Complete works of hall c.., p.17
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 17
The moment before Rotha had gone into the dairy adjoining, and, coming back, she was handing a bowl of milk to her father. Sim clutched at the dish with nervous fingers.
The Reverend Nicholas walked with measured paces towards where he sat. Then he paused, and stood a yard or two behind Sim, whose eyes were still averted.
“I was told you had made your habitation on the hillside; a fitting home, no doubt, for one unfit to house with his fellows.”
Sim’s hand trembled violently, and he set the bowl of milk on the floor beside him. Rotha was standing a yard or two apart, her breast heaving.
“Have you left it for good, pray?” There was the suspicion of a sneer in the tone with which the question was asked.
“Yes, he has left it for good,” said Rotha, catching her breath.
Sim had dropped his head on his hand, his elbow resting on his knee.
“More’s the shame, perhaps; who knows but it may have been the best place for shame to hide in!”
Sim got up, and turning about, with his eyes still fixed on the ground, he hurried out of the house.
“You’ve driven him away again — do you know that?” said Rotha, regaining her voice, and looking fall into the vicar’s face, her eyes aflame.
“If so, I have done well, young woman.” Then surveying her with a look of lofty condescension, he added, “And what is your business here?”
“To nurse Mrs. Ray; that is part of it.”
“Even so? And were you asked to come?”
“Surely.”
“By whom?”
“Ralph, her son.”
“Small respect he could have had for you, young woman.”
“Tell me what you mean, sir,” said the girl, with a glance of mingled pride and defiance.
“Tell you what I mean, young woman! Have you, then, no modesty? Has that followed the shame of the hang-dog vagrant who has just left us?”
“Not another word about him! If you have anything to say about me, say it, sir.”
“What! — the father dead! the mother stricken into unconsciousness — two sons — and you a young woman — was there no matron in the parish, that a young woman must come here?”
Rotha’s color, that had tinged her cheeks, mounted to her eyes and descended to her neck. The prudery that was itself a sin had penetrated the armor of her innocence. Without another word, she turned and left the kitchen.
“Well, Widow Ray,” she heard his reverence say, in an altered tone, as he faced the invalid. She listened for no more.
Her trance was over now, and rude indeed had been the awakening. Perhaps, after all, she had no business in this house — perhaps the vicar was right. Yet that could not be. She thought of Mrs. Ray smitten down and dependent upon those about her for help in every simple office of life, and she thought of the promise she had made to Ralph. “Promise me,” he had said, “that you will stay in the old home as long as mother lives.” And she had promised; her pledged word was registered in heaven.
But then, again, perhaps Ralph had not foreseen that his mother might live for years in her present state. No doubt he thought her near to death. He could not have intended that she should live long in his brother’s house.
Yet he had so intended. “He will ask you to be his wife, Rotha,” Ralph had said, “but he can’t do so yet.”
This brought her memory back to the earlier events of the morning. Willy Ray had already asked her to become his wife. And what had she done on her part? Had she not seemed to say No?
Willy was far above her. It was true enough that she was a poor homeless girl, without lands, without anything but the hands she worked with. Willy was now a statesman, and he was something of a scholar too. Yes, he was in every way far above her. Were there not others who might love him? Yet Ralph had seemed to wish her to become his brother’s wife, and what Ralph had said would be best, must of course be so.
She could not bring herself to leave Shoulthwaite — that was clear enough to her bewildered sense. Nor could she remain on the present terms of relation — that, also, was but too clear. If Ralph were at home, how different everything would be! He would lead her with a word out of this distressing maze.
When Willy Ray parted from Rotha after he had told her of his love, he felt that the sunshine had gone out of his life forever. He had been living for weeks and months in a paradise that was not his own. Why he had loved this girl he could hardly say. She was — every one knew it — the daughter of a poor tailor, and he was the poorest and meanest creature in the country round about.
The young man could not help telling himself that he might have looked to marry the daughter of the largest statesman in a radius of miles.
