_ Just after this I went home for a week's holiday. Everything was
prospering there; my father's new partnership gave evident
satisfaction to both parties. There was no display of increased
wealth in our modest household; but my mother had a few extra
comforts provided for her by her husband. I made acquaintance
with Mr and Mrs Ellison, and first saw pretty Margaret Ellison,
who is now my wife. When I returned to Eltham, I found that a
step was decided upon, which had been in contemplation for some
time; that Holdsworth and I should remove our quarters to Hornby;
our daily presence, and as much of our time as possible, being
required for the completion of the line at that end.
Of course this led to greater facility of intercourse with the
Hope Farm people. We could easily walk out there after our day's
work was done, and spend a balmy evening hour or two, and yet
return before the summer's twilight had quite faded away. Many a
time, indeed, we would fain have stayed longer--the open air, the
fresh and pleasant country, made so agreeable a contrast to the
close, hot town lodgings which I shared with Mr Holdsworth; but
early hours, both at eve and morn, were an imperative necessity
with the minister, and he made no scruple at turning either or
both of us out of the house directly after evening prayer, or
'exercise', as he called it. The remembrance of many a happy day,
and of several little scenes, comes back upon me as I think of
that summer. They rise like pictures to my memory, and in this
way I can date their succession; for I know that corn harvest
must have come after hay-making, apple-gathering after
corn-harvest.
The removal to Hornby took up some time, during which we had
neither of us any leisure to go out to the Hope Farm. Mr
Holdsworth had been out there once during my absence at home. One
sultry evening, when work was done, he proposed our walking out
and paying the Holmans a visit. It so happened that I had omitted
to write my usual weekly letter home in our press of business,
and I wished to finish that before going out. Then he said that
he would go, and that I could follow him if I liked. This I did
in about an hour; the weather was so oppressive, I remember, that
I took off my coat as I walked, and hung it over my arm. All the
doors and windows at the farm were open when I arrived there, and
every tiny leaf on the trees was still. The silence of the place
was profound; at first I thought that it was entirely deserted;
but just as I drew near the door I heard a weak sweet voice begin
to sing; it was cousin Holman, all by herself in the house-place,
piping up a hymn, as she knitted away in the clouded light. She
gave me a kindly welcome, and poured out all the small domestic
news of the fortnight past upon me, and, in return, I told her
about my own people and my visit at home.
'Where were the rest?' at length I asked.
Betty and the men were in the field helping with the last load of
hay, for the minister said there would be rain before the
morning. Yes, and the minister himself, and Phillis, and Mr
Holdsworth, were all there helping. She thought that she herself
could have done something; but perhaps she was the least fit for
hay-making of any one; and somebody must stay at home and take
care of the house, there were so many tramps about; if I had not
had something to do with the railroad she would have called them
navvies. I asked her if she minded being left alone, as I should
like to go arid help; and having her full and glad permission to
leave her alone, I went off, following her directions: through
the farmyard, past the cattle-pond, into the ashfield, beyond
into the higher field with two holly-bushes in the middle. I
arrived there: there was Betty with all the farming men, and a
cleared field, and a heavily laden cart; one man at the top of
the great pile ready to catch the fragrant hay which the others
threw up to him with their pitchforks; a little heap of cast-off
clothes in a corner of the field (for the heat, even at seven
o'clock, was insufferable), a few cans and baskets, and Rover
lying by them panting, and keeping watch. Plenty of loud, hearty,
cheerful talking; but no minister, no Phillis, no Mr Holdsworth.
Betty saw me first, and understanding who it was that I was in
search of, she came towards me.
'They're out yonder--agait wi' them things o' Measter
Holdsworth's.' So 'out yonder' I went; out on to a broad upland
common, full of red sand-banks, and sweeps and hollows; bordered
by dark firs, purple in the coming shadows, but near at hand all
ablaze with flowering gorse, or, as we call it in the south,
furze-bushes, which, seen against the belt of distant trees,
appeared brilliantly golden. On this heath, a little way from the
field-gate, I saw the three. I counted their heads, joined
together in an eager group over Holdsworth's theodolite. He was
teaching the minister the practical art of surveying and taking a
level. I was wanted to assist, and was quickly set to work to
hold the chain. Phillis was as intent as her father; she had
hardly time to greet me, so desirous was she to hear some answer
to her father's question. So we went on, the dark clouds still
gathering, for perhaps five minutes after my arrival. Then came
the blinding lightning and the rumble and quick-following
rattling peal of thunder right over our heads. It came sooner
than I expected, sooner than they had looked for: the rain
delayed not; it came pouring down; and what were we to do for
shelter? Philiis had nothing on but her indoor things--no bonnet,
no shawl. Quick as the darting lightning around us, Holdsworth
took off his coat and wrapped it round her neck and shoulders,
and, almost without a word, hurried us all into such poor shelter
as one of the overhanging sand-banks could give. There we were,
cowered down, close together, Phillis innermost, almost too
tightly packed to free her arms enough to divest herself of the
coat, which she, in her turn, tried to put lightly over
Holdsworth's shoulders. In doing so she touched his shirt.
