Say and Seal Volume I Part 99

"I must have you in sight--and I will not have you near me." And letting go his hold he said, almost imperatively,

"I will trust you. Walk on before me!--Miss Faith, you must not delay a moment."

"I will go with you," she said low, and clinging to his arm.--"Your safety is in being near me. I will not delay. Come!"--

But the hand was taken off again, and held in both his while he spoke.

"I will not have you anywhere near me! If you do not walk on far in front, I shall,--and keep watch of you as best I can." And he let go her hand, and stepped back with a quick pace that soon put some distance between them. She stood still a moment, looking, and then sprang back till she reached him; speaking with a low vehemence that did not seem like Faith.

"I will not do it, Mr. Linden--I will not! I will not!--Come, come!

don't stay here!"--

Whatever Mr. Linden felt at that appeal--and he was not a man to feel it lightly--his words lost none of their firmness.

"I shall not stir until you are ten yards in front of me!--unless I leave you as far behind."

She planted herself for an instant before him and looked in his face, with eyes of quiet but most eloquent beseeching.

"No"--he repeated,--"you must go on and fear nothing. Child--'there is no restraint to the Lord, to save by many or by few.'"

She did not answer, even by the little shake of the head which sometimes with her stood in place of words. She turned, went swiftly forward, with a straight, even, unslackening pace, which did not falter nor stop for a long, long piece of the way; _how_ long it was by the mind's measurement it would be hard to tell. It was one breathless sense of pain and fear; of which moonlight and shadows and the points of the way all made part and were woven in together. Her ears were tingling for that sound; her eyes only measured unconsciously the distances and told off the waymarks. Down the little pitch of the road where that to Barley point forked off; then by a s.p.a.ce of clear fences where hedgerows were not, and a barn or two rose up in the moonlight; through gates where the post shadows were black and deep, by the skirting bushes that now and then gathered about the rails. She walked as fast as she could and keep her strength. That was unconsciously measured too. It had seemed to her, in her agony of pleading before the commencing of this strange walk, that it was _impossible_ she should do it. She was doing it now, under a force of will that she had not been able to withstand; and her mind was subdued and strained beyond the power of thinking. Her very walking seemed to her mechanical; intensely alive as her senses were all the time. There was a transient relief at coming into the neighbourhood of a house, and a drear feeling of desolation and increased danger as she left it behind her; but her pace neither faltered nor flagged. She looked round sometimes, but never paused for that. Before the more thickly settled part of the village was reached her step grew a little slower, probably from the sheer necessity of failing strength; but steady it was, at whatever rate of travel. When at last they turned the sandy corner into the broad street or main way of the village, where houses and gardens often broke the range of hedgeway or fence, and lights spoke to lights in the neighbouring windows, Faith stopped and stood leaning against the fence. In another moment she was drawn away from that to a better support.

"Are you faint?" Mr. Linden said.

Her "no" was faint, but the answer was true for all the rest of her.

He drew her hand within his arm, and went on silently; but how glad he was to see her home, Faith might guess from the way she was half carried up the steps and into the hall, and the door shut and locked behind her. After the same fashion she was taken into the sitting-room and placed in the easy chair, and her wrappers unfastened and taken off with very gentle and quick hands. She offered almost as little help as hindrance, and her head sank immediately.

He stood by her, and repeated his question about faintness.

"O no, sir--I'm not faint. It's nothing," Faith said, but as if her very voice was exhausted. And crossing her arms upon the table, close to which the easy chair stood, she laid her head down upon them. Her mother might well say she had a baby face. It looked so them.

Mr. Linden's next move was to get a gla.s.s of wine, and with gentle force and persuasion to make her swallow it; that done, he stood leaning upon the back of her chair, silently, but with a very, very grave face.

She kept her position, scarcely stirring, for some length of time, except that after a while she hid her face in her hands. And sitting so, at last she spoke, in a troubled tone.

"What can be done, Mr. Linden?--to put a stop to this."

"I will try what can be done," he answered, though not as if that point were uppermost in his mind. "I think I can find a way. I wish nothing gave me more uneasiness than that!"

"Do you think there is any way that you can do it, thoroughly?"

"Yes, I think so," he repeated. "There are ways of doing most things. I shall try. Do not you think about it, Miss Faith,--I have something now to make me glad you are going to Pequot. Before, I could only remember how much I should miss my scholar."

"Why are you glad now, Mr. Linden?" Faith's voice was in as subdued a state of mind as her face.

"Change of air will be good for you--till this air is in a better state."

She made no answer. In a few minutes she rose up, gathered her wrappers into one hand, and turning to Mr. Linden held out the other to him; with a very child's look, which however was rather doubtful about meeting his. His look had lost none of its grave concern.

"Are you better?" he said. "Will you promise to go right to sleep, and leave all troublesome matters where alone they can be taken care of?"

The faintest kind of a smile flitted across her face. "I don't know"--she said doubtfully,--"I don't know what I can do, Mr. Linden."

"I have told you."

"I'll try--the last part," she said with a somewhat more defined smile as she glanced up at him. It was as grave and gentle a smile as is often known.

"You must try it all," he said, giving her hand the same touch it had had once before. "Miss Faith, I may use your words--I think you will never give me harder work to do than I have had to-night!"

