CHAPTER XXXV
THINGS UNUTTERABLE
After Philip had passed out of the room, Sylvia lay perfectly still,from very exhaustion. Her mother slept on, happily unconscious ofall the turmoil that had taken place; yes, happily, though the heavysleep was to end in death. But of this her daughter knew nothing,imagining that it was refreshing slumber, instead of an ebbing oflife. Both mother and daughter lay motionless till Phoebe enteredthe room to tell Sylvia that dinner was on the table.
Then Sylvia sate up, and put back her hair, bewildered and uncertainas to what was to be done next; how she should meet the husband towhom she had discarded all allegiance, repudiated the solemn promiseof love and obedience which she had vowed.
Phoebe came into the room, with natural interest in the invalid,scarcely older than herself.
'How is t' old lady?' asked she, in a low voice.
Sylvia turned her head round to look; her mother had never moved,but was breathing in a loud uncomfortable manner, that made herstoop over her to see the averted face more nearly.
'Phoebe!' she cried, 'come here! She looks strange and odd; her eyesare open, but don't see me. Phoebe! Phoebe!'
'Sure enough, she's in a bad way!' said Phoebe, climbing stiffly onto the bed to have a nearer view. 'Hold her head a little up t' easeher breathin' while I go for master; he'll be for sendin' for t'doctor, I'll be bound.'
Sylvia took her mother's head and laid it fondly on her breast,speaking to her and trying to rouse her; but it was of no avail: thehard, stertorous breathing grew worse and worse.
Sylvia cried out for help; Nancy came, the baby in her arms. Theyhad been in several times before that morning; and the child camesmiling and crowing at its mother, who was supporting her own dyingparent.
'Oh, Nancy!' said Sylvia; 'what is the matter with mother? yo' cansee her face; tell me quick!'
Nancy set the baby on the bed for all reply, and ran out of theroom, crying out,
'Master! master! Come quick! T' old missus is a-dying!'
This appeared to be no news to Sylvia, and yet the words came on herwith a great shock, but for all that she could not cry; she wassurprised herself at her own deadness of feeling.
Her baby crawled to her, and she had to hold and guard both hermother and her child. It seemed a long, long time before any onecame, and then she heard muffled voices, and a heavy tramp: it wasPhoebe leading the doctor upstairs, and Nancy creeping in behind tohear his opinion.
He did not ask many questions, and Phoebe replied more frequently tohis inquiries than did Sylvia, who looked into his face with ablank, tearless, speechless despair, that gave him more pain thanthe sight of her dying mother.
The long decay of Mrs. Robson's faculties and health, of which he waswell aware, had in a certain manner prepared him for some suchsudden termination of the life whose duration was hardly desirable,although he gave several directions as to her treatment; but thewhite, pinched face, the great dilated eye, the slow comprehensionof the younger woman, struck him with alarm; and he went on askingfor various particulars, more with a view of rousing Sylvia, if evenit were to tears, than for any other purpose that the informationthus obtained could answer.
'You had best have pillows propped up behind her--it will not befor long; she does not know that you are holding her, and it is onlytiring you to no purpose!'
Sylvia's terrible stare continued: he put his advice into action,and gently tried to loosen her clasp, and tender hold. This sheresisted; laying her cheek against her poor mother's unconsciousface.
'Where is Hepburn?' said he. 'He ought to be here!'
Phoebe looked at Nancy, Nancy at Phoebe. It was the latter whoreplied,
'He's neither i' t' house nor i' t' shop. A seed him go past t'kitchen window better nor an hour ago; but neither William Coulsonor Hester Rose knows where he's gone to.
Dr Morgan's lips were puckered up into a whistle, but he made nosound.
'Give me baby!' he said, suddenly. Nancy had taken her up off thebed where she had been sitting, encircled by her mother's arm. Thenursemaid gave her to the doctor. He watched the mother's eye, itfollowed her child, and he was rejoiced. He gave a little pinch tothe baby's soft flesh, and she cried out piteously; again the sameaction, the same result. Sylvia laid her mother down, and stretchedout her arms for her child, hushing it, and moaning over it.
'So far so good!' said Dr Morgan to himself. 'But where is thehusband? He ought to be here.' He went down-stairs to make inquiryfor Philip; that poor young creature, about whose health he hadnever felt thoroughly satisfied since the fever after herconfinement, was in an anxious condition, and with an inevitableshock awaiting her. Her husband ought to be with her, and supportingher to bear it.
Dr Morgan went into the shop. Hester alone was there. Coulson hadgone to his comfortable dinner at his well-ordered house, with hiscommon-place wife. If he had felt anxious about Philip's looks andstrange disappearance, he had also managed to account for them insome indifferent way.
