_A parting scene between Colin and Fanny, with the promises they made to
each other. Colin sets out for his new destination._
Something closely akin to grief was visible in the little cottage at
Bramleigh, even at daybreak, on that gloomy morning which had been fixed
upon for Colin's departure. It was yet some hours before the time at
which he should go; for his mother and Fanny had risen with the first
dawn of light, in order to have everything for him in a state of
preparation. Few words were exchanged between them as they went
mechanically about their household work; but each looked serious, as
though the day was bringing sorrow at its close: and now and then the
lifting of Fanny's clean white apron to her eyes, or the sudden and
unconscious fall of big tears upon her hands, as she kneeled to whiten
the little hearthstone of the house, betrayed the presence of feelings
in her bosom which put a seal upon the tongue, and demanded the
observance of silence to keep them pent within their trembling
prison-place. The mother, whose heart was more strongly fortified
with the hope of her boy's well-doing, felt not so deeply; though the
uppermost thoughts in her mind were yet of him, and of this change.
To-morrow he would be gone. How she should miss his open heart and
voluble tongue, which were wont to make her forget all the miseries she
had endured on his account! She would no longer have need to lay the
nightly pillow for him; nor to call him in the morning again to another
day of life and action. The house would seem desolate without him; and
she and Fanny would have to learn how to be alone.
His little box of clothes was now carefully packed up; and amongst
them Fanny laid a few trifling articles, all she could, which had
been bought, unknown to any one, with the few shillings which had been
hoarded up through a long season. These, she thought, might surprise him
at some unexpected moment with the memory of home, and of those he had
left there; when, perhaps, the treatment he might receive from others
would render the memory of that home a welcome thing. A small phial
of ink, three penny ready-made pens, and half a quire of letter-paper,
formed part of Fanny's freightage: as she intended that, in case he
could not return often enough on a visit to them of some few hours, he
should at least write to tell them how he fared.
When she was about completing these arrangements Colin entered the
room, in high spirits at the anticipated pleasures of his new mode of
existence.
“Is it all ready, Fanny?” he asked; at the same time picking up one end
of the cord by which the box was to be bound.
“Yes,” she briefly replied; accompanying that single monosyllable with a
sudden and convulsive catching of the breath, which told of an overladen
bosom better than any language.
“Then I shall go very soon,” coolly observed Colin,--“there is no good
in stopping if everything is ready.”
“Nay, not yet,” murmured Fanny, as she bowed down her head under the
pretence of arranging something in the box, though, in reality, only to
hide that grief which in any other manner she could no longer conceal.
“We can't tell when we shall see you again. Do not go sooner than you
can help, for the latest will be soon enough.”
“What, are you crying?” asked Colin. “I did not mean to make you cry;”
and he himself began to look unusually serious. “It is a good place, you
know; and, if I get on well, perhaps when I am grown up I shall be able
to keep a little house of my own; and then you, and my mother, and I,
will live there, and be as comfortable as possible together. You shall
be dairy-maid, while I ride about to see that the men do their work;
and, as for my mother, she shall do as she likes.”
Though not much consoled by this pleasing vision of future happiness,
Fanny could not but smile at the earnestness with which Colin had
depicted it. Indeed, he could not have offered this balm to her wounded
spirit with greater sincerity had such a result as that alluded to been
an inevitable and unavoidable consequence of his present engagement at
Snitterton Lodge. But Fanny had still less faith in the prognostications
of the little seer, in consequence of the opinion which she had
secretly formed of the character of his mistress; notwithstanding
the plausibility of her conversation. The natural expression of her
countenance appeared to be that of clouded moroseness and grasping
avarice; while a sort of equivocal crossing of the eyes, though only
occasional, seemed to evince to those who could deeply read the human
face divine, the existence of two distinct and opposite sentiments in
her mind, to either of which she could, with equal show of truth, give
utterance, as occasion might render necessary. Over all this, however,
and, as it were, upon the surface, her life of traffic with the world
seemed to have rendered it needful for her to assume a character which
too often enabled her to impose upon the really honest and innocent;
though it never left, even upon the most unsuspecting, any very deep
feeling of confidence in her integrity. Such, at least, were the
impressions which Miss Sowersoft's appearance produced upon the mind of
Fanny; though the latter made no other use of them than that of taking
some little precautions in order to be informed truly in what manner she
and Colin might agree, which otherwise she would not have deemed at all
needful.
“You will come over to see us every Sunday?” she asked.
“Yes, if they will let me,” replied Colin.
“Let you!” But she suddenly checked herself. “And, if not, when they
will not let you, you will be sure to write, Colin? Now promise me that.
Or, if anything should be amiss,--if you should not like the place, for
there is no telling till you have tried it; if it _should_ so happen
that they do not use you so well as they ought to do, send, if you
cannot come, directly; and, if there is nobody else to help you that
is better able,”--Fanny stood up, and clasped both his hands with deep
energy between her own,--“I will stand by you as long as I live. I am
not able to do much, but I can earn my living; and, if I work like a
slave, you shall never want a farthing as long as I have one left for
myself in the world! I have nursed you, Colin, when I was almost as
little as yourself; and I feel the same to you as though your mother was
mine too.”
While Colin, with tears in his eyes, promised implicit compliance
with all that had been requested of him, he yet, with the candour and
warm-hearted generosity peculiar to his character, declared that Fanny
ought to despise him if ever he trusted to the labour of her hands for a
single meal, No: he would save all his yearly wages, and bring them home
for her and his mother; and in time he should be able to maintain them
both by his own labour, without their having any need to struggle for
themselves. As for the rest, if anybody ill-used him, he was strong
enough to stand his own ground: or, if not, he knew of another way to
save himself, which would do quite as well, or better.
“What other way? What do you mean?” asked Fanny very anxiously.
“Oh, nothing,” said Colin; “only, if people do not treat us properly, we
are not obliged to stay with them.”
“But you must never think of running away,” she replied, “and going you
do not know where. Come back home if they ill-treat you, and you will
always be safe with us.”
Their morning meal being now prepared, the three sat down to it with
an undefined feeling of sadness which no effort could shake off. Some
little extra luxury was placed upon the table for Colin; and many times
was he made to feel that--however unconsciously to themselves--both
his mother and Fanny anticipated all his slightest wants with unusual
quickness; and waited upon him, and pressed him to his last ill-relished
meal, with a degree of assiduity which rendered the sense of his parting
with them doubly painful.
The hour for going at length arrived. At ten o'clock the village-carrier
called for his little box; and at twelve Colin himself was to set out.
The last half-hour was spent by his mother in giving him that impressive
counsel which under such circumstances a mother best knows how to give;
while Fanny stood by, weeping as she listened to it, and frequently
sobbing aloud when some more striking observation, some more pointed
moral truth, or apposite quotation from the sacred volume, escaped the
mother's lips. Twelve o'clock struck. At a quarter past our hero was
crossing the fields on the foot-road to Whinmoor; and at about three in
the afternoon he arrived at the place of his future abode.