'Oh, how wet you are!' she cried, in pitying dismay; 'and you've
hardly got over your fever! Oh, Mr Holdsworth, I am so sorry!' He
turned his head a little, smiling at her.
'If I do catch cold, it is all my fault for having deluded you
into staying out here!' but she only murmured again, 'I am so
sorry.' The minister spoke now. 'It is a regular downpour. Please
God that the hay is saved! But there is no likelihood of its
ceasing, and I had better go home at once, and send you all some
wraps; umbrellas will not be safe with yonder thunder and
lightning.'
Both Holdsworth and I offered to go instead of him; but he was
resolved, although perhaps it would have been wiser if
Holdsworth, wet as he already was, had kept himself in exercise.
As he moved off, Phillis crept out, and could see on to the
storm-swept heath. Part of Holdsworth's apparatus still remained
exposed to all the rain. Before we could have any warning, she
had rushed out of the shelter and collected the various things,
and brought them back in triumph to where we crouched. Holdsworth
had stood up, uncertain whether to go to her assistance or not.
She came running back, her long lovely hair floating and
dripping, her eyes glad and bright, and her colour freshened to a
glow of health by the exercise and the rain.
'Now, Miss Holman, that's what I call wilful,' said Holdsworth,
as she gave them to him. 'No, I won't thank you' (his looks were
thanking her all the time). 'My little bit of dampness annoyed
you, because you thought I had got wet in your service; so you
were determined to make me as uncomfortable as you were yourself.
It was an unchristian piece of revenge!'
His tone of badinage (as the French call it) would have been
palpable enough to any one accustomed to the world; but Phillis
was not, and it distressed or rather bewildered her.
'Unchristian' had to her a very serious meaning; it was not a
word to be used lightly; and though she did not exactly
understand what wrong it was that she was accused of doing, she
was evidently desirous to throw off the imputation. At first her
earnestness to disclaim unkind motives amused Holdsworth; while
his light continuance of the joke perplexed her still more; but
at last he said something gravely, and in too low a tone for me
to hear, which made her all at once become silent, and called out
her blushes. After a while, the minister came back, a moving mass
of shawls, cloaks, and umbrellas. Phillis kept very close to her
father's side on our return to the farm. She appeared to me to be
shrinking away from Holdsworth, while he had not the slightest
variation in his manner from what it usually was in his graver
moods; kind, protecting, and thoughtful towards her. Of course,
there was a great commotion about our wet clothes; but I name the
little events of that evening now because I wondered at the time
what he had said in that low voice to silence Phillis so
effectually, and because, in thinking of their intercourse by the
light of future events, that evening stands out with some
prominence. I have said that after our removal to Hornby our
communications with the farm became almost of daily occurrence.
Cousin Holman and I were the two who had least to do with this
intimacy. After Mr Holdsworth regained his health, he too often
talked above her head in intellectual matters, and too often in
his light bantering tone for her to feel quite at her ease with
him. I really believe that he adopted this latter tone in
speaking to her because he did not know what to talk about to a
purely motherly woman, whose intellect had never been cultivated,
and whose loving heart was entirely occupied with her husband,
her child, her household affairs and, perhaps, a little with the
concerns of the members of her husband's congregation, because
they, in a way, belonged to her husband. I had noticed before
that she had fleeting shadows of jealousy even of Phillis, when
her daughter and her husband appeared to have strong interests
and sympathies in things which were quite beyond her
comprehension. I had noticed it in my first acquaintance with
them, I say, and had admired the delicate tact which made the
minister, on such occasions, bring the conversation back to such
subjects as those on which his wife, with her practical
experience of every-day life, was an authority; while Phillis,
devoted to her father, unconsciously followed his lead, totally
unaware, in her filial reverence, of his motive for doing so.
