Into the Highways and Hedges Part 32

"Well, I daresay it won't hurt me. We'll go, if you want it so much, sis," he replied gently. "That is the least I can do for you, after all you've done for me."

And go they did, in spite of the parson's protestations, and in spite of a soft rain that fell continuously as if to damp Mrs. Russelthorpe's ardour, by literally pouring cold water on it.

Mr. Sauls, when he looked in to inquire after Mr. Deane on the following morning, was amused at the sudden exodus.

"Odd that such a hard woman should be such a coward about illness!" he remarked. "She is horribly afraid of infection,--I've noticed that; and she is selfish to the core!"

"Mrs. Russelthorpe's decision is rather overpowering," said the parson drily. It was the nearest approach he allowed himself to an unfavourable comment on his late guest. "I am sorry Deane has gone. It is seldom I get any visitors here; though, by-the-bye, I had an odd one last night--or, rather, early this morning. Mr. Thorpe, the preacher's father, walked in about two o'clock and begged to see me. He came to inquire whether his daughter-in-law was here. The old man must have got some mad fancy in his head. I have heard he is queer at times. Well, I persuaded him that she had never been near us, and he drew himself up and said quite quietly: 'Oh, it's all right, sir; she's sleeping wi'

some friends at N----. She told us, that, maybe, she'd do that; quite right o' her. I'm glad of it!' And off he went, with an apology for having troubled me. A gentlemanly old fellow too!"

"Why!" cried George, with a flash of conviction; "are you certain that she has not been here? Don't you know that Barnabas Thorpe's wife is Mr.

Deane's daughter?"

The parson started. They were standing in the garden on the very spot where Meg had pleaded in vain.

"Yes, yes, I know; though it seems impossible!"

"It ought to have been. There I quite agree with you; but, to the elect, 'all things are possible,' you know," said George Sauls bitterly.

The parson was too intent on his own thoughts to notice the sneer. "No one was here yesterday; I should have heard of it if she had come. I was hardly out of the rectory grounds all day. Eh? What? What is it, Brown?"

The gardener had come up behind them and touched his hat, with the air of having something to say.

"I beg your pardon, sir; there was some one as come here yesterday, while you and the gentleman was in the church," he said. "I come back into the garden after fetching the key for you, and there was a young woman a-standing here, just where the gentleman is now. I noticed her particular, for she wasn't one from the village; and she seemed in great trouble, and she sort of stretched out her hands, broken-hearted like; and Mrs. Russelthorpe was sending her away, which seemed queer, seeing it ain't her house, and----"

"That will do," said the parson. "Mrs. Russelthorpe's affairs are no concern of yours, Brown; or mine," he added to George, as soon as the man had retired somewhat crestfallen.

"Perhaps Mr. Deane did not wish to see his daughter. G.o.d bless me! To think of _his_ daughter! Deane doesn't look a hard man either. I wonder whether,--but it's not my business."

Mr. Sauls smiled, not very pleasantly. "You wonder whether Mr. Deane knew she had been sent away?" he said. "I don't wonder about it, sir; but I'll tell you one thing,--if he didn't, he _shall_ know!"

CHAPTER VIII.

I do not see them here; but after death G.o.d knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath, I am thyself, what hast thou done to me?

And I--and I--thyself (Lo! each one saith), And thou thyself to all eternity.

--_Rossetti._

As for Meg, she turned her face towards the farm again, and of that journey back she never liked to think so long as she lived.

There are griefs we outlive, whose dead faces we can bear to look on, recognising that they are dead; but there are some hours of pain we can never look at overmuch, even through the merciful veil of many years, as there are some joys which we know will be ours always, so long as we are ourselves, those sharpest pains and joys which touch the eternal in us, and make us realise what is meant by the "doing away of time".

That her father _would_ not see her, even if she entreated him, had been the one thing that had not seemed possible to the daughter who loved him.

During the long drive back to N----town, his message kept running in her head: "As we sow, so we must reap;--both she and I; both father and child".

It was burnt into her brain and into her heart. She saw it when she shut her eyes; she heard it when she stopped her ears.

"It is the hopeless law of all one's life," she thought. "And there is no going against it. Father does not even try to. He might have tried!

No, no; it was not his fault. He was right."

And as she had attempted a hundred times before in her girlhood to justify him to herself when he might have stood up for his daughter and did not, so her tired brain tried to justify him now.

She would rather believe that she was too bad for forgiveness, than that he had not depth of affection enough to be forgiving.

She was terribly anxious about him too. Mrs. Russelthorpe had said that he was better; but then she had also declared that it might be his "death warrant" if he were suddenly awaked. Surely _that_ did not sound as if he were out of danger. She went over the whole interview again, and had just got to the climax for the twentieth time, when the stopping of the carriage brought her with a jerk from the garden at Lupcombe to the busy street of N----town, and the entrance of the "Pig and Whistle".

