to any one before; and how every word he says to me enters my heart, and has a
new meaning for me. I think it must be because he has felt life more deeply than
others, and has a deeper faith. I believe everything he says at once. His words
come to me like rain on the parched ground. It has always seemed to me before as
if I could see behind people's words, as one sees behind a screen; but in Mr
Tryan it is his very soul that speaks."
"Well, my dear child, I love and bless him for your sake, if he has given you
any comfort. I never believed the harm people said of him, though I had no
desire to go and hear him, for I am contented with old-fashioned ways. I find
more good teaching than I can practise in reading my Bible at home, and hearing
Mr Crewe at church. But your wants are different, my dear, and we are not all
led by the same road. That was certainly good advice of Mr Tryan's you told me
of last night?that we should consult some one that may interfere for you with
your husband; and I've been turning it over in my mind while I've been lying
awake in the night. I think nobody will do so well as Mr Benjamin Landor, for we
must have a man that knows the law, and that Robert is rather afraid of. And
perhaps he could bring about an agreement for you to live apart. Your husband's
bound to maintain you, you know; and, if you liked, we could move away from
Milby and live somewhere else."
"O, mother, we must do nothing yet; I must think about it a little longer. I
have a different feeling this morning from what I had yesterday. Something seems
to tell me that I must go back to Robert some time?after a little while. I loved
him once better than all the world, and I have never had any children to love.
There were things in me that were wrong, and I should like to make up for them
if I can."
"Well, my dear, I won't persuade you. Think of it a little longer. But something
must be done soon."
"How I wish I had my bonnet, and shawl, and black gown here!" said Janet, after
a few minutes' silence. "I should like to go to Paddiford church and hear Mr.
Tryan. There would be no fear of my meeting Robert, for he never goes out on a
Sunday morning."
"I'm afraid it would not do for me to go to the house and fetch your clothes,"
said Mrs Raynor.
"O no, no! I must stay quietly here while you two go to church. I will be Mrs
Pettifer's maid, and get the dinner ready for her by the time she comes back.
Dear good woman! She was so tender to me when she took me in, in the night,
mother, and all the next day, when I couldn't speak a word to her to thank her."
CHAPTER XXI.
The servants at Dempster's felt some surprise when the morning, noon, and
evening of Saturday had passed, and still their mistress did not reappear.
"It's very odd," said Kitty, the housemaid, as she trimmed her next week's cap,
while Betty, the middle-aged cook, looked on with folded arms. "Do you think as
Mrs Raynor was ill, and sent for the missis afore we was up?"
"O," said Betty, "if it had been that, she'd ha' been back'ards an' for'ards
three or four times afore now; leastways, she'd ha' sent little Ann to let us
know."
"There's summat up more nor usal between her an' the master, that you may depend
on," said Kitty. "I know those clothes as was lying i' the drawing-room
yesterday, when the company was come, meant summat. I shouldn't wonder if that
was what they've had a fresh row about. She's p'raps gone away, an's made up her
mind not to come back again."
"An' i' the right on't, too," said Betty. "I'd ha' overrun him long afore now,
if it had been me. I wouldn't stan' bein' mauled as she is by no husband, not if
he was the biggest lord i' the land. It's poor work bein' a wife at that price:
I'd sooner be a cook wi'out perkises, an' hev roast, an' boil, an' fry, an' bake
all to mind at once. She may well do as she does. I know I'm glad enough of a
drop o' summat myself when I'm plagued. I feel very low, like, to-night; I think
I shall put my beer i' the saucepan an' warm it."
"What a one you are for warmin' your beer, Betty! I couldn't abide it?nasty
bitter stuff!"
"It's fine talkin'; if you was a cook you'd know what belongs to bein' a cook.
It's none so nice to hev a sinkin' at your stomach, I can tell you. You wouldn't
think so much o' fine ribbins i' your cap then."