To return to Holdsworth. The minister had at more than one time
spoken of him to me with slight distrust, principally occasioned
by the suspicion that his careless words were not always those of
soberness and truth. But it was more as a protest against the
fascination which the younger man evidently exercised over the
elder one more as it were to strengthen himself against yielding
to this fascination--that the minister spoke out to me about this
failing of Holdsworth's, as it appeared to him. In return
Holdsworth was subdued by the minister's uprightness and
goodness, and delighted with his clear intellect--his strong
healthy craving after further knowledge. I never met two men who
took more thorough pleasure and relish in each other's society.
To Phillis his relation continued that of an elder brother: he
directed her studies into new paths, he patiently drew out the
expression of many of her thoughts, and perplexities, and
unformed theories--scarcely ever now falling into the vein of
banter which she was so slow to understand.
One day--harvest-time--he had been drawing on a loose piece of
paper-sketching ears of corn, sketching carts drawn by bullocks
and laden with grapes--all the time talking with Phillis and me,
cousin Holman putting in her not pertinent remarks, when suddenly
he said to Phillis,--
'Keep your head still; I see a sketch! I have often tried to draw
your head from memory, and failed; but I think I can do it now.
If I succeed I will give it to your mother. You would like a
portrait of your daughter as Ceres, would you not, ma'am?'
'I should like a picture of her; yes, very much, thank you, Mr
Holdsworth; but if you put that straw in her hair,' (he was
holding some wheat ears above her passive head, looking at the
effect with an artistic eye,) 'you'll ruffle her hair. Phillis,
my dear, if you're to have your picture taken, go up-stairs, and
brush your hair smooth.'
'Not on any account. I beg your pardon, but I want hair loosely
flowing.' He began to draw, looking intently at Phillis; I could
see this stare of his discomposed her--her colour came and went,
her breath quickened with the consciousness of his regard; at
last, when he said, 'Please look at me for a minute or two, I
want to get in the eyes,' she looked up at him, quivered, and
suddenly got up and left the room. He did not say a word, but
went on with some other part of the drawing; his silence was
unnatural, and his dark cheek blanched a little. Cousin Holman
looked up from her work, and put her spectacles down.
'What's the matter? Where is she gone?'
Holdsworth never uttered a word, but went on drawing. I felt
obliged to say something; it was stupid enough, but stupidity was
better than silence just then.
'I'll go and call her,' said I. So I went into the hall, and to
the bottom of the stairs; but just as I was going to call
Phillis, she came down swiftly with her bonnet on, and saying,
'I'm going to father in the five-acre,' passed out by the open
'rector,' right in front of the house-place windows, and out at
the little white side-gate. She had been seen by her mother and
Holdsworth, as she passed; so there was no need for explanation,
only cousin Holman and I had a long discussion as to whether she
could have found the room too hot, or what had occasioned her
sudden departure. Holdsworth was very quiet during all the rest
of that day; nor did he resume the portrait-taking by his own
desire, only at my cousin Holman's request the next time that he
came; and then he said he should not require any more formal
sittings for only such a slight sketch as he felt himself capable
of making. Phillis was just the same as ever the next time I saw
her after her abrupt passing me in the hall. She never gave any
explanation of her rush out of the room.
So all things went on, at least as far as my observation reached
at the time, or memory can recall now, till the great
apple-gathering of the year. The nights were frosty, the mornings
and evenings were misty, but at mid-day all was sunny and bright,
and it was one mid-day that both of us being on the line near
Heathbridge, and knowing that they were gathering apples at the
farm, we resolved to spend the men's dinner-hour in going over
there. We found the great clothes-baskets full of apples,
scenting the house, and stopping up the way; and an universal air
of merry contentment with this the final produce of the year. The
yellow leaves hung on the trees ready to flutter down at the
slightest puff of air; the great bushes of Michaelmas daisies in
the kitchen-garden were making their last show of flowers. We
must needs taste the fruit off the different trees, and pass our
judgment as to their flavour; and we went away with our pockets
stuffed with those that we liked best. As we had passed to the
orchard, Holdsworth had admired and spoken about some flower
which he saw; it so happened he had never seen this old-fashioned
kind since the days of his boyhood. I do not know whether he had
thought anything more about this chance speech of his, but I know
I had not--when Phillis, who had been missing just at the last
moment of our hurried visit, re-appeared with a little nosegay of
this same flower, which she was tying up with a blade of grass.
