The Late Miss Hollingford Part 4

"I was thinkin' ye'd be a bit staggered by the news, miss," he said, "an' I put the mare to this ould shandheradan. It's not very fit for a lady, bad manners to it! but it'll be betther nor the slippery roads undher yer feet."

I do not know how the drive pa.s.sed. I remember saying once to Pat,

"Are they quite, quite sure that Mr. Hollingford was--was--"

"No indeed, miss," was the answer, "sorra sure at all. They do say he was in the coach, but no wan seen him dead, as far as I can hear tell."

I made the man set me down at the farm gate, and walked up the avenue just as the early moonlight was beginning to light up the frosty world.

As I came near the door, I fancied I heard crying and wailing; but it was only Mopsie singing in the hall. Behind the parlour window I saw Jane stepping about briskly in the firelight, arranging the table for tea. All was quiet and peaceful as when I had left the place two hours before.

CHAPTER V.

The children followed me to my room, wondering where I could have been so late. I said I was tired, and begged them to leave me alone. Then I locked my door, and a solitary hour of anguish pa.s.sed. The fever of uncertainty would not let me weep; I suffered without much sign, but in such a degree as I had never dreamed of before.

There was something horrible that I had to realise and could not. John hurt and dying away from his home, without one by to comfort him, without his mother's blessing, without a whisper to tell him that I had loved him and would mourn for him all my life! John vanished from the earth--lost to us for ever! The sickly moonlight fell about me with a ghastly peace, and the horror of death froze my heart.

Tea-hour arrived, and the girls knocked at the door. Mrs. Hollingford came to me, questioning me anxiously, and pressing my burning temples between her cool palms; and there I lay under her hands, crushed with my cruel secret. I could not tell it. Not that night. When the worst must be known it would be my place to help them all in their agony; and was I fit for such a task now? Besides, there was still a hope, and I clung to it with wild energy.

They left me for the night, thinking I slept, but when the clock struck five I wrapped myself in a cloak, and went out and down the avenue. I was half afraid of the ghostly trees, so black against the snow, but I was more in terror of the melancholy corners of my own room, the solitary light, the dreary ashes in the grate. I walked as far as the gate, and even ventured out on the road, hoping to see some wayfarer coming past who might be able to tell me something of the accident. I tried to consider how far it might be to the nearest wayside cottage, where I might possibly learn some news that might break the awful suspense. But my head was confused, and I suppose I did not calculate the distance rightly, for after I had walked a mile I could see no dwelling. The morning was breaking now, and the world looked pallid and dreary. Suddenly my strength failed, I felt faint and dizzy, and sat down upon a heap of stones, drawing my cloak over my face. My thoughts became broken and confused, and my senses numb, I remained, lost in a sort of stupid dream of trouble, I do not know how long, when the touch of a hand on my shoulder made me start, and a voice said, "What is the matter with you, my poor woman?"

It was a man's voice--a familiar voice; my children, it was the voice of John Hollingford. With a cry I flung back the cloak from my face.

"John!--John!" I cried, and grasped him by both hands. There he stood unhurt. I burst into a fit of weeping, though not a tear had I shed all the while I had pictured him lying dead or dying. "I thought I never should have seen your face again except in the coffin!"

I sobbed in my joy, hardly knowing what I said.

"Margery!" he said. "Is this all for me?"

"I cannot help it," I said. "I ought, but I cannot. No one knows but me.

I heard it last night--"

"You are killing yourself sitting here in the cold," said John. "You are nearly frozen to death." He wrapped my cloak round me, and drew my arm through his.

"Who told you of the accident?" he said.

"Mrs. Beatty."

"She might have kept her own counsel till to-day. Several poor fellows have been killed, but many escaped, like myself, unhurt. And so you kept it from my mother, and you grieved for me. Margery, may I ask again that question I asked you the night before I went away? If it pains you, say nothing."

"You may ask it."

"And what will you answer?"

"Anything you like."

"And you do not want to go to London?"

"Not unless you turn me out of doors."

"My darling!" he said. And so we became engaged there upon the snow.

