CHAPTER LXXI.
AN ARGUMENT REFUTED
While these things were going on down in the valley, a nice little argument was raging in the dining-room of the old house on the hill. By reason of the bitter weather, Mr. Binns and John Trotman had brought in two large three-winged screens of ancient poikolo-Dædal canvas. Upon them was depicted every bird that flies, and fish that swims, and beast that walks on the face of the earth, besides many that never did anything of the sort. And betwixt them and a roaring fire sat six good gentlemen, taking their wine in the noble manner of the period.
Under the wings of one great screen, Sir Roland Lorraine, and Colonel Clumps, and Parson Hales were sitting. In the other, encamped Sir Remnant Chapman, Stephen, his son, and Mr. John Ducksbill, a fundamentally trusty solicitor, to see to the deed in the morning.
The state of the weather brought about all this. It would have been better for the bridegroom to come with a dash of horses in the morning, stir up the church, and the law, and the people, and scatter a pound’s worth of halfpence. But after so long an experience of the cold white mood of the weather, common sense told everybody, that if a thing was to be done at all, all who were to do it must be kept pretty well together.
But, alas! even when the weather makes everybody cry, “Alas!” it is worse than the battles of the wind and snow, for six male members of the human race to look at one another with the fire in their front, and the deuce of a cold draught in their backs, and wine without stint at their elbows, and dwell wholly together in harmony. And the most exciting of all subjects unluckily had been started – or rather might be said “inevitably.” Six gentlemen could not, in any reason, be hoped to sit over their wine, without getting into the subject of the ladies.
This is a thing to be always treated with a deep reserve, and confidential hint of something, that must not go beyond a hint. Every man thinks, with his glass in his hand, that he knows a vast deal more about woman than any woman’s son before him. Opinions at once begin to clash. Every man speaks from his own experience; which, upon so grand a matter, is as the claw of a lobster grasping at a whale – the largest of the mammals.
“Rector, I tell you,” repeated Sir Remnant, with an angry ring of his wine-glass, “that you know less than nothing about it, sir. All the more to your credit, of course, of course. A parson must stick to his cloth and his gown, and keep himself clear of the petticoats.”
“But, my dear sir, my own three daughters – ”
“You may have got thirty daughters, without knowing anything at all about them.”
“But, my good sir, my wife, at least – come now, is that no experience?”
“You may have got sixty wives, sir, and be as much in the dark as ever. Ducksbill, you know; come now, Ducksbill, give us your experience.”
“Sir Remnant, I am inclined to think that, upon the whole, your view of the question is the one that would be sustained. Though the subject has so many ramifications, that possibly his Reverence – ”
“Knows nothing at all about it. Gadzooks, sir! less than nothing. I tell you they have no will of their own any more than they have any judgment. A man with a haporth of brains may do exactly what he likes with them. Colonel, you know it; come, Colonel, now, after all your battles – ”
“My battles were not fought amongst the women,” said Colonel Clumps, very curtly.
“Hear, hear!” cried the Rector, smacking his fat leg, in the joy of a new alliance.
“Very well, sir,” said Sir Remnant, with his wrath diverted from the parson to the soldier; “you mean, I suppose, that my battles have been fought among the women only?”
“I said nothing of the sort. I know nothing of your battles. You alluded to mine, and I spoke my mind.” Colonel Clumps had been vexed by Sir Remnant’s words. He had long had a brother officer’s widow in his mind; and ever since he had been under-fitted with a piece of boxwood, his feelings were hurt whenever women were run down in his presence.
“Chapman, I think,” said Sir Roland Lorraine, to assuage the rising storm, “that we might as well leave these little points (which have been in debate for some centuries) for future centuries to settle at their perfect leisure. Mr. Ducksbill, the wine is with you. Struan, you are not getting on at all. My son has been in Portugal, and he says these olives are the right ones.”
All the other gentlemen took the hint and dropped the pugnacious subject; but Sir Remnant was such a tough old tyrant, that there was no diverting him. He took a mighty pinch of snuff, rapped the corner of his box, and began again.
“Why, look you, Lorraine, at that girl of yours, as nice a girl as ever lived, and well brought up by her grandmother. A clever girl, too – I’ll be dashed if she isn’t. She has said many things that have made me laugh; and it takes a good joke to do that, I can tell you. But no will of her own – no judgment – no what I may call decision.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” said Sir Roland, dryly; “I thought my daughter had plenty of all those.”