Hester was alone with the shop-boy; few people came in during theuniversal Monkshaven dinner-hour. She was resting her head on herhand, and puzzled and distressed about many things--all that wasimplied by the proceedings of the evening before between Philip andSylvia; and that was confirmed by Philip's miserable looks andstrange abstracted ways to-day. Oh! how easy Hester would have foundit to make him happy! not merely how easy, but what happiness itwould have been to her to merge her every wish into the one greatobject of fulfiling his will. To her, an on-looker, the course ofmarried life, which should lead to perfect happiness, seemed toplain! Alas! it is often so! and the resisting forces which make allsuch harmony and delight impossible are not recognized by thebystanders, hardly by the actors. But if these resisting forces areonly superficial, or constitutional, they are but the necessarydiscipline here, and do not radically affect the love which willmake all things right in heaven.
Some glimmering of this latter comforting truth shed its light onHester's troubled thoughts from time to time. But again, how easywould it have been to her to tread the maze that led to Philip'shappiness; and how difficult it seemed to the wife he had chosen!
She was aroused by Dr Morgan's voice.
'So both Coulson and Hepburn have left the shop to your care,Hester. I want Hepburn, though; his wife is in a very anxious state.Where is he? can you tell me?'
'Sylvia in an anxious state! I've not seen her to-day, but lastnight she looked as well as could be.'
'Ay, ay; but many a thing happens in four-and-twenty hours. Hermother is dying, may be dead by this time; and her husband should bethere with her. Can't you send for him?'
'I don't know where he is,' said Hester. 'He went off from here allon a sudden, when there was all the market-folks in t' shop; Ithought he'd maybe gone to John Foster's about th' money, for theywas paying a deal in. I'll send there and inquire.'
No! the messenger brought back word that he had not been seen attheir bank all morning. Further inquiries were made by the anxiousHester, by the doctor, by Coulson; all they could learn was thatPhoebe had seen him pass the kitchen window about eleven o'clock,when she was peeling the potatoes for dinner; and two lads playingon the quay-side thought they had seen him among a group of sailors;but these latter, as far as they could be identified, had noknowledge of his appearance among them.
Before night the whole town was excited about his disappearance.Before night Bell Robson had gone to her long home. And Sylvia stilllay quiet and tearless, apparently more unmoved than any othercreature by the events of the day, and the strange vanishing of herhusband.
The only thing she seemed to care for was her baby; she held ittight in her arms, and Dr Morgan bade them leave it there, its touchmight draw the desired tears into her weary, sleepless eyes, andcharm the aching pain out of them.
They were afraid lest she should inquire for her husband, whosenon-appearance at such a time of sorrow to his wife must (theythought) seem strange to her. And night drew on while they were allin this s
tate. She had gone back to her own room without a word whenthey had desired her to do so; caressing her child in her arms, andsitting down on the first chair she came to, with a heavy sigh, asif even this slight bodily exertion had been too much for her. Theysaw her eyes turn towards the door every time it was opened, andthey thought it was with anxious expectation of one who could not befound, though many were seeking for him in all probable places.
When night came some one had to tell her of her husband'sdisappearance; and Dr Morgan was the person who undertook this.
He came into her room about nine o'clock; her baby was sleeping inher arms; she herself pale as death, still silent and tearless,though strangely watchful of gestures and sounds, and probablycognizant of more than they imagined.
'Well, Mrs. Hepburn,' said he, as cheerfully as he could, 'I shouldadvise your going to bed early; for I fancy your husband won't comehome to-night. Some journey or other, that perhaps Coulson canexplain better than I can, will most likely keep him away tillto-morrow. It's very unfortunate that he should be away at such asad time as this, as I'm sure he'll feel when he returns; but wemust make the best of it.'
He watched her to see the effect of his words.
She sighed, that was all. He still remained a little while. Shelifted her head up a little and asked,
'How long do yo' think she was unconscious, doctor? Could she hearthings, think yo', afore she fell into that strange kind o'slumber?'
'I cannot tell,' said he, shaking his head. 'Was she breathing inthat hard snoring kind of way when you left her this morning?'
'Yes, I think so; I cannot tell, so much has happened.'
'When you came back to her, after your breakfast, I think you saidshe was in much the same position?'
'Yes, and yet I may be telling yo' lies; if I could but think: butit's my head as is aching so; doctor, I wish yo'd go, for I needbeing alone, I'm so mazed.'
'Good-night, then, for you're a wise woman, I see, and mean to go tobed, and have a good night with baby there.'
But he went down to Phoebe, and told her to go in from time to time,and see how her mistress was.
He found Hester Rose and the old servant together; both had beencrying, both were evidently in great trouble about the death and themystery of the day.