She offered it to Holdsworth as he stood with her father on the
point of departure. I saw their faces. I saw for the first time
an unmistakable look of love in his black eyes; it was more than
gratitude for the little attention; it was tender and
beseeching--passionate. She shrank from it in confusion, her
glance fell on me; and, partly to hide her emotion, partly out of
real kindness at what might appear ungracious neglect of an older
friend, she flew off to gather me a few late-blooming China
roses. But it was the first time she had ever done anything of
the kind for me.
We had to walk fast to be back on the line before the men's
return, so we spoke but little to each other, and of course the
afternoon was too much occupied for us to have any talk. In the
evening we went back to our joint lodgings in Hornby. There, on
the table, lay a letter for Holdsworth, which had be en forwarded
to him from Eltham. As our tea was ready, and I had had nothing
to eat since morning, I fell to directly without paying much
attention to my companion as he opened and read his letter. He
was very silent for a few minutes; at length he said,
'Old fellow! I'm going to leave you!'
'Leave me!' said I. 'How? When?'
'This letter ought to have come to hand Sooner. It is from
Greathed the engineer' (Greathed was well known in those days; he
is dead now, and his name half-forgotten); 'he wants to see me
about Some business; in fact, I may as well tell you, Paul, this
letter contains a very advantageous proposal for me to go out to
Canada, and superintend the making of a line there.' I was in
utter dismay. 'But what will Our company say to that?' 'Oh,
Greathed has the superintendence of this line, you know; and he
is going to be engineer in chief to this Canadian line; many of
the Shareholders in this company are going in for the other, so I
fancy they will make no difficulty in following Greathed's lead.
He says he has a young man ready to put in my place.'
'I hate him,' said I.
'Thank you,' said Holdsworth, laughing.
'But you must not,' he resumed; 'for this is a very good thing
for me, and, of course, if no one can be found to take my
inferior work, I can't be spared to take the superior. I only
wish I had received this letter a day Sooner. Every hour is of
consequence, for Greathed says they are threatening a rival line.
Do you know, Paul, I almost fancy I must go up tonight? I can
take an engine back to Eltham, and catch the night train. I
should not like Greathed to think me luke-warm.'
'But you'll come back?' I asked, distressed at the thought of
this sudden parting.
'Oh, yes! At least I hope so. They may want me to go out by the
next steamer, that will be on Saturday.' He began to eat and
drink standing, but I think he was quite unconscious of the
nature of either his food or his drink.
'I will go to-night. Activity and readiness go a long way in our
profession. Remember that, my boy! I hope I shall come back, but
if I don't, be sure and recollect all the words of wisdom that
have fallen from my lips. Now where's the portmanteau? If I can
gain half an hour for a gathering up of my things in Eltham, so
much the better. I'm clear of debt anyhow; and what I owe for my
lodgings you can pay for me out of my quarter's salary, due
November 4th.'
'Then you don't think you will come back?' I said, despondingly.
'I will come back some time, never fear,' said he, kindly. 'I may
be back in a couple of days, having been found in-competent for
the Canadian work; or I may not be wanted to go out so soon as I
now anticipate. Anyhow you don't suppose I am going to forget
you, Paul this work out there ought not to take me above two
years, and, perhaps, after that, we may be employed together
again.' Perhaps! I had very little hope. The same kind of happy
days never returns. However, I did all I could in helping him:
clothes, papers, books, instruments; how we pushed and
struggled--how I stuffed. All was done in a much shorter time
than we had calculated upon, when I had run down to the sheds to
order the engine. I was going to drive him to Eltham. We sate
ready for a summons. Holdsworth took up the little nosegay that
he had brought away from the Hope Farm, and had laid on the
mantel-piece on first coming into the room. He smelt at it, and
caressed it with his lips.
'What grieves me is that I did not know--that I have not said
good-bye to--to them.'
He spoke in a grave tone, the shadow of the coming separation
falling upon him at last.
'I will tell them,' said I. 'I am sure they will be very sorry.'
Then we were silent.
'I never liked any family so much.'
'I knew you would like them.'
'How one's thoughts change,--this morning I was full of a hope,
Paul.' He paused, and then he said,--
'You put that sketch in carefully?'
'That outline of a head?' asked I. But I knew he meant an
abortive sketch of Phillis, which had not been successful enough
for him to complete it with shading or colouring.
'Yes. What a sweet innocent face it is! and yet so--Oh, dear!' He
sighed and got up, his hands in his pockets, to walk up and down
the room in evident disturbance of mind. He suddenly stopped
opposite to me.