But then, the girl herself was a noble creature — none could question it. Rude, perhaps, in some ways, without other learning than the hard usage of life had given her; yet she was a fine soul, as deep as the tarn on the mountain-top, and as pure and clear.
And he had fancied she loved him. No disaster had quite overshadowed the bright hope of that surmise. Yet had she not loved Ralph instead? Perhaps the girl herself did not realize that in reality the love of his brother had taken hold of her. Did Ralph himself love the girl? That could not be, or he should have guessed the truth the night they spoke together. Still, it might be that Ralph loved her after all.
By the following morning Rotha had decided that her duty at this crisis lay one way only, and that way she must take. Ralph had said it would be well for her to become Willy’s wife, and she had promised him never to leave the Moss while his mother lived. She would do as he had said.
Willy had asked her for a sign, and she must give hint, one — a sign that she was willing to say “Yes” if he spoke again to-day as he had spoken yesterday.
Having once settled this point, her spirits experienced a complete elevation. What should the sign be? Rotha walked to the neuk window and stood to think, her hand on the wheel and her eyes towards the south. What, then, should the sign be?
It was by no means easy to hit on a sign that would show him at a glance that her mind was made up; that, however she may have wavered in her purpose yesterday, her resolve was fixed to-day. She stood long and thought of many plans, but none harmonized with her mood.
“Why should I not tell him — just in a word?” Often as she put if to herself so, she shrank from the ordeal involved.
No, she must hit on a sign, but she began to despair of lighting on a fitting one. Then she shifted her gaze from the landscape through the window, and turned to where Mrs. Ray sat in her chair close by. How vague and vacant was the look in those dear eyes! how mute hung the lips that were wont to say, “God bless you!” how motionless lay the fingers that once spun with the old wheel so deftly!
The old spinning-wheel — here it was, and Rotha’s right hand still rested upon it. Ah! the wheel — surely that was, the sign she wanted.
She would sit and spin — yes, she could spin, too, though it was long since she had done so — she would sit in his mother’s chair — the one his mother used to sit in when she spun — and perhaps he would understand from that sign that she would try to take his mother’s place if he wished her so to do.
Quick, let it be done at once. He usually came up to the house at this time of the morning.
She looked at the clock. He would be here soon, she thought; he might be coming now.
* * * * *
And Willy Ray was, in truth, only a few yards from the house at the moment. He had been up on to the hills that morning. He had been there on a similar errand several mornings before, and had never told himself frankly what that errand really was. Returning homewards on this occasion, he had revolved afresh the subject that lay nearest to his heart.
If Ralph really loved the girl — but how should he know the truth as to that, unless Rotha knew it? If the girl loved his brother, he could relinquish her. He was conscious of no pang of what was called jealousy in this matter. An idol that he had worshipped seemed to be shattered — that was all.
If he saw that Rotha loved Ralph, he must give up forever his one dream of happiness — and there an end.
It was in this mood that he opened the kitchen door, just as Rotha had put her foot on the treadle and taken the flax in her hand.
There the girl sat, side by side with his mother, spinning at the wheel which within his recollection no hand but one had touched. How fresh and fair the young face looked, tinged, as it was at this moment, too, with a conscious blush!
Rotha had tried to lift her eyes as Willy entered. She intended to meet his glance with a smile. She wished to catch the significance of his expression. But the lids were heavier than lead that kept her gaze fixed on the “rock” and flax below her.
She felt that after a step or two he had stood still in front of her. She knew that her face was crimson. Her eyes, too, were growing dim.
“Rotha, my darling!” She heard no more.
The spinning-wheel had been pushed hastily aside. She was on her feet, and Willy’s arms were about her.
CHAPTER XX. “FOOL, OF THYSELF SPEAK WELL.”
As the parson left Shoulthwaite that morning he encountered Joe Garth at the turning of the lonnin. The blacksmith was swinging along the road, with a hoop over his shoulder. He lifted his cap as the Reverend Nicholas came abreast of him. That worthy was usually too much absorbed to return such salutations, but he stopped on this occasion.
“Would any mortal think it?” he said; “the man Simeon Stagg is here housed at the home of my old friend and esteemed parishioner, Angus Ray!”