Hester asked if she might go up and see Sylvia, and the doctor gavehis leave, talking meanwhile with Phoebe over the kitchen fire.Hester came down again without seeing Sylvia. The door of the roomwas bolted, and everything quiet inside.
'Does she know where her husband is, think you?' asked the doctor atthis account of Hester's. 'She's not anxious about him at any rate:or else the shock of her mother's death has been too much for her.We must hope for some change in the morning; a good fit of crying,or a fidget about her husband, would be more natural. Good-night toyou both,' and off he went.
Phoebe and Hester avoided looking at each other at these words. Bothwere conscious of the probability of something having gone seriouslywrong between the husband and wife. Hester had the recollection ofthe previous night, Phoebe the untasted breakfast of to-day to goupon.
She spoke first.
'A just wish he'd come home to still folks' tongues. It need niverha' been known if t' old lady hadn't died this day of all others.It's such a thing for t' shop t' have one o' t' partners missin',an' no one for t' know what's comed on him. It niver happened i'Fosters' days, that's a' I know.'
'He'll maybe come back yet,' said Hester. 'It's not so very late.'
'It were market day, and a',' continued Phoebe, 'just as ifiverything mun go wrong together; an' a' t' country customers'll goback wi' fine tale i' their mouths, as Measter Hepburn was strayedan' missin' just like a beast o' some kind.'
'Hark! isn't that a step?' said Hester suddenly, as a footfallsounded in the now quiet street; but it passed the door, and thehope that had arisen on its approach fell as the sound died away.
'He'll noane come to-night,' said Phoebe, who had been as eager alistener as Hester, however. 'Thou'd best go thy ways home; a shallstay up, for it's not seemly for us a' t' go to our beds, an' acorpse in t' house; an' Nancy, as might ha' watched, is gone to herbed this hour past, like a lazy boots as she is. A can hear, too, ift' measter does come home; tho' a'll be bound he wunnot; choosewheere he is, he'll be i' bed by now, for it's well on to eleven.I'll let thee out by t' shop-door, and stand by it till thou's closeat home, for it's ill for a young woman to be i' t' street so late.'
So she held the door open, and shaded the candle from the flickeringouter air, while Hester went to her home with a heavy heart.
Heavily and hopelessly did they all meet in the morning. No news ofPhilip, no change in Sylvia; an unceasing flow of angling andconjecture and gossip radiating from the shop into the town.
Hester could have entreated Coulson on her knees to cease fromrepeating the details of a story of which every word touched on araw place in her sensitive heart; moreover, when they talkedtogether so eagerly, she could not hear the coming footsteps on thepavement without.
Once some one hit very near the truth in a chance remark.
'It seems strange,' she said, 'how as one man turns up, another justdisappears. Why, it were but upo' Tuesday as Kinraid come back, asall his own folk had thought to be dead; and next day here's MeasterHepburn as is gone no one knows wheere!'
'That's t' way i' this world,' replied Coulson, a littlesententiously. 'This life is full o' changes o' one kind or another;them that's dead is alive; and as for poor Philip, though he wasalive, he looked fitter to be dead when he came into t' shop o'Wednesday morning.'
'And how does she take it?' nodding to where Sylvia was supposed tobe.
'Oh! she's not herself, so to say. She were just stunned by findingher mother was dying in her very arms when she thought as she wereonly sleeping; yet she's never been able to cry a drop; so that t'sorrow's gone inwards on her brain, and from all I can hear, shedoesn't rightly understand as her husband is missing. T' doctor saysif she could but cry, she'd come to a juster comprehension ofthings.'
'And what do John and Jeremiah Foster say to it all?'
'They're down here many a time in t' day to ask if he's come back,or how she is; for they made a deal on 'em both. They're going t'attend t' funeral to-morrow, and have given orders as t' shop is tobe shut up in t' morning.'
To the surprise of every one, Sylvia, who had never left her roomsince the night of her mother's death, and was supposed to be almostunconscious of all that was going on in the house, declared herintention of following her mother to the grave. No one could do morethan remonstrate: no one had sufficient authority to interfere withher. Dr Morgan even thought that she might possibly be roused totears by the occasion; only he begged Hester to go with her, thatshe might have the solace of some woman's company.
She went through the greater part of the ceremony in the same hard,unmoved manner in which she had received everything for days past.
But on looking up once, as they formed round the open grave, she sawKester, in his Sunday clothes, with a bit of new crape round hishat, crying as if his heart would break over the coffin of his good,kind mistress.
His evident distress, the unexpected sight, suddenly loosed thefountain of Sylvia's tears, and her sobs grew so terrible thatHester feared she would not be able to remain until the end of thefuneral. But she struggled hard to stay till the last, and then shemade an effort to go round by the place where Kester stood.
'Come and see me,' was all she could say for crying: and Kester onlynodded his head--he could not speak a word.