'You'll tell them how it all was. Be sure and tell the good
minister that I was so sorry not to wish him good-bye, and to
thank him and his wife for all their kindness. As for
Phillis,--please God in two years I'll be back and tell her
myself all in my heart.'
'You love Phillis, then?' said I.
'Love her! Yes, that I do. Who could help it, seeing her as I
have done? Her character as unusual and rare as her beauty! God
bless her! God keep her in her high tranquillity, her pure
innocence.--Two years! It is a long time.--But she lives in such
seclusion, almost like the sleeping beauty, Paul,'--(he was
smiling now, though a minute before I had thought him on the
verge of tears,) --'but I shall come back like a prince from
Canada, and waken her to my love. I can't help hoping that it
won't be difficult, eh, Paul?'
This touch of coxcombry displeased me a little, and I made no
answer. He went on, half apologetically,--
'You see, the salary they offer me is large; and beside that,
this experience will give me a name which will entitle me to
expect a still larger in any future undertaking.'
'That won't influence Phillis.'
'No! but it will make me more eligible in the eyes of her father
and mother.' I made no answer.
'You give me your best wishes, Paul,' said he, almost pleading.
'You would like me for a cousin?'
I heard the scream and whistle of the engine ready down at the
sheds.
'Ay, that I should,' I replied, suddenly softened towards my
friend now that he was going away. 'I wish you were to be married
to-morrow, and I were to be best man.'
'Thank you, lad. Now for this cursed portmanteau (how the
minister would be shocked); but it is heavy!' and off we sped
into the darkness. He only just caught the night train at Eltham,
and I slept, desolately enough, at my old lodgings at Miss
Dawsons', for that night. Of course the next few days I was
busier than ever, doing both his work and my own. Then came a
letter from him, very short and affectionate. He was going out in
the Saturday steamer, as he had more than half expected; and by
the following Monday the man who was to succeed him would be down
at Eltham. There was a P.S., with only these words:-- 'My nosegay
goes with me to Canada, but I do not need it to remind me of Hope
Farm.'
Saturday came; but it was very late before I could go out to the
farm. It was a frosty night, the stars shone clear above me, and
the road was crisping beneath my feet. They must have heard my
footsteps before I got up to the house. They were sitting at
their usual employments in the house-place when I went in.
Phillis's eyes went beyond me in their look of welcome, and then
fell in quiet disappointment on her work.
'And where's Mr Holdsworth?' asked cousin Holman, in a minute or
two. 'I hope his cold is not worse,--I did not like his short
cough.'
I laughed awkwardly; for I felt that I was the bearer of
unpleasant news.
'His cold had need be better--for he's gone--gone away to
Canada!'
I purposely looked away from Phillis, as I thus abruptly told my
news.
'To Canada!' said the minister.
'Gone away!' said his wife. But no word from Phillis.
'Yes!' said I. 'He found a letter at Hornby when we got home the
other night-- when we got home from here; he ought to have got it
sooner; he was ordered to go up to London directly, and to see
some people about a new line in Canada, and he's gone to lay it
down; he has sailed to-day. He was sadly grieved not to have time
to come out and wish you all good-by; but he started for London
within two hours after he got that letter. He bade me thank you
most gratefully for all your kindnesses; he was very sorry not to
come here once again.' Phillis got up and left the room with
noiseless steps.
'I am very sorry,' said the minister.
'I am sure so am I!' said cousin Holman. 'I was real fond of that
lad ever since I nursed him last June after that bad fever.'
The minister went on asking me questions respecting Holdsworth's
future plans; and brought out a large old-fashioned atlas, that
he might find out the exact places between which the new railroad
was to run. Then supper was ready; it was always on the table as
soon as the clock on the stairs struck eight, and down came
Phillis--her face white and set, her dry eyes looking defiance to
me, for I am afraid I hurt her maidenly pride by my glance of
sympathetic interest as she entered the room. Never a word did
she say--never a question did she ask about the absent friend,
yet she forced herself to talk.
And so it was all the next day. She was as pale as could be, like
one who has received some shock; but she would not let me talk to
her, and she tried hard to behave as usual. Two or three times I
repeated, in public, the various affectionate messages to the
family with which I was charged by Holdsworth; but she took no
more notice of them than if my words had been empty air. And in
this mood I left her on the Sabbath evening.
My new master was not half so indulgent as my old one. He kept up
strict discipline as to hours, so that it was some time before I
could again go out, even to pay a call at the Hope Farm.