She could not bear that. She stood with eyes cast down, and a fluttering quiver upon her lip; still, because the effort to control herself was at the moment as much as she could do. It was successful, though barely; and then, without venturing another look, she said her low "Good night, sir"; and moved away. She was accompanied as far as the door, but then Mr. Linden paused, with his hand on the latch.

"Shall you take any work--I mean _book_ work--with you to Pequot?--or will your hands find too much else to do?"

"I meant to take some I meant to do a good deal--I hope so."

"Then can you come back to the great chair for ten minutes, and let me give you a word or two of direction?"

She came immediately and sat down. And Mr. Linden went back to where they had been interrupted early in the evening, and told her what and where and how to go on in the various books, till she should see him again; putting marks here and there to save her trouble, or pencilling some explanation which might be needed. It took but a few minutes to do this; and then Mr. Linden laid the books together, and drawing the old Bible towards him once more, he turned to the ninety-first Psalm and read it aloud. Read it with full heart-felt effect; which made the words fall like the dew they are, upon the weary little flower Faith was. Then he bade her once more goodnight.

She went refreshed; yet to become a prey to struggling thoughts which for a while prevented refreshment from having its lawful action. How much of the night and of the early morning Faith spent in these thoughts, and in the fruit of them, is uncertain; for the evening's work would sufficiently have accounted for her worn look the next day.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

"Must I go to Pequot?" was the first thought that entered Faith's mind the next morning. And the advancing daylight, with its clear steadfast way of looking at things, said, "Yes, you must." "Is there anything _I_--who know most about this business--can do to put an end to it?"

That was a second thrilling question. The same daylight gave its frank answer,--"No, you cannot--you cannot." Faith took both answers, and then sought, in the very spirit of a child, to "leave all troublesome things where alone they could be taken care of."

"There is a faculty in this," saith Leighton, "that all persons have not." But the spirit of a child can do it; and the spirit of a Christian, so far as it is right, is none other. Faith went down stairs, in spite of inward sorrow and trembling, with a quiet brow. It was very much the face of last night, for its subdued look, and in spite of the night's rest, in its paleness too; though the colour played there somewhat fitfully. Sorrowful note of that Mr. Linden took, or the pained look of last night had not pa.s.sed off from his face,--or both might be true. So far as the most gentle, quick-sighted, and careful attention could be of avail, the breakfast was pleasant;--otherwise it was but a grave affair. Even Mrs. Derrick looked from one to the other, with thoughtfulness that was not merely of Faith's going away.

There was little time however for observations. Directly after breakfast the wagon was got ready; and when they were bestowed in it and Mr. Linden's farewell had bade Faith remember all his injunctions the night before, he turned and walked on to his own place of work and the mother and daughter set forth on their journey.

In a small insignificant house, in a by street of Pequot, was the little, very odd household of the two, Miss and Madame Danforth. They kept no servant; they lived quite to themselves; the various work of the household they shared between them and made it as good as play; and no worse than play seemed all the rest of their quiet lives. But Miss Dilly was ill now and unable to do her part; and what was worse, and more, she had lost her wonted cheerful and gay way of looking at things. That the little Frenchwoman never lost; but it takes two to keep up a shuttlec.o.c.k, and Faith was welcome in that house.

What work she did there for the next two or three weeks was best known--not to herself--but to the two old ladies whose hearts she cheered. And they knew not all; they did not know the leap of Faith's heart at the thought of home, whenever, morning or noon or night, it came into her head. She kept it out of her head as much as she could.

And she went about from the top to the bottom of the house, even after the first day she came, the same sort of sunbeam she was at home. She took in hand Miss Danforth's broom and duster, and did Cindy's part of setting cups and saucers; but that was a small matter. The helpful hand which made itself so busy and the voice which ran music all up and down the house, were never forgotten, even by the Frenchwoman. To Miss Danforth, feeble and ailing, Faith ministered differently, and did truly the work of an angel. More than once before the second day was done, Miss Dilly repeated, "Faith, child, how glad I am I sent for you!"--And Madame Danforth took to her mightily; opened heart and arms without reservation; and delighting to have her company, carried her down into the kitchen and initiated Faith into deep mysteries of the science and art the head quarters of which are there. Now did Faith learn new secrets about coffee, about eggs, about salads and about vegetables, that she never knew before; and for some unknown reason she was keen to learn, and liked the half hours over the kitchen fire with Madame Danforth so well, that the little Frenchwoman grew proud of her pupil.

It was the third day of Faith's being at Pequot. Faith was engaged in some gentle offices about the room, folding up clothes and putting drawers in order. Miss Danforth's eye watched her, following every movement, till Madame Danforth left the room to go out on business.

Faith was summoned then to her aunt's side. It was the darkening part of the afternoon. Faith sat down at the foot of Miss Danforth's great easy chair, looked into the fire, and wondered what they were doing at Pattaqua.s.set.

"And so, Faith, child, you're taken to new ways, I hear."

To Faith's quick ear, Miss Danforth's voice shewed a purpose. It was less brisk than its old wont. Her answer was as simple as possible.

"Yes, aunt Dilly. It's true."