The Life Of Thomas Wanless, Peasant Part 7

"From Captain Wiseman! Oh, Sally!" That was all she said; but the tone and the look went to the girl's heart and tore it with a new misery. Her father turned in his chair and looked at her for a minute or two without speaking. She took his gaze to mean rebuke, and mechanically tried to escape from the house. Then her father spoke.

"Stay, Sarah," he said. "Go with your mother to the boys' room. We must know what this means."

Equally mechanically she obeyed, suffering her mother to lead her away.

Left alone, Thomas said that he did not think of anything particular for some time. He just sat still as if animation was suspended, a dull feeling of pain, a sense of stunnedness possessing his whole being. The fate of his pretty daughter was before his inward eye all the time. He gazed at it and realized it, but it did not move him. His emotions were frozen up.

It was some time before the mother and daughter came back, and the girl would not face her father. He rose to bid her good night. She hesitated a moment and then muttering, "I shall be late," turned and fled from the house.

Mrs. Wanless told her husband that she could make nothing of the girl.

"I plead with her," she said; "I scolded her and tried to work on her feelings, but she just hid her face in her hands, and rolled and moaned like to break her heart."

Poor, lone la.s.s, her tale needed no words to make it plain. Already it was known to all the village, and this Sunday night the hideous reality entered the minds of her parents, breeding there a sorrow the keenest they had ever known.

At the Grange, too, who was there knew not? That Sunday night Sally was actually late as she had said, and the scolding, seasoned with brutal taunts, which she had to endure from her superior, might have stung the girl to retaliation had not a deeper pain laid hold of her spirit. She paid no heed to the taunts and broad allusions of her neighbour, whose heart was perhaps the bitterer from the recent failure of her own last effort at husband-catching. A fire raged in Sally's heart that seemed to be consuming her very life. Her one hope now was to die. That would be best. As soon as possible she crept silently away to bed. How blessed is the darkness to the soul that is ashamed! Sally's grief, deep and bitter though it might be, was little to the sorrow and pain she had left that night in the home of her childhood. The deathly calm in her father's mind was succeeded by a storm before which Sally's sobs were as the wailings of an infant. His spirit had been stirred to its depths by many storms in the past, and needed much to rouse it now, but what he had learned to-night was surely enough. In the darkness of the night the full horror of what had befallen his daughter and himself was pressed in upon his thoughts till his heart rose in bitterness unspeakable. Was it true, then, he asked himself again and again, that his child, the darling of his old age, had been ruined by this cub of the oppressor?

Had this blackest of all wrongs been added to all the rest? There was but one answer, and as he brooded over the shame and misery that would fall upon his daughter and on all the family, as he thought of this heartless seducer going through the world scathless, pa.s.sion swelled within him. An impulse to vengeance swept over him. Had the Captain been within reach of Thomas's hands then, the old man might have slain him.

Yes, he felt he could die cheerfully for his daughter's sake, were her wrongs fully avenged. Ah, if he could thus bring back her good name! But would not mere vengeance be sweet? To take the scoundrel's life-blood!

He set his teeth, his frame shook under the gust of his terrible agony of grief, hatred, and shame, and he longed for the daylight that he might go and find the seducer of his precious one. The desire for revenge was strong upon him with the strength of a great temptation.

Then his mood changed. The fierce fires burnt themselves low. Weary and exhausted he lay still, and for the first time became aware that his wife was silently weeping by his side. He had thought she slept. A softer mood stole into his heart, but he could not speak of the grief that consumed them both. In the morning he rose, weary and sad, to go about his day's work. Days pa.s.sed before he made up his mind what to do, and during these days, his wife waited with anxious patience, too wise to worry her husband. At last, he resolved to bring her home. Anger and revenge were conquered thus far, and love and pity for his child were victorious.

"We must take Sally's shame to ourselves, mother," he said to his wife, when his mind was made up. "I know it will be hard for you, harder than you think; but she is our flesh and blood, and we must stand by her.

What say ye, wife?"

"An' what can I say, Thomas? I've been wishin' her home ever since Sunday, for I'm sure she'll die where she is. Oh! my poor darling; G.o.d pity her. The sin is surely not hers;" and Mrs. Wanless wept, but her heart was glad that the father was ready to shield and forgive.