It was a cold misty evening in November. The air, even indoors,
seemed full of haze; yet there was a great log burning on the
hearth, which ought to have made the room cheerful. Cousin Holman
and Phillis were sitting at the little round table before the
fire, working away in silence. The minister had his books out on
the dresser, seemingly deep in study, by the light of his
solitary candle; perhaps the fear of disturbing him made the
unusual stillness of the room. But a welcome was ready for me
from all; not noisy, not demonstrative--that it never was; my
damp wrappers were taken off; the next meal was hastened, and a
chair placed for me on one side of the fire, so that I pretty
much commanded a view of the room. My eye caught on Phillis,
looking so pale and weary, and with a sort of aching tone (if I
may call it so) in her voice. She was doing all the accustomed
things--fulfilling small household duties, but somehow
differently--I can't tell you how, for she was just as deft and
quick in her movements, only the light spring was gone out of
them. Cousin Holman began to question me; even the minister put
aside his books, and came and stood on the opposite side of the
fire-place, to hear what waft of intelligence I brought. I had
first to tell them why I had not been to see them for so
long--more than five weeks. The answer was simple enough;
business and the necessity of attending strictly to the orders of
a new superintendent, who had not yet learned trust, much less
indulgence. The minister nodded his approval of my conduct, and
said,-- 'Right, Paul! "Servants, obey in all things your master
according to the flesh." I have had my fears lest you had too
much licence under Edward Holdsworth.'
'Ah,' said cousin Holman, 'poor Mr Holdsworth, he'll be on the
salt seas by this time!'
'No, indeed,' said I, 'he's landed. I have had a letter from him
from Halifax.' Immediately a shower of questions fell thick upon
me. When? How? What was he doing? How did he like it? What sort
of a voyage? &c.
'Many is the time we have thought of him when the wind was
blowing so hard; the old quince-tree is blown down, Paul, that on
the right-hand of the great pear-tree; it was blown down last
Monday week, and it was that night that I asked the minister to
pray in an especial manner for all them that went down in ships
upon the great deep, and he said then, that Mr Holdsworth might
be already landed; but I said, even if the prayer did not fit
him, it was sure to be fitting somebody out at sea, who would
need the Lord's care. Both Phillis and I thought he would be a
month on the seas.' Phillis began to speak, but her voice did not
come rightly at first. It was a little higher pitched than usual,
when she said,--
'We thought he would be a month if he went in a sailing-vessel,
or perhaps longer. I suppose he went in a steamer?'
'Old Obadiah Grimshaw was more than six weeks in getting to
America,' observed cousin Holman.
'I presume he cannot as yet tell how he likes his new work?'
asked the minister.
'No! he is but just landed; it is but one page long. I'll read it
to you, shall I?--
'"Dear Paul,--We are safe on shore, after a rough passage.
Thought you would like to hear this, but homeward-bound steamer
is making signals for letters. Will write again soon. It seems a
year since I left Hornby. Longer since I was at the farm. I have
got my nosegay safe. Remember me to the Holmans.--Yours, E. H."'
'That's not much, certainly,' said the minister. 'But it's a
comfort to know he's on land these blowy nights.'
Phillis said nothing. She kept her head bent down over her work;
but I don't think she put a stitch in, while I was reading the
letter. I wondered if she understood what nosegay was meant; but
I could not tell. When next she lifted up her face, there were
two spots of brilliant colour on the cheeks that had been so pale
before. After I had spent an hour or two there, I was bound to
return back to Hornby. I told them I did not know when I could
come again, as we--by which I mean the company--had undertaken
the Hensleydale line; that branch for which poor Holdsworth was
surveying when he caught his fever.
'But you'll have a holiday at Christmas,' said my cousin. 'Surely
they'll not be such heathens as to work you then?'
'Perhaps the lad will be going home,' said the minister, as if to
mitigate his wife's urgency; but for all that, I believe he
wanted me to come. Phillis fixed her eyes on me with a wistful
expression, hard to resist. But, indeed, I had no thought of
resisting. Under my new master I had no hope of a holiday long
enough to enable me to go to Birmingham and see my parents with
any comfort; and nothing could be pleasanter to me than to find
myself at home at my cousins' for a day or two, then. So it was
fixed that we were to meet in Hornby Chapel on Christmas Day, and
that I was to accompany them home after service, and if possible
to stay over the next day.
I was not able to get to chapel till late on the appointed day,
and so I took a seat near the door in considerable shame,
although it really was not my fault. When the service was ended,
I went and stood in the porch to await the coming out of my
cousins. Some worthy people belonging to the congregation
clustered into a group just where I stood, and exchanged the good
wishes of the season. It had just begun to snow, and this
occasioned a little delay, and they fell into further
conversation. I was not attending to what was not meant for me to
hear, till I caught the name of Phillis Holman. And then I
listened; where was the harm?