Mr. Garth appeared to be puzzled to catch the relevancy of the remark. He made no reply.
“The audacity of the man is past belief,” continued the parson. “Think of his effrontery! Does he imagine that God or man has forgotten the mystery of that night in Martinmas?”
The blacksmith realized that some response was expected from him. With eyes bent on the ground, he muttered, “He’s getting above with himself, sir.”
“Getting above himself! I should think so, forsooth. But verily a reckoning day is at hand. Woe to him who carries a load of guilt at his heart and thinks that no man knows of it. Better a millstone were about his neck, and he were swallowed up in the great deep.”
The parson turned away. Garth stood for a moment without perceiving that he was alone, his eyes still bent on the ground. Then he walked moodily in the other direction.
When he reached his home, Joe threw down the hoop in the smithy and went into the house. His mother was there.
“Sim, he’s at Shoulthwaite,” he said. “It’s like enough his daughter is there, too.”
A sneer crossed Mrs. Garth’s face.
“Tut, she’s yan as wad wed the midden for sake of the muck.”
“You mean she’s setting herself at one of the Rays?”
Mrs. Garth snorted, but gave no more explicit reply.
“Ey, she’s none so daft, is yon lass,” observed the blacksmith.
This was not quite the trace he had meant to follow. After a pause he said, “What came of his papers — in the trunk?”
“Whose?”
“Thou knows.”
Mrs. Garth gave her son a quick glance.
“It’s like they’re still at Fornside. I must see to ‘em again.”
The blacksmith responded eagerly, —
“Do, mother, do.”
There was another pause. Joe made some pretence of scraping a file which he had picked up from a bench.
“Thou hasn’t found out if old Angus made a will?” said Mrs. Garth.
“No.”
“No, of course not,” said Mrs. Garth, with a curl of the lip. “What I want doing I must do myself. Always has been so, and always will be.”
“I wish it were true, mother,” muttered Joe in a voice scarcely audible.
“What’s that?”
“Nowt.”
“I’ll go over to Shoulth’et to-morrow,” purred Mrs. Garth. “If the old man made no will, I’ll maybe have summat to say as may startle them a gay bit.”
The woman grunted to herself at the prospect. “Ey, ey,” she mumbled, “it’ll stop their match-makin’. Ey, ey, and what’s mair, what’s mair, it’ll bring yon Ralph back helter-skelter.”
“Mother, mother,” cried the blacksmith, “can you never leave that ugly thing alone?”
CHAPTER XXI. MRS. GARTH AT SHOULTHWAITE.
The next day or two passed by with Rotha like a dream. Her manners had become even gentler and her voice even softer than before, and the light of self-consciousness had stolen into her eyes. Towards the evening of the following day Liza Branthwaite ran up to the Moss to visit her. Rotha was in the dairy at the churn, and when Liza pushed open the door and came unexpectedly upon her she experienced a momentary sense of confusion which was both painful and unaccountable. The little lady was herself flushed with a sharp walk, and muffled up to the throat from a cutting wind.
“Why, Rotha, my girl, what ever may be the matter with you?” said Liza, coming to a pause in the middle of the floor, and, without removing the hands that had been stuffed up her sleeves from the cold, looking fixedly in her face.
“I don’t know, Liza; I wish you could tell me, lass,” said Rotha, recovering enough self-possession to simulate a subterfuge.
“Here I’ve been churning and churning since morning, and don’t seem much nigher the butter yet.”
“It’s more than the butter that pests you,” said Liza, with a wise shake of the head.
“Yes; it must be the churn. I can make nothing of it.”
“Shaf on the churn, girl! You just look like Bessie MacNab when they said Jamie o’ the Glen had coddled her at the durdum yon night at Robin Forbes’s.”
“Hush, Liza,” said Rotha, stooping unnecessarily low to investigate the progress of her labors, and then adding, from the depths of the churn, “why, and how did Bessie look?”