"Have we arrived?" said Meg, getting out as if she were in a dream. "I thought we had just started!"

The landlord, who had bustled to the door at the sound of wheels, looked at her inquisitively. The preacher's wife, about whom there was a very romantic story, had always interested him. He had thought her a very gentle-mannered and sweet-voiced woman, and, for his part, rather admired her funny accent and "foreign" ways. He was full of wonder just now. It was only the gentry who ordered carriages in that way. The idea of Barnabas Thorpe's wife posting to Lupcombe! A fifteen-shilling drive!

But he had seen the gold in her purse; she had evidently enough money to pay.

How very sad she looked! The distressed expression in her eyes touched him. "Come in, ma'am, and have a sup o' some'ut," he said good-naturedly. "The 'eat's been too much for you! I wouldn't ask a lady into the bar; an' I know as Barnabas Thorpe's wife won't touch good liquor; but, if you'll honour me by coming into the parlour, I'll bring you a cup of tea in a trice. You look fit to drop; and, if I might make so bold, just one atom of brandy in it would be neither here nor there, and would do you no harm at all. Now I won't take 'No,' ma'am, though your husband do try to damage my trade. Just you come in and sit a bit, while the horse is changed."

"Thank you," said Meg. "The sun is too hot I suppose, and the bustle makes one feel giddy."

The clock in the market-place struck seven while she was speaking; the sun's rays were certainly not overpowering now, whatever they had been; and a great bank of thunder-clouds was steadily rising in the east.

The landlord glanced from her to the sky, and mopped his forehead with his handkerchief.

"You're like my wife, ma'am," he said. "She'd feel for you, only she's been in the cellar this last half-hour,--on account of the storm, I mean," he added hastily. "Thunder always upsets her. Come along this way, ma'am. You do look poorly!"

His visitor followed, still rather as if she were not quite certain where she was. Meg, indeed, never knew exactly how she got into that little back parlour; but the tea, which was guilty of more than a drop of brandy, revived her. Her father's message left off sounding in her ears, the garden at Lupcombe became less painfully distinct, and she suddenly remembered that she had fasted since she had started in the morning; and this, possibly, was why she felt faint.

Her host nodded approvingly when she ordered something to eat. Meg's head ached so that she could not calculate how much money she ought to have left; but she knew that there should be more than enough to pay for a meal.

She dived to the bottom of her pocket: her purse must be there; it had her husband's savings in it, as well as the price of her diamonds. She could not have done anything so dreadful as to lose his hard-won earnings! Besides, she had not paid her bill. She pulled out her handkerchief, and then the pocket itself, inside out. She was staring blankly at it when the landlord bustled back.

He guessed at once what had happened. The empty pocket suggested it. He was good-natured and consolatory, but overflowing with curiosity when he heard that she had had it last at the p.a.w.nbroker's.

Mrs. Thorpe at the Jew's over the way! What would the Thorpes have said, had they known? He wondered whether the poor young thing had got herself into some sc.r.a.pe, and heartily pitied her, if she had; but _his_ money was safe anyhow; he knew the family well enough to be very sure of that.

He could afford to take it easily.

"Come, come," he said, on her refusing to eat because she "hadn't a penny left to pay with," "I'm not so poor, thank goodness, that I can't afford to wait till next time Tom Thorpe drives his foals to market; and, if they'd wish you to starve, it's a crying shame, ma'am, and I'd not have thought it of them. I've never heard that the Thorpes weren't open-handed."

"They are all most generous," said Meg quickly, and she ate the slice of beef. Certainly, whatever her fears were, she did not imagine that any of her relatives-in-law would have grudged it to her. She could not let that imputation rest on them.

The food brought a tinge of colour to her face, and she regained her usual gentle dignity of manner. She would not allow this good gossip, who asked a great many questions, to fancy that she was terrified at going back. It would not be fair to Barnabas!

How miserable she really was it would be hard to say. The more she thought of it, the more her shrinking from what was before her grew.

She pictured Tom's repressed contempt, and Barnabas pa.s.sionately angry, as when he had thrashed Timothy. She dreaded the way they would all ask about her father--whether she had found him, and why not; and then, with a horror of loneliness, she remembered that she could never even try to see him again now. "As she had sowed, so she must reap!" Ah, it was beginning again! Meg rose hastily.

"I promised that I would go back to-night," she said, "and I must go. I meant to drive; I had enough money of my own to pay for that--but I have lost it, and my husband's too, which is worse. He will have to pay a very long bill for me as it is." And Meg blushed painfully. "I don't want to run up any more debts. What would be the cheapest possible way of getting home--if I don't walk?"