'I never saw any one so changed!'
'I asked Mrs Holman,' quoth another, '"Is Phillis well?" and she
just said she had been having a cold which had pulled her down;
she did not seem to think anything of it.'
'They had best take care of her,' said one of the oldest of the
good ladies; 'Phillis comes of a family as is not long-lived. Her
mother's sister, Lydia Green, her own aunt as was, died of a
decline just when she was about this lass's age.'
This ill-omened talk was broken in upon by the coming out of the
minister, his wife and daughter, and the consequent interchange
of Christmas compliments. I had had a shock, and felt
heavy-hearted and anxious, and hardly up to making the
appropriate replies to the kind greetings of my relations. I
looked askance at Phillis. She had certainly grown taller and
slighter, and was thinner; but there was a flush of colour on her
face which deceived me for a time, and made me think she was
looking as well as ever. I only saw her paleness after we had
returned to the farm, and she had subsided into silence and
quiet. Her grey eyes looked hollow and sad; her complexion was of
a dead white. But she went about just as usual; at least, just as
she had done the last time I was there, and seemed to have no
ailment; and I was inclined to think that my cousin was right
when she had answered the inquiries of the good-natured gossips,
and told them that Phillis was suffering from the consequences of
a bad cold, nothing more. I have said that I was to stay over the
next day; a great deal of snow had come down, but not all, they
said, though the ground was covered deep with the white fall. The
minister was anxiously housing his cattle, and preparing all
things for a long continuance of the same kind of weather. The
men were chopping wood, sending wheat to the mill to be ground
before the road should become impassable for a cart and horse. My
cousin and Phillis had gone up-stairs to the apple-room to cover
up the fruit from the frost. I had been out the greater part of
the morning, and came in about an hour before dinner. To my
surprise, knowing how she had planned to be engaged, I found
Phillis sitting at the dresser, resting her head on her two hands
and reading, or seeming to read. She did not look up when I came
in, but murmured something about her mother having sent her down
out of the cold. It flashed across me that she was crying, but I
put it down to some little spirt of temper; I might have known
better than to suspect the gentle, serene Phillis of crossness,
poor girl; I stooped down, and began to stir and build up the
fire, which appeared to have been neglected. While my head was
down I heard a noise which made me pause and listen--a sob, an
unmistakable, irrepressible sob. I started up.
'Phillis!' I cried, going towards her, with my hand out, to take
hers for sympathy with her sorrow, whatever it was. But she was
too quick for me, she held her hand out of my grasp, for fear of
my detaining her; as she quickly passed out of the house, she
said,--
'Don't, Paul! I cannot bear it!' and passed me, still sobbing,
and went out into the keen, open air.
I stood still and wondered. What could have come to Phillis? The
most perfect harmony prevailed in the family, and Phillis
especially, good and gentle as she was, was so beloved that if
they had found out that her finger ached, it would have cast a
shadow over their hearts. Had I done anything to vex her? No: she
was crying before I came in. I went to look at her book--one of
those unintelligible Italian books. I could make neither head nor
tail of it. I saw some pencil-notes on the margin, in
Holdsworth's handwriting.
Could that be it? Could that be the cause of her white looks, her
weary eyes, her wasted figure, her struggling sobs? This idea
came upon me like a flash of lightning on a dark night, making
all things so clear we cannot forget them afterwards when the
gloomy obscurity returns. I was still standing with the book in
my hand when I heard cousin Holman's footsteps on the stairs, and
as I did not wish to speak to her just then, I followed Phillis's
example, and rushed out of the house. The snow was lying on the
ground; I could track her feet by the marks they had made; I
could see where Rover had joined her. I followed on till I came
to a great stack of wood in the orchard--it was built up against
the back wall of the outbuildings,--and I recollected then how
Phillis had told me, that first day when we strolled about
together, that underneath this stack had been her hermitage, her
sanctuary, when she was a child; how she used to bring her book
to study there, or her work, when she was not wanted in the
house; and she had now evidently gone back to this quiet retreat
of her childhood, forgetful of the clue given me by her footmarks
on the new-fallen snow. The stack was built up very high; but
through the interstices of the sticks I could see her figure,
although I did not all at once perceive how I could get to her.