Sometimes, as she watched the hard stern lines of his face, or his fixed gaze of wrath, she had dreaded a sterner decision. But now again Thomas's better nature had triumphed, and his faith in the everlasting justice inclined him to mercy.

As this talk took place on the Thursday evening, it was thought best to wait for Sally's return on Sunday, rather than to excite comment by going at once in quest of her. Her mother had stolen to the Grange on the previous Monday morning, to find out whether Sally had gone back, and had then seen and heard enough to make her dread another visit.

But they waited in vain for Sally that Sunday. She never came near her father's house, but spent her hours of liberty alone in the woods, afraid to face her father, and vaguely wishing she were dead. Her mother must go and tell her what had been decided on, after all.

So on the Monday morning, Mrs. Wanless again set out for the Grange.

With sickening heart and trembling steps, she crept along the sweeping avenue like a thief in dread of being seen. The day was grey and cold, as the latter days of April often are, and the leaden clouds threatened rain. It was one of those days when spring has, as it were, turned back to give a farewell hand-shake to winter. A chilly blast swept along the ground in gusts, and made one shiver; the world looked dreary and forbidding; birds were silent; and as one looked abroad on the cheerless world, and mournful sky, one grew unconsciously to have a shut-in kind of feeling. If only a rift would appear in that grey canopy, then one might breathe and have hope. Who has not come under the spell of such days? To whom have they not seemed to increase the bitterness of sorrow, to add weight to the burden of disappointment?

Mrs. Wanless was probably all the sadder this morning that the day was sad, though her thoughts were too fixed on Sally to be overborne by any idle impressions from the leaden aspect of the landscape. Or perhaps she felt that the day and her feelings were in wonderful unison. A beautiful spring morning might have jarred on her spirit. Spring sunshine is so gladsome, so full of hope, and Mrs. Wanless had no hope, only a longing to bring her daughter home and hide her away out of the world's sight.

Intent on her errand, she approached the house--a large, square building, with innumerable staring windows and a bare lawn in front, where a poor woman could find no hiding place--but as she neared the servants' door round in the east end of the mansion she paused irresolute. She remembered the reception of a week ago, the whispers and nods and innuendos of the wenches who came and went with a wonderful bustle of extemporized activity as she stood speaking to her daughter just by the door. If Sally would but come out, she thought, as once and again she turned back unable to muster courage, and cowered by the garden wall, which approached that end of the house, wherein lay the servants' quarters, with her old shepherd's plaid shawl gathered tightly round her. But no one came save menials, out of whose sight the poor bruised mother would fain have kept herself. The children of the gentlefolks would not be out of doors that day. It was too cold.

At last Mrs. Wanless nerved herself to a desperate effort, left the shelter of the garden wall, and walked as firmly as she could up to the kitchen door, and feebly knocked. She waited a long time as it seemed to her palpitating heart, but no answer came. Her knock had not been heard, so she tried again, this time a little less feebly. It was no use--n.o.body minded her. Would she go away? Nay, she dared not do that.

She would wait, somebody was sure to turn up presently. The resolution was hardly formed when the door opened, and her daughter and she stood face to face. A scared look came into the girl's eyes as she exclaimed, "You here again, mother;" the blood mantled to her forehead, and she half stepped back. But her mother caught her by the arm feverishly, and led her away from the house, saying--

"Oh, Sally, I do so want to see you, but I didn't like to come in again.

Why didn't you coom home last night?"

Sally tried to frame some excuse, but her voice failed her; she turned pale as death, and hung her head.

"Why didn't you, dear;" her mother repeated, in a dull, mechanical sort of way. Sally's feelings overcame her. She burst into tears, and through her sobs gasped out--

"I thought you--father--wouldn't let me come back."

Her mother did not at once reply, she was too pained, and also too keenly alive to the eyes that were at many a window gloating over her daughter's misery. Almost roughly she tightened her grasp on the girl's arm, and hurried her round the corner of the garden wall, never halting till safely behind a clump of evergreens. Then she released her daughter, turned, and clasped her to her breast. Both wept now, and, as she wept, the poor, stricken mother cried--

"Ah, Sally, Sally, my pet, my pet, you mustn't think on us like that,"

in tones that expressed reproach and love and pity and misery all in one. But no word of reproach did she utter.

