CHAPTER XVII
A PLEASANT EVENING
ON that same evening, whilst darkness lay on the fields, and in the dim Thackbusk meadow the two wandering figures met, there were bright fires and lights and a pleasant sense of welcome within the closed shutters of the Manor Farm. The grate in the old kitchen was aglow with flames, there was a bronze lamp on the table, and the candles on the piano were lit; and by the piano, in her black lace evening dress, sat Tina, and at intervals she played and sang. Her weird, sweet voice lent itself to this fitful music, which rose and fell like the moaning of the wind. For a while she had been silent, and so had also her companion; and then, suddenly, she broke once more into song.
‘O where are you going with your love-locks flowing,
On the west wind blowing along this valley track?’
‘The downhill path is easy, come with me an it please ye,
We shall escape the uphill by never turning back.’
‘What is that?’ asked Nat, startled by the sudden cessation from the dreams and reveries into which he had been plunged. He was sitting by the fire, with a sheet of cardboard on his knee, and some paper on which he was tracing patterns for her needle-work. Tina did not answer at once; she let her fingers wander idly amongst the chords of the music, which she was playing from memory.
‘How do you like it?’ she asked with a quick movement of her head, ‘though I need not ask, for I know it is not your style. The words are by Christina Rossetti, I found them in a book of poems; and a friend of mine made them into a song for me.’
‘I don’t like it much, miss,’ Nat answered truthfully, for his candour was not shackled by the restraints of society. He added, expressing the musical sentiment of his class, ‘I like summat that’s lively, when the day’s woork be done.’
‘This is lively,’ cried Tina, with perversity, and struck a few chords on the piano, weird and full; and then jerked her head back to see if he were listening, before she flung herself into the passion of her song. Her voice was not of unlimited strength, but in the old kitchen it sounded powerful.
‘Oh, what is that glides quickly where velvet flowers grow thickly,
Their scent comes rich and sickly?’ ‘A scaled and hooded worm.’
‘Oh, what’s that in the hollow, so pale I quake to follow?’
‘Oh, that’s a thin dead body, which waits the eternal term.’
‘Turn again, O my sweetest,—turn again, false and fleetest:
This beaten way thou beatest, I fear is hell’s own track.’
‘Nay, too steep for hill mounting; nay, too late for cost counting:
This downhill path is easy, but there’s no turning back.’
The dramatic force which appeared inherent in her gave indescribable expression to the song; she sang the words with a wild, strange enjoyment, as if she were rejoicing over some ruin she had caused. For the moment even Nat found himself to be excited to such a sensation of dread as he had never before experienced; but the little adventuress had only yielded to a passing impulse; in another instant she threw back her head and laughed.
‘And how do your patterns get on?’ she asked, coming closer to him, and bending over him so that her fingers touched his shoulder; ‘I am sure it is good of you to come evening after evening that I may teach you this stupid work which I cannot bear to do myself. Oh, my brother leaves me to be lonely every evening; if it were not for you I should go mad or die.’
She threw herself into a chair on the other side of the hearth, and with a tired movement clasped her hands above her head, an action which displayed the curves of her pretty arms, whose beauty did not require any ornament. Nat stole a glance at her, and then bent his head that he might go on industriously with his work—he liked to indulge himself with these fitful glances, and then feel the hot blood mounting in his face. A lad of seventeen, brought up with austerity, without much love for the amusements of his kind, and yet swayed by all the varying, confused emotions which accompany the perilous age when manhood dawns—it was scarcely possible that he should not be excited by evenings spent in such strange companionship. Where was the harm? he had told his mother that he was working for Miss Gillan, and she had not refused her permission or in any way hindered him—he was only confused because Miss Gillan was herself so strange, not like a lady, not like a village-girl, so that the natural awe which he would have experienced in her presence was mingled with a sensation of familiarity. He did not ask himself, as an older man might have done, for what reason she chose to unbend so much to him; he did not think of inquiring into the future to learn the result of such companionship. At the moment the wine of life is at our lips our future head-aches do not concern us much.
And yet, of late, as one half-waked from a dream, poor Nat had been possessed with an uneasy, haunted feeling, which scarcely, even now, amounted to compunction, but which still could render him dissatisfied. He was not indeed able to gauge the skill of the questions by which Tina drew from him the information she required; but it had now become often possible for him to wish that he had not said so much to her. For he had told her about his home and his mother, his sister’s beauty and the lovers it had won; about the Squire too, and his friendship with Mr Lee, and the correspondence Mr Lee maintained with him. It was on this last subject that Miss Gillan was chiefly interested; and Nat had some facility for giving her information, for of late he had been much employed by the Squire, and had continually brought him letters from the town. The questions of Miss Gillan were so simple, and appeared so natural, that for a long time the lad had replied to them carelessly; and it had not occurred to him that, as a servant, he had no right, even in small matters, to betray his master. That doubt, however, having once become aroused, would not allow him to be at peace again; for his mother had trained him to be fastidiously upright, and his present conduct was at variance with his training. He could tell himself indeed that he had done no harm, had revealed no secret that was worthy of the name; but still he was vexed, uneasy, unsatisfied, and at night tossed restlessly, wakeful and feverish. And now, this very evening, he had made fresh promises .... but then he would never make promises again....
He sat by the hearth, with his head bent over the patterns, the easy work which was all she required from him, in the spacious kitchen, warm, lighted, brilliant, which had not the dulness, the sadness of his home. For to-night he would be happy, he would enjoy himself, in Miss Tina’s room, and in her company; he would bask in his love of dreams and reveries, in the sense of expanding faculties and powers. For he was growing older; he was himself aware of it; in the past few weeks he had known new experiences.
‘Ah! ah! it is late,’ cried Tina, as she sprang from her seat with the lightness of movement that belonged to her. ‘Your mother will be angry; you must excuse yourself; you must say that I gave you a great deal of work to do. And you will remember what you must do to-morrow, you must just look in here as you come from the town .... I must have a sight of my sweet uncle’s hand-writing; for, although I am his niece, I have not often seen it. I won’t ever again ask you to do such a thing for me; I don’t want you to get into a scrape, you know .... only just this once .... because I have set my heart upon it .... because it is an occasion that will never come again. He is writing to the Squire on business, but he will speak of my brother’s visit, and I shall know by the look of the envelope the mood in which he wrote. Oh, Nat, you cannot tell what all this is to me; it is more than a foolish fear, it is my life.’
The ready tears sprang to her dark, shining eyes, which she veiled with one hand whilst she held out the other. He had never seen her in such a mood before, and the sight of her trouble touched him unspeakably. And then, as she took the hand which he scarcely dared to raise, she whispered that he was her friend, her only friend. The words lingered like music in his ears as he went out from the Farm into the dark village-streets.
The lights of the Farm were still before his eyes when he paused for an instant on the threshold of his home, listening for the voices of Annie and his mother, hoping that he would not be obliged to speak to them. With the remembrance of a pleasant evening, of Tina’s murmured words, he paused for an instant, then turned the handle, and went in. And then .... he stood still as his sister had done once, but with a more startled dismay, a deeper dread.
The cottage was silent, a solitary candle was burning; his mother sat by it with her head upon her hands, a scrap of writing before her on the table, her features pallid, her eyes fixed, scared, and dry. The scrap of writing gave sufficient information; his sister was gone, she had left the cottage that night—whilst he had been occupied with his enjoyment she had escaped in the darkness from her home.