“Look? look?” cried Liza, with a tip of the chin upwards, as though the word itself ought to have been sufficiently explicit,— “look, you say? Why,” continued Liza, condescending at length to be more definite as to the aforesaid young lady’s appearance after a kiss at a country dance, “why, she looked just for the world like you, Rotha.”
Then throwing off her thick outer garment without waiting for any kind of formal invitation, Liza proceeded to make herself at home in a very practical way.
“Come, let me have a turn at the churn,” she said, “and let us see if it is the churn that ails you — giving you two great eyes staring wide as if you were sickening for a fever, and two cheeks as red as the jowls of ‘Becca Rudd’s turkey.”
In another moment Liza was rolling up the sleeves of her gown, preparatory to the experimental exercise she had proposed to herself; but this was not a task that had the disadvantage of interrupting the flow of her gossip.
“But I say, lass,” she rattled on, “have you heard what that great gammerstang of a Mother Garth has been telling ‘Becca Rudd about you? ‘Becca told me herself, and I says to ‘Becca, says I, ‘Don’t you believe it; it’s all a lie, for that old wizzent ninny bangs them all at lying; and that’s saying a deal, you know. Besides,’ I says, ‘what does it matter to her or to you, ‘Becca, or to me, if so be that it is true, which I’m not for believing that it is, not I,’ I says.”
“But what was it, Liza? You’ve not told me what it was, lass, that Mrs. Garth had said about me.”
Rotha had stopped churning, and was standing, with the color rising even closer round her eyes. Luckily, Liza had no time to observe the minor manifestations of her friend’s uneasiness; she had taken hold of the “plunger,” and was squaring herself to her work.
“Say!” she cried; “why the old carlin will say aught in the world but her prayers — she says that you’re settin’ your cap at one of these Rays boys; that’s about what she says the old witchwife, for she’s no better. But it’s as I said to ‘Becca Rudd, says I, ‘If it is true what traffic is it of anybody’s; but it isn’t true,’ I says, ‘and if it is, where’s the girl that has more right? It can’t be Ralph that she’s settin’ her cap at, ‘Becca,’ I says, ‘for Ralph’s gone, and mayhap never to come to these parts again the longest day he lives.’”
“Don’t say that, Liza,” interrupted Rotha in a hoarse voice.
“Why not? Those redcoats are after him from Carlisle, arn’t they?”
“Don’t say he’ll not come back. We scarce know what may happen.”
“Well, that’s what father says, anyway. But, back or not back, it can’t be Ralph, I says to ‘Becca.”
“There’s not a girl worthy of him, Liza; not a girl on the country side. But we’ll not repeat their old wife’s gossip, eh, lass?”
“Not if you’re minded not to, Rotha. But as to there being no girl worthy of Ralph,” said Liza, pausing in her work and lifting herself into an erect position with an air of as much dignity as a lady of her stature could assume, “I’m none so sure of that, you know. He has a fine genty air, I will say; and someways you don’t feel the same to him when he comes by you as you do to other men, and he certainly is a great traveller; but to say that there isn’t a girl worthy of him, that’s like Nabob Johnny tellin’ Tibby Fowler that he never met the girl that wasn’t partial to him.”
Rotha did not quite realize the parallel that had commended itself to Liza’s quick perception, but she raised no objection to the sentiment, and would have shifted the subject.
“What about Robbie, my lass?” she said.
“‘And as to Willy Ray,’ says I to ‘Becca,” continued the loquacious churner, without noticing the question, “‘ it isn’t true as Rotha would put herself in his way; but she’s full his match, and you can’t show me one that is nigher his equal.’”
Rotha’s confusion was increasing every minute.
“‘What if her father can’t leave her much gear, she has a head that’s worth all the gold in Willy’s pocket, and more.’ Then says ‘Becca, ‘What about Kitty Jackson?’ ‘Shaf,’ says I, ‘she’s always curlin’ her hair before her bit of a looking-glass.’ ‘And what about Maggie of Armboth?’ says ‘Becca. ‘She hasn’t got such a head as Rotha,’ says I, ‘forby that she’s spending a fortune on starch, what with her caps, and her capes, and her frills, and what not.’”