It was some time before the two were composed enough to say much about anything. Sally roused herself first, for she suddenly recollected that she had orders to be quick back. She had been sent out for milk for the nursery.

"I must run, mother," she said hurriedly, "or Mary Crane will nag at me;" and she made as if to go.

"Wait a moment, Sally dear," her mother answered. "I had nearly forgotten what I came for; A-dear! a-dear! you mustn't stand no more of Mary Crane's naggings, Sally; an' if she begins to-day, you're to give up the place and coom home. Now, mind, Sally," she added, eagerly, "that will be best, give up your place;" for Sally seemed to shrink from the idea of coming home.

"But father----he"----

"It was father as said it, Sally dear. Father says you must coom home.

He can't a-bear to see you suffering and abused in this big house as you've been so wronged in; an' ye'll do what father wishes, won't you, my pet?"

"Is it really true, mother. Are you sure that father will let me coom home?"

"My dear, he sent me to tell ye. Oh, say ye'll coom home, Sally?"

"But father'll be angry with me and scold me, mother, and I can't abide that--oh, I can't, I can't," and Sally shook her head despairingly, the gleam of hope vanishing from her eyes.

"No, Sally, your father wonnot scold ye. Surely you know him better nor that. He is too heart-broke about ye a' ready to have any scoldings left, an' he was never hard to ye. Coom, now; say you'll give up the place, and it will be all right."

This and much more the mother said, pleading as for her daughter's life, and she won her point. Once Sally's dread of her father was somewhat removed, she caught eagerly at the prospect of escape from the Grange.

Any change would be like going from h.e.l.l to Heaven that would take her away from that place of torment. So anxious was she to get away, once her mind became fixed, that she never once thought of the burden she would be to her parents. But for the inexorable month's warning, she would have taken flight that night.

CHAPTER XII.

WHEREIN WE SEE BREEDING--HIGH AND LOW.

Mother and daughter parted almost the moment that the former was a.s.sured of Sally's readiness to come home, and Sally, nearly half-an-hour late, sped on her errand. It was with a glow on her face and a light in her eye that had been absent for many a day, that she ultimately reappeared in the nursery. Her bright looks seemed to add fuel to the wrath of the upper nurse, who burst out on Sally before she was well in at the door.

"I shan't stand this no longer, miss, depend on't," the soured, elderly maiden wound up. "I'm a decent woman, I ham, and don't mean to be disgraced by the likes o' you, not if I knows it. I've stood a lot too much from you a'ready, shameless gipsy that ye are. Your hongoin's is just past bearin', and I mean to tell Mrs. Morgan this very day as 'ow she must get another nurse an she means to keep you."

Nearly if not quite as much as this had been said to Sarah Wanless before now, and she had borne it silently with a bitter heart, because she found herself alone in the world. But to-day she was bolder from the consciousness within her that she was not yet wholly forsaken. Driven to bay by this woman's tongue, she turned upon her, and with flashing eyes, a voice trembling with pa.s.sion, cried--

"And I have stood too much from you, Mary Crane. You have behaved to me worse than if I had been a dog, and you're a hard-hearted, selfish woman. What right have you to trample upon me, as if you was a saint and more? You've a black enough mind any way, and mebbe you've done worse nor me before now, for all your spiteful pride and down-looking on a poor, heart-stricken girl, as never did you no harm. Shame on you, Mary Crane, I would not exchange my lot for yours yet, if it was to give me a heart like yours. And you need not trouble Mrs. Morgan with your tales.

I've made up my mind to stand your insolence no longer. I'll go to Mrs.

Morgan myself and give up my place, and tell her how you've used me."

This unexpected outburst fairly took the nurse's breath away. She stuttered with inarticulate pa.s.sion, and danced again in the agony of rage. A torrent of abuse was on her tongue, but she only managed to hiss out an opprobrious epithet at the girl, at the sound of which Sally faced her like one transformed. Drawing her form up to its full height, and holding her clenched hands close by her sides, she marched straight at nurse Crane, and fairly stood over her with her face a-flame and lips set, every feature rigid with scorn and wrath. Crane's heart died within her. She cowered and hid her face in her hands.