“Of course you did. All men think that till they find their mistake out. Nurse my vittels, if there is any one thing a woman should know her own mind about, it would be her own marriage. But, gadzooks, gentlemen, Miss Lorraine over and over again declared that she would not have our Steenie; and to-morrow morning she will have him, as merry as a grig, sir!”
“Now, father,” began Captain Chapman; but as he spoke the screens were parted; and Trotman stood there, in all the importance of a great newsbearer.
“What do you mean, sir?” cried Colonel Clumps, whose sedentary arrangements were suddenly disturbed; “by gad, sir, if I only had my bamboo!”
“If you plaize, sir,” said Trotman, looking only at his master, “there be very bad news indeed. Miss Halice have adrowned herself in the Woeburn; and her corpse be at Bottler, the pigman’s, dead.”
“Good God!” cried the Rector; and the men either started to their feet, or fell back on their chairs according to their constitution. Sir Roland alone sat as firm as a rock.
“Upon what authority, au-thor-i-ty – ” Sir Roland neither finished that sentence, nor began another. His face became livid; his under-jaw fell; he rolled on his side, and lay there. As if by a hand direct from heaven, he was struck with palsy.
CHAPTER LXXII.
ON LETHE’S WHARF
As soon as the master of the house had been taken to his bedroom, and a groom sent off at full gallop for the nearest doctor, Mr. Hales went up to Stephen Chapman, who was crying in a corner, and hauled him forth, and took his hand, and patted him on the shoulder. “Come, my good fellow,” he said, “you must not allow yourself to be so overcome; the thing may be greatly exaggerated – everything always is, you know. I never believe more than half of a story; and I generally find that twice too much.”
“Oh, but I did so love – love – love her! It does seem too hard upon me. Oh, Parson, I feel as if I should die almost. When the doctor comes, let him see me first. He cannot do any good to Sir Roland; and Sir Roland is old, and he has always been good; but I have been a very bad man always – ”
“Bad or good, be a man of some sort – not a whining baby,” said the Rector. “Put on your hat, and come out with me, if you have got a bit of pluck in you. I am going down to see my poor niece, at once.”
“Oh, I could not do it! I could never do it! How can you ask me to do such a thing? And in such weather as this is!”
“Very well,” Mr. Hales replied, buttoning up the collar of his coat; “I have no son, Stephen Chapman; and I am in holy orders, and therefore canonically debarred from the use of unclerical language; but if I had a son like you, dash me if I would not kick him from my house-door to my mixen!” Having thus relieved his mind, the Rector went to the main front passage, and chose for himself a most strenuous staff, and then he pulled the wire of the front-door bell, that the door might be fastened behind him. And before any of the scared servants came up, he had thought of something. “Who is it? Oh, Mrs. Merryjack, is it?”
“Yes, sir; please, sir, the men are all away, and the housemaids too frightened to come up the stairs.”
“You are a good woman. Where is Mrs. Pipkins?”
“She hath fetched up her great jar of leeches, sir; and she is trying them with poor master. Lord bless you, you might every bit as well put horse radish on him.”
“And better, Merryjack – better, I believe. Now, you are a sensible and clever woman.”
“No, sir. Oh, Lord, sir, I was never told that; though some folk may a’ said so.”
“They were right, every time they said it, ma’am. And no one has said it more often than I have. Now Mrs. Merryjack – ”
“Yes, sir; yes, sir. Anything you tells me, sir.”
“It is only this: I am going, as fast as I can, to Churchwarden Bottler’s. I shall take the short cut, and cross the water. You cannot do that; it would not be safe for a woman, in the dark, to attempt it. But just do this: order the light close carriage as soon as possible. The horses are roughed, to go to church to-morrow. Get inside it, with your warmest cloak on, and blankets, and shawls, and anything else you can think of, and tell the man to drive for his life to Bottler’s. Women will be wanted there; for one thing, or the other.”
“Yes, sir; to be sure, sir. We are always wanted. Oh’s me, the poor, young dear!”
The Rector set off by a path to the right, passing eastward of the Coombe, and leading, as well as might be, to the tree that crossed the water. It was a rough and dreary road; and none but a veteran sportsman could, in that state of the weather, have followed it. But Mr. Hales knew every yard of the hill, and when he could trust the drift, and where it would have been death to venture. And though the moon had set long ere this, the sky was bright, and the sparkle of the stars was spread, as in a concave mirror, by the radiance of the snow.