"Well, well, Betty, don't be grumpy. Liza Thomson, as is at Phipps's, said to me
last Sunday, 'I wonder you'll stay at Dempster's,' she says, 'such goins on as
there is.' But I says, 'There's things to put up wi' in ivery place, an' you may
change, an' change, an' not better yourself when all's said an' done.' Lors!
why, Liza told me herself as Mrs Phipps was as skinny as skinny i' the kitchen,
for all they keep so much company; and as for follyers, she's as cross as a
turkey-cock if she finds 'em out. There's nothin' o' that sort i' the missis.
How pretty she come an' spoke to Job last Sunday! There isn't a good-natur'der
woman i' the world, that's my belief?an' hansome too. I al'ys think there's
nobody looks half so well as the missis when she's got her 'air done nice. Lors!
I wish I'd got long 'air like her?my 'air's a-comin' off dreadful."
"There'll be fine work to-morrow, I expect," said Betty, "when the master comes
home, an' Dawes a-swearin' as he'll niver do a stroke o' work for him again.
It'll be good fun if he sets the justice on him for cuttin' him wi' the whip;
the master 'll p'raps get his comb cut for once in his life!"
"Why, he was in a temper like a fi-end this morning," said Kitty. "I dare say it
was along o' what had happened wi' the missis. We shall hev a pretty house wi'
him if she doesn't come back?he'll want to be leatherin' us, I shouldn't wonder.
He must hev somethin' t' ill-use when he's in a passion."
"I'd tek care he didn't leather me?no, not if he was my husban' ten times o'er;
I'd pour hot drippin' on him sooner. But the missis hesn't a sperrit like me.
He'll mek her come back, you'll see; he'll come round her somehow. There's no
likelihood of her coming back to-night, though; so I should think we might
fasten the doors and go to bed when we like."
On Sunday morning, however, Kitty's mind became disturbed by more definite and
alarming conjectures about her mistress. While Betty, encouraged by the prospect
of unwonted leisure, was sitting down to continue a letter which had long lain
unfinished between the leaves of her Bible, Kitty came running into the kitchen
and said,
"Lor! Betty, I'm all of a tremble; you might knock me down wi' a feather. I've
just looked into the missis's wardrobe, an' there's both her bonnets. She must
ha' gone wi'out her bonnet. An' then I remember as her night-clothes wasn't on
the bed yisterday mornin'; I thought she'd put 'em away to be washed; but she
hedn't, for I've been lookin' It's my belief he's murdered her, and shut her up
i' that closet as he keeps locked al'ys. He's capible on't."
"Lors-ha'-massy, why you'd better run to Mrs Raynor's an' see if she's there,
arter all. It was p'raps all a lie."
Mrs Raynor had
returned home to give directions to her little maiden, when
Kitty, with the elaborate manifestation of alarm which servants delight in,
rushed in without knocking, and holding her hands on her heart as if the
consequences to that organ were likely to be very serious, said,?
"If you please 'm, is the missis here?"
"No, Kitty; why are you come to ask?"
"Because 'm, she's niver been at home since yesterday mornin', since afore we
was up; an' we thought somethin' must ha' happened to her."
"No, don't be frightened, Kitty. Your mistress is quite safe; I know where she
is. Is your master at home?"
"No 'm; he went out yesterday mornin', an' said he shouldn't be back afore
to-night."
"Well, Kitty, there's nothing the matter with your mistress. You needn't say
anything to any one about her being away from home. I shall call presently and
fetch her gown and bonnet. She wants them to put on."
Kitty, perceiving there was a mystery she was not to inquire into, returned to
Orchard Street, really glad to know that her mistress was safe, but disappointed
nevertheless at being told that she was not to be frightened. She was soon
followed by Mrs Raynor in quest of the gown and bonnet. The good mother, on
learning that Dempster was not at home, had at once thought that she could
gratify Janet's wish to go to Paddiford church.