How wonderful the sun rose that morning. How I walked home through Paradise, forgetting that there was such a thing as suffering in the world. How the girls hugged me when they knew all. How Mrs. Hollingford smiled upon us. And how sweet the honey and rice-cakes tasted at breakfast. It was arranged that, all things considered, we had better not be married for a year.

I remember our gathering round the fire that evening, the curtains unclosed, the mild moonshine behind the window, the room half black shade and half red light, the dear faces beaming round. That evening I wrote my letter to Grace Tyrrell to say that I should not go to London.

That evening, also, there came a letter from Mr. Hill to John, saying that he hoped to arrive at the Hall on the morrow or next day. At tea we talked about Rachel Leonard. Thinking of her, the scene at the party came vividly back--the occasion on which I had defended Mr. Hollingford so hotly; and also my conversation with Grace Tyrrell on the subject in the carriage coming home. After musing a little while, I said:

"John, are you quite sure that you never met Miss Leonard when you were abroad?"

"Quite," said John, looking at me curiously. "Why do you ask me that question so often, Margery?"

"Have I asked it often?" I said, "I don't remember; but I fancied from her manner that she knew something about you."

"It is not likely," said John, "for I know nothing about her." And so this matter dropped.

CHAPTER VI.

John made me promise to go out to meet him next morning on his return from his early walk across the farm. I remember so well how gladly I sprang from my bed that morning, how tedious my dressing seemed, and yet how I lingered over it at the last, anxious to make myself more pleasing in the eyes which I knew would be watching for me from the hill. I remember how, in the tenderness of my joy, I opened my sash to feed the robins, and how gay and fair the world looked in its robe of white. I remember how I ran after a little beggar boy to give him sixpence, and how afterwards I went along the path through the fields singing aloud for mere happiness. And yet a little cloud had already risen out of the glories of the shining East, and was spreading and moving towards me.

John and I walked home together, side by side, and we talked the happiest talk that ever was written or spoken. The world was all radiant over our heads and under our feet, and we could not see even the shadow of the cloud that was coming, fast as the wheels that were rolling towards us from the distance.

"Look, Margery!" said John, "do you see a carriage on the road?"

I shaded my eyes with my hand, and I saw the carriage.

"I daresay it is the Hills'," I said, and then we walked on through the white fields and between the bare hedges till we came out upon the road which leads away across the moor between Hillsbro' Farm and Hillsbro'

Hall. There is a spot on this road which you know well, where the ground sinks into a hollow, and then rises in a steep abrupt hill, on the top of which any object suddenly appearing stands out in sharp relief against the sky, in the eyes of the traveller below. We reached the foot of this hill, John and I; we began to ascend; I raised my eyes, and saw a figure appear on the brink of the hill, a woman's figure with draperies fluttering a little as the petticoats of the market women flutter when they tramp the road to Hillsbro'. I raised my eyes again, and came face to face with Rachel Leonard.

She was walking quickly, pressing forward, wrapped in a fur mantle, with a Shetland snood drawn round her face. I remember the momentary expression of that face before it changed at sight of us; the delicate brows knitted as if in pain or anxiety; the wide dark eyes intent upon the scenes opening before them; the scarlet lips parted in fatigue; the glow of exercise wandering over the cheeks.

She did not see us at first; the sun was in her eyes; but I spoke her name aloud, and held out my hand. She started violently, and all the colour flew out of her cheeks. She took my hand, and held it mechanically, but her eyes were fixed on John. I looked at him in amazement, seeking for some explanation of the strange long look in her eyes, and the trembling of her white lips, only to see both repeated in his face, which had been ruddy and smiling the minute before. They stood gazing in one another's eyes as if both were magnetised, without either advancing a hand or attempting a word. An indescribable chill crept over my heart as I looked at them, and I drew my hand from John's arm, and turned impatiently away.

He did not seem conscious of the action, but it roused Rachel. She smiled, and extending her hand, said, with quivering lips, which she made vain efforts to compose:

"Mr. Hollingford, do you not remember me? My name is Rachel Leonard."

John's gaze had never left her face, and he could not but note the imploring look that came into her eyes as she said these words.

"Yes," he answered, and his voice shook, though his face kept a fixed, stern gravity. "Yes, surely I remember you--Miss Leonard."

At this the sound of wheels was heard coming up the hill, and with a sudden effort Rachel changed her manner.