At Bottler’s gate Mr. Hales was rudely repulsed, until they looked at him. Gregory and Bonny were on guard, with a great tarpaulin behind them; each of them having a broom in hand, ready to be thrust into anybody’s face. A great glow of light was in the air, and by it their eyes shone – whether it were with ferocity, or whether it were with tenderness.
“I am her own uncle – I must go in. I stand in the place of her father.”
Bonny, of course, knew his master, and opened the paling-gate to let him in. And there Mr. Hales beheld a thing such as he never had seen before. Every sign of the singeing or dressing of pigs had been done away with. The embers of fuel, all around the grey walls, had given their warmth, and lay quivering. The grey flints, bedded in lime behind them, were of a dull and sulky red; the ground all over the courtyard steamed, as the blow of the frost rose out of it, and the cover spread overhead reflected genial warmth and comfort.
Near the middle of the yard, on the mattress, lay the form of poor Alice, enfolded in the warm blankets, and Mrs. Bottler’s best counterpane. The kind and good woman, with Mabel’s help, had removed the wet and freezing clothes, when Major Aylmer had laid his burden in Mrs. Bottler’s parlour. The only hope that the fleeting spirit might remain, or return, was to be found in warmth, or rather strong heat, applied at once; and therefore (with the Major’s advice and aid) clever use had been made of Mr. Bottler’s great preparations. It is needless to say that the pigman (who had now galloped off to Steyning for a doctor) would, if left to himself, have settled matters very speedily, by hanging the poor girl up head downwards, to drain off the water she had swallowed. But now, under Major Aylmer’s care, everything had been done as well as a doctor could have managed it. The body was laid with the head well up, and partly inclined on the right side, so that the feeble flutter of the heart – if any should arise – might not be hindered. The slender feet, so white and beautifully arched, were laid on a brown stone jar of hot water; and the little helpless palms were chafed by the rough hands of Mrs. Bottler. Mabel also spread light friction, with a quick and glancing touch, over the cold heart, frozen breast, and chill relapse of everything. And from time to time she endeavoured to inspire the gentle rise and fall of breath.
The Major came forward and took the hand of his friend, the Rector, silently. “Is there any hope?” whispered Mr. Hales.
“Less and less. It is now two hours since we began trying to restore her. I was nearly drowned myself, some years ago, and lay for an hour insensible. Every minute that passes now lessens the chance. But this young lady is wonderfully clever.”
“I only do what you tell me,” said Mabel, looking up without leaving off her persevering efforts.
“Flying in the face of the Almighty, I call it,” cried Mrs. Bottler, who was very tired, and ought to have had equal share of the praise. “Poor dear! we had better let her bide till the doctor cometh, or the crowner.”
“Not till a doctor declares her dead,” said Major Aylmer, quietly; “I am delighted that you are come, Mr. Hales. You are a great reinforcement. I have longed to try my own hand, but – but you can; you are her uncle. Perhaps you have not seen a case like this. Will you act under my directions?”
“With all my heart,” replied the Rector, pulling off his coat, and pitching it down anywhere. “Oh, my dear, my pretty dear, I do believe you will know my touch. Go out of the way, Mrs. Bottler, now – go and make some soup, ma’am. Mabel and I, Mabel and I, when we get together, I do believe we could make a flock of sheep out of a row of flints. Now, sir, what am I to do?”
Whatever he was told, he did with such a will, that presently Mabel looked up, and exclaimed with breathless delight – “Oh, I feel a little throb – I did feel a little flutter of the heart – I am almost sure I did.”
“My dear girl, rub away,” answered the Rector; “that is right, Major, is not it?”
“I believe so. Now is the critical time. A relapse – and all is over.”
“There shall be no relapse,” cried the Rector, working away with his shirt-sleeves up, and his ruddy face glowing in the firelight; “please God, there shall be no relapse; the bravest and the noblest maid in the world shall not go out of it. Do you know me, my darling? you ought to know your kind Uncle Struan.”
Purely white and beautiful as a piece of the noblest sculpture, Alice lay before them. Her bashful virgin beauty was (even in the shade of death) respected with pure reverence. The light of the embers (which alone could save her mouldering ash of life) showed the perfect outline, and the absence of the living gift, which makes it more than outline. Mabel’s face, intense with vital energy and quick resolve, shone and glowed in contrast with the apathy and dull whiteness over which she bent so eagerly. Now, even while she gazed, the dim absorption of white cheeks and forehead slowly passed and changed its dulness (like a hydrophane immersed) into glancing and reflecting play of tender light and life. Rigid lines, set lineaments, fixed curves, and stubborn vacancy, began to yield a little and a little, and then more and more, to the soft return of life, and the sense of being alive again.
