Perlycross: A Tale of the Western Hills

But Fox was not a watchful man at all of any of the charming feats of vegetation now. Flowers were all very well in their way; but they were not in his way just at present, or – worse again – some of them were, and stopped him from clear view of something worth all the flowers, all the fruit, and all the fortunes of the wide wide world.

For lo, not far away, betwixt a pink tree and a white one, sat Miss Inez Waldron, in a square-backed garden chair. At her feet was a cushioned basket, with an invalid dog asleep in it; while a sound dog, of pug race, was nudging in between, fain to push it out of sight, if his body had been big enough. Jealousy lurked in every wrinkle of his face, and governed every quiver of his half-cocked tail.

The girl looked very pale and sad, and could not even raise a smile, at all the sharp manœuvres and small-minded whines of Pixie. Heartily as she loved the dogs, their sorrows, views, and interests now were not the first she had to dwell on. With the colour gone from her cheeks, and her large deep-gray eyes dulled with weeping, her face was not so lovely as in gayer times, but even yet more lovable and tender.

Following Pixie's rush, without much expectation in her gaze – for she thought it was her mother coming – her eyes met those of the young man, parted by such a dark cloud from her. For an instant her pale cheeks flushed, and then the colour vanished from them, and she trembled so that she could not rise. Her head fell back on the rail of the chair; while trees, and flowers, and lines of glass began to quiver, and lose their shape, and fade away from her languid eyes.

"You are faint – she has fainted!" cried Fox in dismay, as he caught up the handkerchief she had dropped, and plunged it into a watering pot, then wrung and laid it gently on her smooth white forehead. Then he took both her hands in his, and chafed them, kneeling at her side in a state of agitation, unlikely to add to his medical repute. And from time to time, he whispered words, of more than sympathy or comfort, words that had never passed between them yet.

For a while she knew not what he said, until as she slowly revived, one word attracted her vague attention.

"Happy!" she said, only conscious yet of speaking to some kind person; "no, I must never think of such a thing again." The sadness of her own voice told upon her, reacting on the sad heart from which it came. She looked, as if for somebody to comfort her; perhaps the dear father who had always loved to do it. He was not to be found – oh, piteous grief! If he could come, would he ever leave her thus?

Then the whole of her misery broke upon her. She knew too well where she was, and what. Turn away the face there is none to kiss, and toss back the curls there is nobody to stroke. From a woman, she fell back into a petted child, spoiled by sweet love, and now despoiled by bitter fate. She could look at nothing more. Why did consciousness come back? The only thing for her was to sob, and weep – tears that rolled more big and heavy, because they must ever roll in vain.

Fox had never been in such a state of mind before. Hundreds of times he had been driven to the end of his wits, and the bottom of his heart, to know what to do with wailing women, stricken down at last by inexorable death, from the hope that laughs at doctors. But the difference was this – he was the doctor then; and now he was the lover. The lover, without acknowledged right to love; but the shadow of death, and worse than that, betwixt him and the right to love.

While he was feebly holding on, knowing that he could not leave her thus – for there was a large tank near her – yet feeling that no man – save husband, or father – should be admitted to this deep distress, he heard the light steps of a woman in the corridor, and he muttered – "Thank God! There is some kind person coming."

But his joy was premature. The branches of a fine Camelia-tree were swept aside like cobwebs, and there stood Lady Waldron, drawing the heavy black folds around her, and bearing him down with her cold dark eyes. Her gaze of contemptuous loathing passed from him – as if he were not worth it – to the helpless embodiment of anguish in the chair; and even then there was no pity.

Inez turned and faced her, and the meeting of their eyes was not of the gentle sweetness due betwixt a mother and her daughter. Without another glance at Fox, Lady Waldron swept by, as if he were not present; and standing before her daughter, spoke a few Spanish words very slowly, pronouncing every syllable. Then with a smile far worse to see than any frown, she turned away, and her stately figure disappeared in the shadows of the corridor.

The maiden watched her without a word, and the sense of wrong renewed her strength. Her eyes met the light, as if they had never known a tear, and she threw up her head, and swept her long hair back. For her proud spirit rose through the storm of her trouble, as a young palm stands forth from the cloud it has defied. She cast a glance at Fox, and to her great relief saw nothing in his face but anxiety about herself. But she must have his ignorance confirmed.