"See, my dear," she said, as she entered Mrs Pettifer's parlour; "I've brought
you your black clothes. Robert's not at home, and is not coming till this
evening. I couldn't find your best black gown, but this will do. I wouldn't
bring anything else, you know; but there can't be any objection to my fetching
clothes to cover you. You can go to Paddiford church now, if you like; and I
will go with you."
"That's a dear mother! Then we'll all three go together. Come and help me to get
ready. Good little Mrs Crewe! It will vex her sadly that I should go to hear Mr
Tryan. But I must kiss her, and make it up with her."
Many eyes were turned on Janet with a look of surprise as she walked up the
aisle of Paddiford church. She felt a little tremor at the notice she knew she
was exciting, but it was a strong satisfaction to her that she had been able at
once to take a step that would let her neighbours know her change of feeling
towards Mr Tryan: she had left herself now no room for proud reluctance or weak
hesitation. The walk through the sweet spring air had stimulated all her fresh
hopes, all her yearning desires after purity, strength, and peace. She thought
she should find a new meaning in the prayers this morning; her full heart, like
an overflowing river, wanted those ready-made channels to pour itself into; and
then she should hear Mr Tryan again, and his words would fall on her like
precious balm, as they had done last night. There was a liquid brightness in her
eyes as they rested on the mere walls, the pews, the weavers and colliers in
their Sunday clothes. The commonest things seemed to touch the spring of love
within her, just as, when we are suddenly released from an acute absorbing
bodily pain, our heart and senses leap out in new freedom; we think even the
noise of streets harmonious, and are ready to hug the tradesman who is wrapping
up our change. A door had been opened in Janet's cold dark prison of
self-despair, and the golden light of morning was pouring in its slanting beams
through the blessed opening. There was sunlight in the world; there was a divine
love caring for her; it had given her an earnest of good things; it had been
preparing comfort for her in the very moment when she had thought herself most
forsaken.
Mr Tryan might well rejoice when his eye rested on her as he entered his desk;
but he rejoiced with trembling. He could not look at the sweet hopeful face
without remembering its yesterday's look of agony; and there was the possibility
that that look might return.
Janet's appearance at church was greeted not only by wondering eyes, but by kind
hearts, and after the service several of Mr Tryan's hearers with whom she had
been on cold terms of late, contrived to come up to her and take her by the
hand.
"Mother," said Miss Linnet, "do let us go and speak to Mrs Dempster. I'm sure
there's a great change in her mind towards Mr Tryan. I noticed how eagerly she
listened to the sermon, and she's come with Mrs Pettifer, you see. We ought to
go and give her a welcome among us."
"Why, my dear, we've never spoke friendly these five year. You know she's been
as haughty as anything since I quarrelled with her husband. However, let bygones
be bygones: I've no grudge again' the poor thing, more particular as she must
ha'flew in her husband's face to come an' hear Mr Tryan. Yis, let us go an'
speak to her."
The friendly words and looks touched Janet a little too keenly, and Mrs Pettifer
wisely hurried her home by the least-frequented road. When they reached home, a
violent fit of weeping, followed by continuous lassitude, showed that the
emotions of the morning had overstrained her nerves. She was suffering, too,
from the absence of the long-accustomed stimulus which she had promised Mr Tryan
not to touch again. The poor thing was conscious of this, and dreaded her own
weakness, as the victim of intermittent insanity dreads the on-coming of the old
illusion.
"Mother," she whispered, when Mrs Raynor urged her to lie down and rest all the
afternoon, that she might be the better prepared to see Mr Tryan in the
evening?"mother, don't let me have anything if I ask for it."
In the mother's mind there was the same anxiety, and in her it was mingled with
another fear?the fear lest Janet, in her present excited state of mind, should
take some premature step in relation to her husband, which might lead back to
all the former troubles. The hint she had thrown out in the morning of her wish
to return to him after a time, showed a new eagerness for difficult duties, that
only made the long-saddened sober mother tremble.
But as evening approached, Janet's morning heroism all forsook her: her
imagination, influenced by physical depression as well as by mental habits, was
haunted by the vision of her husband's return home, and she began to shudder
with the yesterday's dread. She heard him calling her, she saw him going to her
mother's to look for her, she felt sure he would find her out, and burst in upon
her.