There is no power of describing it. Those who have been through it cannot tell what happened to them. Only this we know, that we were dead and now we live again. And by the law of nature (which we under-crept so narrowly) we are driven to the opposite extreme of tingling vitality.
Softly as an opening flower, and with no more knowledge of the windy world around us, eyelids, fair as Cytherea’s, raised their fringe, and fell again. Then a long deep sigh of anguish (quite uncertain where it was, but resolved to have utterance), arose from rich, pure depth of breast, and left the kind heart lighter.
“Darling,” cried Mabel, “do you know me? Open your eyes again, and tell me.”
Alice opened her eyes again; but she could not manage to say anything. And she did not seem to know any one. Then the doctor pulled up at the paling-gate, skipped in, felt pulse, or felt for it, and forthwith ordered stimulants.
“Put her to bed in a very warm room. The carriage is here with the blankets, but on no account must she go home. Mrs. Bottler will give up her best room. Let Mrs. Merryjack sit up all night. She is a cook, she can keep a good fire up. Let her try to roast her young mistress. Only keep the air well moving. I see that you have a first-rate nurse – this pretty young lady – excuse me, ma’am. Well I shall be back in a couple of hours. I have a worse case to see to.”
He meant Sir Roland; but would not tell them. He had met the groom from Coombe Lorraine; and he knew how the power of life has dropped, from a score of years to threescore.
CHAPTER LXXIII.
POLLY’S DOLL
In this present state of things, and difficulty everywhere, the one thing most difficult of all is to imagine greater goodness than that of Mr. Bottler. He had a depression that could not be covered by a five-pound note, to begin with, in the value of the pig-meat he was dressing scientifically, when he had to turn it all out to be frozen, and take in poor Alice to thaw instead. Of that he thought nothing, less than nothing – he said so; and he tried to feel it. But take it as you will, it is something. A man’s family may be getting lighter, as they begin to maintain themselves; but the man himself wants more maintenance, after all his exertions with them; and the wife of his old bosom lacks more nourishment than the bride of his young one. More money goes out as more money comes in.
And not only that, but professional pride grows stronger as a man grows older and more thoroughly up to his business, especially if a lot of junior fellows, like the man at Bramber, rush in, and invent new things, and boast of work that we know to be clumsy. If any man in England was proud of the manner in which he turned out his pork, that man was Churchwarden Bottler. Yet disappointment combined with loss could not quench his accustomed smile, or plough one wrinkle in his snowy hose, as he quitted his cart on the following morning, and made his best duty and bow to Alice.
Alice, still looking very pale and frail, was lying on the couch in the pigman’s drawing-room; while Mabel, who had been with her all the night, sat on her chair by her pillow. Alice had spoken, with tears in her eyes, of the wonderful kindness of every one. Her mind was in utter confusion yet as to anything that had befallen her; except that she had some sense of having done some desperate deed, which had caused more trouble than she was worthy of. Her pride and courage were far away. Her spirit had been so near the higher realms where human flesh is not, that it was delighted to get back, and substantially ashamed of itself.
“What will my dear father say? And what will other people think? I seem to have considered nothing; and I can consider nothing now.”
“Darling, don’t try to consider,” Mabel answered softly; “you have considered far too much; and what good ever comes of it?”
“None,” she answered; “less than none. Consider the lilies that consider not. Oh, my head is going round again.”
It was the roundness of her head, which had saved her life in the long dark water. Any long head must have fallen back, and yielded up the ghost; but her purely spherical head, with the garden-hat fixed tightly round it, floated well on a rapid stream, with air and natural hair resisting any water-logging. And thus the Woeburn had borne her for a mile, and vainly endeavoured to drown her.
“Oh, why does not my father come?” she cried, as soon as she could clear her mind; “he always used to come at once, and be in such a hurry, even if I got the nettle-rash. He must have made his mind up now, to care no more about me. And when he has once made up his mind, he is stern – stern – stern. He never will forgive me. My own father will despise me. Where now, where is somebody?”
“You are getting to be foolish again,” said Mabel; much as it grieved her to speak thus; “your father cannot come at the very first moment you call for him. He is full of lawyers’ business, and allowances must be made for him. Now, you are so clever, and you have inherited from the Normans such a quick perception. Take this thing; and tell me, Alice, what it can be meant for.”