"What trouble I have given you!" she said, with her usual clear soft tones, and gentle look. "I am quite ashamed of myself, for having so very little strength of mind. I cannot thank you as I ought to do. My mother would have done it, I – I suppose at least, if she had been at all like herself. But she has not been well, not at all as she used to be, ever since – I need not tell you what. We are doing our best to bear things; but we find it very, very hard. As the Spanish proverb is – but I beg your pardon, you don't know Spanish?"

"I am nothing of a linguist. I am no exception to the general rule of Englishmen, that their own tongue is enough for them."

"Please to tell me plainly. My memory seems confused. But I think you have shown some knowledge of it. And I think, I have heard my father say that you could read Don Quixote very fairly from his copy."

"No; but just a little, very badly, and with the help of a dictionary, and my own recollection of Latin."

"Then you know what my mother said just now? I hope not. Oh I should grieve so!"

"Well, Miss Waldron, if you insist upon the truth, I cannot deny that I understood her."

Nicie's eyes flashed as he spoke: then she rose, and went to him hastily; for he was going, and had taken up his hat to leave her, inasmuch as she now could take care of herself.

"Put down your hat," she said in her own pretty style of issuing orders, in the days of yore; "now give me both your hands, as you held mine just now, and look at me honestly, and without reserve."

"All that I am doing," answered Jemmy Fox, happy to have her so, and throwing the dawn of a smile into the depth of her dear eyes. "Miss Waldron, I am doing it."

"Then go on like this – 'Miss Waldron,' or you may even for once say, 'Nicie – I have never been base enough, for a moment, to imagine that you had any doubt of me.' Say all that from the bottom of your heart."

"Nicie, I say from the bottom of my heart, that I knew you were too noble to have any doubt of me, in that way."

"I should hope so;" she said, as she dropped her eyes, for fear of showing all that was in them. "You have done me justice, and it will be done to you. I was only afraid, though I knew better, that you might – for men are not like us – "

"No, they are not. And more shame for them. Oh Nicie, what do I care now, if the whole world goes against me?"

She gave him one steadfast look, as if that recklessness had no shock for her, and in fact had been duly expected. Then knowing by the eyes what had been nursing in her heart for months, she smiled the smile that is deeper almost in the human kind than tears, and happily more lasting. The young man proved himself worthy of her, by cherishing it, without a word.

"I may never see you again," said Nicie, coming back to proper form, though they both knew that was humbug; "never again, or not for years. It will be impossible for you now to come – to come, as you used to do. But remember, if it is any comfort to you, and I think it will be a little, that no one is more miserable about this wicked, wicked charge, than the one who has more right than any – yes much more than she has" – and she waved her hand after her mother's steps.

"Yes. Or at any rate quite as much. Darling, darling Nicie dear. Don't get excited again, for my sake."

"I am not excited. And I don't mean to be. But you are welcome to tell everybody, everybody, Jemmy, exactly what I think of you. And my dear father thought the same."

"You are an angel, and nothing less. Something considerably more, I think," said Jemmy, confining himself to moderation.

"Hush!" she replied, though not in anger; for ladies like that comparison. And then, as he could not better it, he whispered, "God bless you, dear, as you have blessed me!" Before she could answer, he was gone.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CONCUSSION

All the time these things were going on, the patient Christie had been waiting, or rather driving to and fro, on the outskirts of the private grounds. These were large, and well adorned with trees of ancient growth, and clumps of shrubs, and ferny dingles. Southward stretched the rich Perle valley, green with meadows beloved by cows, who expressed their fine emotions in the noblest cream; on the north-east side was the Beacon Hill, sheltering from the bitter winds, and forming a goodly landmark; while to the north and west extended heathery downs with sweet short grass, knolls of Scotch fir here and there, and gorse for ever blooming. Across these downs, and well above the valley-margin ran one of the two great western roads, broad and smooth as a ball-room floor, and ringing some forty times a day, with the neigh, and the tramp, and the harness-rattle of four steeds tossing their heads up, and the musical blast of long brass horn, or merry notes of key-bugle.

Christie Fox in her own opinion was an exceedingly fine whip. Tandem-driving was then much in vogue; and truly to be a good tandem-whip was one of the loftiest aspirations of the rational being who could afford it. Christie was scarcely up to that mark yet, although she had been known to "tool a team," when her father had the gout, and there was some one at her side. So it may be supposed, with what sweet contempt her sparkling eyes regarded Churchwarden Tarrant's rattle-trap, and his old cob Punch anteceding it.