"Pray, pray, don't leave me, don't go to church," she said to Mrs Pettifer. "You
and mother both stay with me till Mr Tryan comes."
At twenty minutes past six the church bells were ringing for the evening
service, and soon the congregation was streaming along Orchard Street in the
mellow sunset. The street opened toward the west. The red half-sunken sun shed a
solemn splendour on the everyday houses, and crimsoned the windows of Dempster's
projecting upper story.
Suddenly a loud murmur arose and spread along the stream of church-goers, and
one group after another paused and looked backward. At the far end of the
street, men, accompanied by a miscellaneous group of onlo
okers, are slowly
carrying something?a body stretched on a door. Slowly they pass along the middle
of the street, lined all the way with awe-struck faces, till they turn aside and
pause in the red sunlight before Dempster's door.
It is Dempster's body. No one knows whether he is alive or dead.
CHAPTER XXII.
It was probably a hard saying to the Pharisees, that "there is more joy in
heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons
that need no repentance." And certain ingenious philosophers of our own day must
surely take offence at a joy so entirely out of correspondence with arithmetical
proportion. But a heart that has been taught by its own sore struggles to bleed
for the woes of another?that has "learned pity through suffering"?is likely to
find very imperfect satisfaction in the "balance of happiness," "doctrine of
compensations," and other short and easy methods of obtaining thorough
complacency in the presence of pain; and for such a heart that saying will not
be altogether dark. The emotions, I have observed, are but slightly influenced
by arithmetical considerations: the mother, when her sweet lisping little ones
have all been taken from her one after another, and she is hanging over her last
dead babe, finds small consolation in the fact that the tiny dimpled corpse is
but one of a necessary average, and that a thousand other babes brought into the
world at the same time are doing well, and are likely to live; and if you stood
beside that mother?if you knew her pang and shared it?it is probable you would
be equally unable to see a ground of complacency in statistics.
Doubtless a complacency resting on that basis is highly rational; but emotion, I
fear, is obstinately irrational: it insists on caring for individuals; it
absolutely refuses to adopt the quantitative view of human anguish, and to admit
that thirteen happy lives are a set-off against twelve miserable lives, which
leaves a clear balance on the side of satisfaction. This is the inherent
imbecility of feeling, and one must be a great philosopher to have got quite
clear of all that, and to have emerged into the serene air of pure intellect, in
which it is evident that individuals really exist for no other purpose than that
abstractions may be drawn from them?abstractions that may rise from heaps of
ruined lives like the sweet savour of a sacrifice in the nostrils of
philosophers, and of a philosophic Deity. And so it comes to pass that for the
man who knows sympathy because he has known sorrow, that old, old saying about
the joy of angels over the repentant sinner outweighing their joy over the
ninety-nine just, has a meaning which does not jar with the language of his own
heart. It only tells him, that for angels too there is a transcendent value in
human pain, which refuses to be settled by equations; that the eyes of angels
too are turned away from the serene happiness of the righteous to bend with
yearning pity on the poor erring soul wandering in the desert where no water is;
that for angels too the misery of one casts so tremendous a shadow as to eclipse
the bliss of ninety-nine.
Mr Tryan had gone through the initiation of suffering: it is no wonder, then,
that Janet's restoration was the work that lay nearest his heart; and that,
weary as he was in body when he entered the vestry after the evening service, he
was impatient to fulfil the promise of seeing her. His experience enabled him to
divine?what was the fact?that the hopefulness of the morning would be followed
by a return of depression and discouragement, and his sense of the inward and
outward difficulties in the way of her restoration was so keen, that he could
only find relief from the foreboding it excited by lifting up his heart in
prayer. There are unseen elements which often frustrate our wisest
calculations?which raise up the sufferer from the edge of the grave,
contradicting the prophecies of the clear-sighted physician, and fulfilling the