far away from us
when she died. I remember she always had a cough in the winter, and she
had to be very careful of herself--or, at least, people told her she
ought to be careful. She seemed to fade away, and I have always fancied
that her grief about Harold had a good deal to do with her death.”
“Ah, that was it, no doubt. It was grief killed her. Her son’s exile,
her change of fortune, were enough to kill a sensitive woman. She died
of a broken heart.”
Anything! He would believe anything rather than accept the idea of
that silent impalpable enemy threatening his beloved--the horror of
hereditary consumption--the shadow that walketh in noonday.
“My sweet Peggy!” cried Eve, with brimming eyes. “I have been home a
week, and I have not been to see my sisters--only an hour’s journey by
road and rail! It is nearly three months since I saw them, and we were
never parted before in all our lives. May I go to-day--at once, Jack? I
shall be miserable----”
“Till you have discovered a mare’s nest, which I hope and believe
Nancy’s letter will prove,” her husband interjected soothingly. “Yes,
dear, we’ll go to Haslemere by the first train that will carry us, and
we’ll telegraph for a fly to take us on to Fernhurst. There shall not
be a minute lost. You shall have Peggy in your arms before lunch-time.
Dear young Peggy! Do you suppose she is not precious to me, as well as
to you? I promised I would be to her as a brother. Your sisters are my
sisters, Eve.”
He rang the bell at the beginning of his speech, and ordered the
dog-cart at the end.
“We must catch the London train, at 10.15,” he told the footman. “Let
them bring round the cart as soon as it can be got ready. And now,
dearest, your hat and jacket, and I am with you.”
There was comfort in this prompt action. Eve rushed upstairs, threw
on the first hat she could find, too eager to ring for her maid, with
whose attendance she was always willing to dispense, as a novel and not
always pleasant sensation. She came flying down to the hall ten minutes
before the cart drove round, and she and Vansittart walked up and down
in front of the porch, talking of the sisters, she breathless and with
fast-beating heart, protesting more than once at the slowness of the
grooms.
“My dearest, for pity’s sake be calm. Why should you think the very
worst, only because Nancy is an alarmist? These people are always full
of ghoulish imaginings. Peasants gloat over the idea of sickness and
death. They will stab one to the heart unwittingly; they will look at
one’s nearest and dearest, and say, ‘Poor Miss So-and-so does not look
as if she was long for this world.’ Long for this world, forsooth!
Thank Heaven the threatened life often outlasts the prophet’s. Come,
here is the cart. Jump in, Eve. The drive through the fresh air will
revive your spirits.”
She was certainly in better spirits by the time the cart drew up at the
railway station, and in better spirits all the way to Haslemere; but it
was her husband’s hopefulness rather than the crisp autumn air which
revived her. Yes, she would take comfort. Jack was right. Nancy was the
best of creatures, but very apt to dwell upon the darker aspects of
life, and to prophesy evil.
Yes, Jack was right; for scarcely had the fly stopped at the little
gate when Peggy came dancing down the steep garden path, with
outstretched arms, and wild hair flying in the wind, and legs much
too long for her short petticoats--that very Peggy whom Eve’s fearful
imaginings had depicted stretched on a sick-bed, faint almost to
speechlessness. No speechlessness about this Peggy, the real flesh and
blood Peggy, whose arms were round Eve’s neck before she had begun the
ascent of the pathway, whose voice was greeting her vociferously, and
who talked unintermittingly, without so much as a comma, till they were
in the schoolroom. The arms that clung so lovingly were very skinny,
and the voice was somewhat hoarse; but the hoarseness was no doubt only
the consequence of running fast, and the skinnyness was the normal
condition of a growing girl. Yes, Peggy had grown during her sister’s
long honeymoon. There was decidedly an inch or so more leg under the
short skirt.
Eve wept aloud for very joy, as she sat on the sofa with Peggy on her
lap--the dear old Yorkshire sofa--the sofa that had been a ship, an
express train, a smart barouche, an opera-box, and ever so many other
things, years ago, in their childish play. She could not restrain her
tears as she thought of that terrible vision of a dying Peggy, and then
clasped this warm, joyous, living Peggy closer and closer to her heart.
The other sisters had gone to a morning service. She had this youngest
all to herself for a little while.