She was sitting on a log of wood, Rover by her. She had laid her
cheek on Rover's head, and had her arm round his neck, partly for
a pillow, partly from an instinctive craving for warmth on that
bitter cold day. She was making a low moan, like an animal in
pain, or perhaps more like the sobbing of the wind. Rover, highly
flattered by her caress, and also, perhaps, touched by sympathy,
was flapping his heavy tail against the ground, but not otherwise
moving a hair, until he heard my approach with his quick erected
ears. Then, with a short, abrupt bark of distrust, he sprang up
as if to leave his mistress. Both he and I were immovably still
for a moment. I was not sure if what I longed to do was wise: and
yet I could not bear to see the sweet serenity of my dear
cousin's life so disturbed by a suffering which I thought I could
assuage. But Rover's ears were sharper than my breathing was
noiseless: he heard me, and sprang out from under Phillis's
restraining hand.
'Oh, Rover, don't you leave me, too,' she plained out.
'Phillis!' said I, seeing by Rover's exit that the entrance to
where she sate was to be found on the other side of the stack.
'Phillis, come out! You have got a cold already; and it is not
fit for you to sit there on such a day as this. You know how
displeased and anxious it would make them all.'
She sighed, but obeyed; stooping a little, she came out, and
stood upright, opposite to me in the lonely, leafless orchard.
Her face looked so meek and so sad that I felt as if I ought to
beg her pardon for my necessarily authoritative words.
'Sometimes I feel the house so close,' she said; 'and I used to
sit under the wood-stack when I was a child. It was very kind of
you, but there was no need to come after me. I don't catch cold
easily.'
'Come with me into this cow-house, Phillis. I have got something
to say to you; and I can't stand this cold, if you can.
I think she would have fain run away again; but her fit of energy
was all spent. She followed me unwillingly enough that I could
see. The place to which I took her was full of the fragrant
breath of the cows, and was a little warmer than the outer air. I
put her inside, and stood myself in the doorway, thinking how I
could best begin. At last I plunged into it.
'I must see that you don't get cold for more reasons than one; if
you are ill, Holdsworth will be so anxious and miserable out
there' (by which I meant Canada)--
She shot one penetrating look at me, and then turned her face
away with a slightly impatient movement. If she could have run
away then she would, but I held the means of exit in my own
power. 'In for a penny, in for a pound,' thought I, and I went on
rapidly, anyhow.
'He talked so much about you, just before he left--that night
after he had been here, you know--and you had given him those
flowers.' She put her hands up to hide her face, but she was
listening now--listening with all her ears. 'He had never spoken
much about you before, but the sudden going away unlocked his
heart, and he told me how he loved you, and how he hoped on his
return that you might be his wife.'
'Don't,' said she, almost gasping out the word, which she had
tried once or twice before to speak; but her voice had been
choked. Now she put her hand backwards; she had quite turned away
from me, and felt for mine. She gave it a soft lingering
pressure; and then she put her arms down on the wooden division,
and laid her head on it, and cried quiet tears. I did not
understand her at once, and feared lest I had mistaken the whole
case, and only annoyed her. I went up to her. 'Oh, Phillis! I am
so sorry--I thought you would, perhaps, have cared to hear it; he
did talk so feelingly, as if he did love you so much, and somehow
I thought it would give you pleasure.'
She lifted up her head and looked at me. Such a look! Her eyes,
glittering with tears as they were, expressed an almost heavenly
happiness; her tender mouth was curved with rapture--her colour
vivid and blushing; but as if she was afraid her face expressed
too much, more than the thankfulness to me she was essaying to
speak, she hid it again almost immediately. So it was all right
then, and my conjecture was well-founded! I tried to remember
something more to tell her of what he had said, but again she
stopped me.
'Don't,' she said. She still kept her face covered and hidden. In
half a minute she added, in a very low voice, 'Please, Paul, I
think I would rather not hear any more I don't mean but what I
have--but what I am very much obliged--Only--only, I think I
would rather hear the rest from himself when he comes back.'
And then she cried a little more, in quite a different way. I did
not say any more, I waited for her. By-and-by she turned towards
me--not meeting my eyes, however; and putting her hand in mine
just as if we were two children, she said,--
'We had best go back now--I don't look as if I had been crying,
do I?'
'You look as if you had a bad cold,' was all the answer I made.
'Oh! but I am quite well, only cold; and a good run will warm me.
Come along, Paul.'
So we ran, hand in hand, till, just as we were on the threshold
of the house, she stopped,--
'Paul, please, we won't speak about that again.' _