"Now don't you go capering about, Miss Chris;" her brother had said when he left her. "I should have brought George, or at any rate the boy. These lanes are so narrow, and the ditches such a depth."

"Well, Jemmy, it shows how little you have been at home! Why I can drive Sparkler, and Wild-oats, and Hurricane. To think of my coming to grief with this old screw!"

"You are a wonder, no doubt. But at any rate, be careful. He is a quiet old buffer, but he has got a temper of his own. Why he upset the Reverend, last summer."

"He won't spill me, I can tell him that. The Reverend is a muff – he should have let him say his prayers."

For a long time the young lady proved that she was right. Punch went up and down, and even on the common, as grave as a Judge, and as steady as a Church. "Poor old chap!" said Christie to him; "Why you haven't got the pluck to call your soul your own." Punch only replied with a whisk of his tail, as if to say – "well, I can call this my own," and pursued his reflections, with a pensive head.

But suddenly the scene changed. A five-barred gate was flung mightily open, half across the lane, with a fierce creak of iron, and a shivering of wood; and out poured a motley crowd of all sorts and sizes, rattling tea-kettles, and beating frying-pans, blowing old cow's horns, and flourishing a blown dozen of Bob Jake's bladders, with nuts inside them. Punch was coming past, in a moody state of mind, down upon his luck in some degree, and wondering what the world was made for, if a piece of iron in a horse's mouth was allowed to deny him the Almighty's gift of grass. However he resigned himself about all that.

But when this tremendous uproar broke upon him – for it happened to be the Northern party of the parish, beating bounds towards the back of Beacon Hill, and eager to win a bet about where they met the other lot – and when a gate was flung almost into his shaky knees, which had begun for some time to "come over," up rose the spirit of his hunting days, for he had loved the hounds, when he was young. There was no room to rise the gate; or perhaps he would have tried it, for the mettle of springier times sprang up, and he had never heard a louder noise, in the most exciting burst. Surely his duty was at least to jump a hedge.

He forgot altogether that he stood between two shafts, and that a young lady was entrusted to his care. Swerving to the off-side, he saw a comely gap, prepared no doubt by Providence, for the benefit of a horse not quite so young as he used to be. And without hesitation he went at it, meaning no harm, and taking even less heed of the big ditch on this side of it. Both shafts snapped, though of fine lance-wood, the four-wheeler became two vehicles, each with a pair of wheels to it, and over the back flew Christie, like a sail blown out of the bolt-ropes.

Luckily she wore large bell-sleeves, as every girl with self-respect was then compelled to do; and these, like parachutes expanding, broke the full speed of her headlong flight. Even so it must have fared very badly with her – for her hat being stringless had flown far away – had she been allowed to strike the earth; but quicker than thought a very active figure sprang round the head of the gate, and received the impact of her head upon a broad staunch breast. The blow was severe, and would have knocked the owner down, had he not been an English yeoman.

Upon a double-breasted waistcoat, made of otter skin, soft and elastic, he received the full brunt of the young lady's head, as the goal-keeper stops a football. Throwing forward his arms, he was just in time to catch more of her, as it descended; and thus was this lovely maiden saved from permanent disfigurement, if not from death. But for the time, she knew nothing of this.

Frank Gilham held her very firmly in his arms, and wondered, as well he might do, at her good fortune and his own. Others came crowding round the gate, but none had the least idea who she was, and Gilham would not permit one of them to touch her, though many would gladly have shared his load. Throughout all history, it has been the nature of the British yeoman to bear his own burden, be it good or be it evil.

"Her be crule doiled," "A' vear her neck be bracken," "Look e' zee what purty hair her hath!" "Vetch a drap watter," "Carr' un up to big 'ouze," "Her be scrunched like a trummot" – in this way they went on, all gaping and staring, eager to help, but not sure of the way.

"Lift the gate from its hinges, and lay it down here;" said Gilham, for she still remained senseless; "run to yon rick – they've been hay-binding there; bring a couple of trusses, and spread them on the gate."

In two minutes Christie was lying on the gate – for Devonshire men can be quick when they like – bedded and pillowed among sweet hay, with Frank Gilham's coat spread across her pretty dress, and his hand supporting her fair head, and easing the jerks as they bore her up the road. But before they had gone more than ten or twenty yards towards Walderscourt, whom should they come upon but Dr. Jemmy Fox, looking very joyful, until he met them?