From the place of honour in the middle of the mantelpiece, Mabel Lovejoy took down a tool which had been dwelling on her active mind ever since the night before. She understood taps, she had knowledge of cogs, she could enter into intricate wards of keys, and was fond of letter-padlocks; but now she had something which combined them all; and she could not make head or tail of it.
“I thought that I knew every metal that grows,” she said, as Alice opened her languid hand for such a trifle; “I always clean our forks and spoons, and my mother’s three silver teapots. But I never beheld any metal of such a colour as this has got, before. Can you tell me what this metal is?”
“I ought to know something, but I know nothing,” Alice answered, wearily; “my father is acknowledged to be full of learning. Every minute I expect him.”
“No doubt he will tell us, when he comes. But I am so impatient. And it looks like the key of some wonderful lock, that nothing else would open. May I ask what it is? Come, at least say that.”
“It will give me the greatest delight to know,” said Alice, with a yawn, “what the thing is; because it will please you, darling. And it certainly does look curious.”
Upon this question Mrs. Bottler, like a good woman, referred them to her learned husband, who came in now from his morning drive, scraping off the frozen snow, and accompanied, of course by Polly.
“Polly’s doll, that’s what we call it,” he said; “the little maid took such a liking to it, that Bonny was forced to give it to her. Where the boy got it, the Lord only knows. The Lord hath given him the gift of finding a’most everything. He hath it both in his eyes and hands. I believe that boy’d die Lord Mayor of London, if he’d only come out of his hole in the hill.”
“But cannot we see him, Mr. Bottler?” asked Mabel; “when he is finding these things, does he lose himself?”
“Not he, Miss!” replied the man of bacon. “He knows where he is, go where he will. You can hear him a-whistling down the lane now. He knoweth when I’ve a been easing of the pigs, sharper than my own steel do. Chittlings, or skirt, or milt, or trimmings – oh, he’s the boy for a rare pig’s fry – it don’t matter what the weather is. I’d as lief dine with him as at home a’most.”
“Oh, let me go and see him at the door,” cried Mabel; “I am so fond of clever boys.” So out she ran without waiting for leave, and presently ran back again. “Oh, what a nice boy!” she exclaimed to Alice; “so very polite, and he has got such eyes! But I’m sadly afraid he’ll be impudent when he grows much older.”
“Aha, Miss, aha, Miss! you are right enough there,” observed Mr. Bottler, with a crafty grin. “He ain’t over bashful already, perhaps.”
“And where do you think he found this most extraordinary instrument? At Shoreham, drawn up by the nets from the sea! And they said that it must have been dropped from a ship, many and many a year ago, when Shoreham was a place for foreign traffic. And he is almost sure that it must be a key of some very strange old-fashioned lock.”
“Then you may depend upon it, that it is a key, and nothing else,” said Bottler, with his fine soft smile. “That boy Bonny hath been about so much among odds, and ends, and rakings, that he knoweth a bit about everything.”
“An old-fashioned key from the sea at Shoreham? Let me think of something,” said Alice, leaning back on her pillow, with her head still full of the Woeburn. “I seem to remember something, and then I am not at all sure what it is. Oh! when is my father coming?”
“Your father hath sent orders, Miss Alice,” said Bottler, coming back with a good bold lie, “that you must go up to the house, if you please. He hath so much to see to with them Chapman lot, that he must not leave home nohow. The coach is a-coming for you now just.”
“Very well,” answered Alice, “I will do as I am told. I mean to do always whatever I am told for all the rest of my life, I am sure. But will you lend me Polly’s doll?”
“Lord bless you, Miss, I daren’t do it for my life. Polly would have the house down. She’m is the strangest child as you ever did see, until you knows how to manage her. Her requireth to be taken the right side up. Now, if I say ‘Poll’ to her, her won’t do nothing; but if I say ‘Polly dear,’ – why, there she is!”
Alice was too weak and worn to follow this great question up. But Mabel was as wide awake as ever, although she had been up all night. “Now, Mr. Bottler, just do this: Go and say, ‘Polly, dear, will you lend your doll to the pretty lady, till it comes back covered with sugar-plums?’” Mr. Bottler promised that he would do this; and by the time Alice was ready to go, square Polly, with a very broad gait, came up and placed her doll without a word, in the hands of Alice and then ran away, and could never stop sobbing, until her father put the horse in on purpose, and got her between his legs in the cart. “Where are you going?” cried Mrs. Bottler. “We will drive to the end of the world,” he answered; “I’m blowed if I think there’ll be any gate to pay between this and that, by the look of things. Polly, hold on by daddy’s knees.”