Red Pottage Part 28

She had labored with dumb unreasoning pa.s.sion to forget, as a man works his hand to the bone night after night, week after week, month after month, to file through the bars of his prison. She found at last that forgetfulness came not of prayer and fasting; that it was not in her to forget. The past had seemed to stretch its cruel, desecrating hand over all the future, cutting her off from the possibility of love and marriage, and from the children whom in dreams she held in her arms. As she had said to Hester, she thought she "had nothing left to give."

But now the dead past had risen from its grave in her meeting with her former lover, and in a moment, in two short days and wakeful nights, the past relinquished its false claim upon her life. She saw that it was false, that she had been frightened where no fear was, that her deliverance lay in remembrance itself, not in the handcuffs with which until now she had bound her deliverer.

Mr. Tristram had come back into her life, and with his own hands had destroyed the overthrown image of himself, which lay like a barrier across her heart. He had replaced it by an accurate presentment of himself as he really was.

"Only that which is replaced is destroyed," and it is often our real self in its native rags, and not, as we jealously imagine, another king in richer purple who has replaced us in the throne-room of the heart that loved us. To the end of life Rachel never forgot Mr. Tristram, any more than the amber forgets its fly. But she was vaguely conscious as he left her that he had set her free. She listened to his retreating step hardly daring to breathe. It was too good to be true. At last there was dead silence. No echo of a footfall. Quite gone. He had departed not only out of her presence, but out of her life.

She breathed again. A tremor, like that which shakes the first green leaf against the March sky, stole across her crushed heart, empty at last, empty at last. She raised her hand timidly in the sunshine. She was free. She looked round dazzled, bewildered. The little world of sunshine and the turquoises of sky strewn among the golden net-work of the trees smiled at her, as one who brings good tidings.

A certain familiar hold on life and nature, so old that it was almost new, which she had forgotten, but which her former self used to feel, came back suddenly upon her, like a lost friend from over-seas. Scales seemed to fall from her eyes. The light was too much for her. She had forgotten how beautiful the world was. Everything was possible.

Some, in the night of their desolation, can take comfort when they see the morning-star shuddering white in the east, and can say, "Courage, the day is at hand."

But others never realize that their night is over till the sun is up.

Rachel had sat in a long stupor. The message writ large for her comfort in the stars that the night was surely waning had not reached her, bowed, as she thought, beneath G.o.d's hand. And the sure return of the sun at last came upon her like a miracle.

CHAPTER XXVI

"'Tis not for every one to catch a salmon."

Every one who knows Middleshire knows that the little lake of Beaumere is bounded on the one side by the Westhope and on the other by the Wilderleigh property, the boundary being the ubiquitous Drone, which traverses the mere in a desultory fashion, and with the a.s.sistance of several springs makes Beaumere what it is, namely (to quote from the local guide-book), "the n.o.blest expanse of water surrounded by some of the most picturesque scenery in Middleshire."

Thither Doll and Hugh took their way in the leisurely manner of men whose orthodoxy obliges them to regard Sunday as a day of rest.

Doll pointed out to Hugh the coppice which his predecessor, Mr. George Loftus, had planted. Hugh regarded it without excitement. Both agreed that it was coming on nicely. Hugh thought that he ought to do a little planting at his own place. Doll said, "You can't do everything at once."

A large new farm was the next object of interest. "Uncle George rebuilt Greenfields from the ground," remarked Doll, as they crossed the high road and took to the harvesting fields, where "the ricks stood gray to the sun."

Hugh nodded. Doll thought he was a very decent chap, though rather low-spirited. Hugh thought that if Mr. George Loftus had been alive he might have consulted him. In an amicable silence, broken occasionally by whistling for Crack, who hurried blear-eyed and asthmatic out of rabbit-holes, the pair reached Beaumere; and, after following the path through the wood, came suddenly upon the little lake locked in the heart of the steeply climbing forest.

Doll stood still and pointed with his stick for fear Hugh might overlook it. "I come here every Sunday," he remarked.

A sense of unreality and foreboding seized on Hugh, as the still face of the water looked up at him. Where had he seen it before, this sea of gla.s.s reflecting the yellow woods that stooped to its very edge? What had it to do with him?

"I've been here before," he said, involuntarily.