“I don’t go to church on weekdays now,” said Peggy, “only on Sundays.
It makes my chest ache to sit so long.”
Ah, that was like the dull sudden sound of the death-bell.
“That’s because you’re growing so fast, Peg,” said Vansittart’s cheery
voice. “Growing girls are apt to be weak. I shall send you some port
which will soon make you sit up straight.”
“You needn’t trouble,” said Peggy. “I could swim in port if I liked.
Sir Hubert sent a lot for me--the finest old wine in his cellar--just
because Lady Hartley happened to say I was growing too fast. And they
have sent grapes, and game, and all sorts of delicious things from
Redwold, only because I grow too fast. It’s a fine thing for all of us
that I grow so fast--ain’t it, Eve?--for, of course, I can’t eat all
the grapes or the game.”
Peggy looked from wife to husband, with a joyous laugh. She had red
spots on her hollow cheeks, and her eyes were very bright. Vansittart
heard the death-bell as he looked at her.
The sisters came trooping in, having seen the fly at the door and
guessed its meaning. They were rapturous in their greetings, had worlds
to say about themselves and their neighbours, and were more eager
to talk of their own experiences than to hear about Eve’s Cornish
wanderings.
“You should just see how the people suck up to us, now you are Lady
Hartley’s sister-in-law,” said Hetty, and was immediately silenced for
vulgarity, and to make way for her elder sisters.
Vansittart left them all clustered about Eve, and all talking together.
He went out into the garden--the homely garden of shrubs and fruit and
flowers and vegetables, garden which now wore its autumnal aspect of
over-ripeness verging on decay, rosy-red tomatoes hanging low upon the
fence, with flabby yellowing leaves, vegetable marrows grown out of
knowledge, and cucumbers that prophesied bitterness, cabbage stumps,
withering bean-stalks--a wilderness of fennel: everywhere the growth
that presages the end of all growing, and the long winter death-sleep.
It was not to muse upon decaying Nature that Vansittart had come out
among the rose and carnation borders, the patches of parsley and
mint. He had a purpose in his sauntering, and made his way to the back
of the straggling cottage, where the long-tiled roof of the kitchen
and offices jutted out from under the thatch. Here through the open
casement he saw Yorkshire Nancy bustling about in the bright little
kitchen, her pupil and slave busy cleaning vegetables at the sink, and
a shoulder of lamb slowly revolving before the ruddy coal fire--an
honest, open fireplace. “None of your kitcheners for me,” Nancy was
wont to say, with a scornful emphasis which recalled the fox in his
condemnation of unattainable grapes.
Vansittart looked in at the window.
“May I have a few words with you, Nancy?” he asked politely.
“Lor, sir, how you did startle me to be sure. Sarah, look to lamb and
put pastry to rise,” cried Nancy, whisking off her apron, and darting
out to the garden. “You see, sir, you and Miss Eve have took us by
surprise, and it’s as much as we shall have a bit of lunch ready for
you at half-past one.”
“Never mind lunch, my good soul. A crust of bread and cheese would be
enough.”
“Oh, it won’t be quite so bad as that. Miss Eve likes my chiss-cakes,
and she shall have a matrimony cake to her afternoon tea.”
“Nancy, I want a little serious talk with you,” Vansittart began
gravely, when they had walked a little way from the house, and were
standing side by side in front of the untidy patch where the vegetable
marrows had swollen to huge orange-coloured gourds. “I am full of fear
about Miss Peggy.”
“Oh, sir, so am I, so am I,” cried Nancy, bursting into tears. “I
didn’t want to frighten dear Miss Eve--I beg pardon, sir, I never can
think of her as Mrs. Vansittart.”
“Never mind, Nancy. You were saying----”
“I didn’t want to frighten your sweet young lady in the midst of her
happiness; but when I saw that dear child beginning to go off just like
her poor mother----”
“Oh, Nancy!” cried Vansittart, despairingly, with his hand on the
Yorkshirewoman’s rough red arm. “Is that a sure thing? Did Mrs.
Marchant die of consumption?”
“As sure as you and I are standing here, sir. It was a slow decline,
but it was consumption, and nothing else. I’ve heard the doctors say
so.”