"I dare say," said Doll. "Newhaven marches with me here. The boundary is by that clump of silver birch. The Drone comes in there, but you can't see it. The Newhavens are friends of yours, aren't they?"

"Acquaintances," said Hugh, absently, looking hard at the water. He had never been here before. Memory groped blindly for a lost link, as one who momentarily recognizes a face in a crowd, and tries to put a name to it and fails. As the face disappears, so the sudden impression pa.s.sed from Hugh's mind.

"I expect you have been here with them," said Doll. "Good man, Newhaven."

"I used to see a good deal of them at one time," said Hugh; "but they seem to have forgotten me of late."

"Oh, that's her!" said Doll. "She is always off and on with people.

Takes a fancy one day and a dislike the next. But he's not like that.

You always know where to find him. Solid man, Newhaven. He doesn't say much, but what he says he sticks to."

"He gives one that impression," said Hugh.

"I rather think he is there now," said Doll, pointing to the farther sh.o.r.e. "I see a figure moving, and two little specks. I should not wonder if it were him and the boys. They often come here on Sunday afternoons."

"You have long sight," said Hugh. He had met Lord Newhaven several times since the drawing of lots, and they had always greeted each other with cold civility. But Hugh avoided him when he could without drawing attention to the fact that he did so.

"Are you going over to his side?" he asked.

"Rather not," said Doll. "I have never set a single trimmer or fired a shot beyond that clump of birch, or Uncle George before me."

The two men picked their way down the hill-side among the tall, thin tree-trunks. There was no one except the dogs at the keeper's cottage, in a clearing half-way down. Doll took the key of the boat-house from a little hole under the eaves.

"I think Withers must be out," he remarked at last, after knocking and calling at the locked door and peering through the closed window. Hugh had been of that opinion for some time. "Gone out with his wife, I expect. Never mind, we can do without him."

They went slipping over the dry beech-mast to the boat-house. Doll unlocked the door and climbed into one of the boats; Hugh and Crack followed. They got a perch-rod off a long shelf, and half a dozen trimmers. Then they pulled out a little way and stopped near an archipelago of water-lily leaves.

Doll got out the perch-rod and float and made a cast.

"It's not fishing," he said, apologetically, half to his guest and half to his Maker. "But we are bound to get some baits."

Hugh nodded, and gazed down at the thin forest below. He could see the perch moving in little companies in the still water beyond the water-trees. Presently a perch, a very small one, out alone for the first time, came up, all stiff head and shoulders and wagging tail, to the carelessly covered hook.

"Don't, don't, you young idiot!" said Hugh, below his breath. But the perch knew that the time had come when a perch must judge for himself.

The float curtesied and went under, and in another second the little independent was in the boat.

"There are other fools in the world besides me, it seems," said Hugh to himself.

"He'll do; but I wish he was a dace," said Doll, slipping the victim into a tin with holes in the top. "Half a dozen will be enough."

They got half a dozen, baited and set the trimmers white side up, and were turning to row back, when Doll's eyes became suddenly fixed.

"By Jove! there's something at it," he said, pointing to a trimmer at some distance.

Both men looked intently at it. Crack felt that something was happening, and left off smelling the empty fish-can.

The trimmer began to nod, to tilt, and then turned suddenly upsidedown, and remained motionless.

"He's running the line off it," said Doll.

As he spoke the trimmer gave one jerk and went under. Then it reappeared, awkwardly bustling out into the open.

"Oh, hang it all! it's Sunday," said Doll, with a groan. "We can't be catching pike on a Sunday." And he caught up the oars and rowed swiftly towards the trimmer.

As soon as they were within a boat's length it disappeared again, came up again, and went pecking along the top of the water. Doll pursued warily, and got hold of it.

"Gently, now," he said, as he shipped the oars. "He'll go under the boat and break us if we don't look out. I'll play him, and you shove the net under him. d.a.m.n!--G.o.d forgive me!--we've come out without a landing-net.

Good Lord, Scarlett, you can't gaff him with a champagne-opener. There, you pull him in, and I'll grab him somehow. I've done it before. Crack, lie down, you infernal fool! Scarlett, if you pull him like that you'll lose him to a certainty. By George, he's a big one!" Doll tore off his coat and turned up his shirt-sleeves. "He's going under the boat. If you let him go under the boat, I tell you, he'll break us. I'm quite ready."