CHAPTER XX.
THE COTTAGE ON THE FELLS.
THERE was a sound of movement within the house, but no light visible as they stood at the door. Then a window was cautiously opened, and a voice called out into the darkness, “Is that you, my lad?” Geoff felt more and more the little thrill of alarm which was quite instinctive, and meant nothing except excited fancy; such precautions looked unlike the ordinary ease and freedom of a peasant’s house. A minute after the door was opened, and ’Lizabeth Bampfylde made her appearance. She had her red handkerchief as usual tied over her white cap, and the flash of this piece of colour and of the old woman’s brilliant eyes were the first things which warmed the gloom, the blackness and whiteness and mystic midnight atmosphere. She made an old-fashioned curtsey, with a certain dignity in it, when she saw Geoff, and her face, which had been somewhat eager in expression, paled and saddened instantly. The young man saw her arms come together with a gesture of pain, though the candle she held prevented the natural clasp of the hands. She was not glad to see him, though she had sent for him. This troubled Geoff, whom from his childhood most people had been pleased to see. “You’ve come, then, my young lord?” she said, with a half-suppressed groan.
“Indeed, I thought you wanted me to come,” he said, unreasonably annoyed by this absence of welcome; “you sent for me.”
“You thought the lad would be daunted,” said Wild Bampfylde, “and I told you he would not be daunted if he had any metal in him. So now you’re at the end of all your devices. Come in and welcome, my young lord. I’m glad of it, for one.”
Saying this, the vagrant disappeared into the gloom of the interior, where his step was audible moving about, and was presently followed by the striking of a light, which revealed, through an open door, the old-fashioned cottage kitchen, so far in advance of other moorland cottages of the same kind, that it had a little square entrance from the door, which did not open direct into the family living-room. This rude little ante-room had even a kind of rude decoration, dimly apparent by the light of ’Lizabeth’s candle. A couple of old guns hung on one wall, another boasted a deer’s head with fine antlers. Once upon a time it had evidently been prized and cared for. The open door of the room into which Bampfylde had gone showed the ordinary cottage dresser with its gleaming plates (a decoration which in these days has mounted from the kitchen to the drawing-room), deal table, and old-fashioned settle, lighted dimly by a small lamp on the mantelpiece, and the smouldering red of the fire. ’Lizabeth closed the door slowly, and with trembling hands, which trembled still more when Geoff attempted to help her. “No, no; go in, go in, my young gentleman. Let me be. It’s me to serve the like of you, not the like of you to open or shut my door for me. Ah, these are the ways that make you differ from common folk!” she said, as the young man stood back to let her pass. “My son leaves me to do whatever’s to be done, and goes in before me, and calls me to serve him; but the like of you—. It was that, and not his name or his money, that took my Lily’s heart.”
Geoff followed her into the kitchen. It was low and large, with a small deep-set window at each corner, as is usual in such cottages. Before the fire was spread a large rug of home manufacture, made of scraps of coloured cloth, arranged in an indistinct pattern upon a black background, and Bampfylde was occupying himself busily, putting forward a large high easy-chair in front of the fire, and breaking the “gathered” coals to give at once heat and light. “Sit you down there,” he said, thrusting Geoff into it almost with violence, “you’re little used to midnight strolling. Me, it’s meat and drink to me to be free and aneath the stars. Let her be, let her be. She’s not like one of your ladies. Her own way, that’s all the like of her can ever get to please them—and she’s gotten that,” he said, giving another vigorous poke to the fire. Up here among the fells the fire was pleasant, though it was the middle of August: and Geoff’s young frame was sufficiently unused to such long trudges to make him glad of the rest. He sat down and looked round him with a grateful sense of the warmth and repose. A north-country cottage was no strange place to young Lord Stanton, and all the tremour of the adventure had passed from him at the sight of the light and the homely, kindly interior. No harm could possibly happen in so familiar an atmosphere, and in such a natural place. Meantime old ’Lizabeth, with a thrill of agitation in her movements which was very apparent, busied herself in laying the table, putting down a clean tablecloth, and placing bread, cheese, and milk upon it. “I have wine, if you like wine better,” she said. “He will get it, but he takes none himself—nothing, poor lad, nothing. He’s a good son and a good lad—many a time I’ve thanked God that He’s left me such a lad to be the comfort of my old age.”
Wild Bampfylde gave a laugh which was harsh and broken. “You were not always so thankful,” he said, producing out of some unseen corner a black bottle; “but the milk is better of its kind, being natural, than the wine.”
“Hush, lad; milk is little to the like of him; but that’s good, for I have it here for—a sick person. Take something, take something, young gentleman. You can trust them that have broken bread in your presence, and sat at your table. Well, if you will have the milk, though it costs but little, it’s good too; I would not give my brown cow for ne’er a one in the dales; and eat a bit of the wheaten bread,—it’s baker’s bread, like what you eat at your own grand house. I would not be so mean as to set you down, a gentleman like you, to what’s good and good enough for us. The griddle-cake! no, but you’ll not eat that, my young lord, not that; it’s o’er homely for the like of you.”
“I am not hungry,” said Geoff, “and I came here, you know, not to eat and drink, but to hear something you had to tell me, Mrs. Bampfylde—”
“My name is ’Lizabeth—nobody says mistress to me.”
“Well; but you have something to tell me. I left home without any explanation, and I wish to get back soon, that they—that my mother,” said Geoff, half-ashamed, yet too proud to omit the apparently (he thought) childish excuse, since it was true, “may not be uneasy.”
“Your mother? forgive me that did not mind your mother! Oh, you’re a good lad; you’re worthy a woman’s trust that thinks of your mother, and dares to say it! Ay, ay—there’s plenty to tell; if I can make up my mind to it—if I can make up my mind!”
“Was not your mind made up then,” said Geoff with some impatience, “when in this way, in the night, you sent for me?”
“Oh lad!” cried ’Lizabeth, wringing her hands. “How was I to know you would come, the like of you to the like of me? I put it on Providence that has been often contrairy—oh, aye contrairy, to mine and me. I shouldn’t have tempted God. I said to myself, if he comes it will be the hand of Heaven. But who was to think you would come? You a lord, and a fine young gentleman, and me a poor old woman, old as your grandmother. I thought my heart would have sunk to my shoes when I saw he had come after a’!”
“I told you he would come,” said Bampfylde, who stood leaning against the mantelpiece. He had taken his bread and cheese from the table, and was eating it where he stood.
“Of course I would come,” said Geoff. “I could not suppose you would send for me for nothing. I knew it must be something important. Tell me now, for here I am.”
’Lizabeth sat down, dropping into a wooden arm-chair at the end of the table with a kind of despair, and throwing her apron over her head, fell a-crying feebly. “What am I to do? what am I to do?” she said, sobbing. “I have tempted Providence—Oh, but I forgot what was written, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’”
For a minute or two neither of the men spoke, and the sounds of her distress were all that was audible. Once or twice, indeed, Geoff thought he heard a faint sound, like the echo of some low wail or moan, come through the silence. Not the moan itself, but an echo, a ghost of it. But his companions took no notice of this, and he thought he must be mistaken. Everything besides was still. The fire by this time had burned up, and now and then broke into a little flutter of flame; the clock went on ticking with that measured steady movement which ‘beats out the little lives of men;’ and the broken sobs grew lower. An impatience of the stillness began to take possession of Geoff, but what was he to do? He restrained himself with an effort.
“You should make a clean breast,” said Bampfylde, munching his bread and cheese as he spoke, with his eyes fixed on the fire, not looking at his mother. “Long since it would have been well to do it and an ease to your mind. I would make a clean breast now.”
“Oh, lad, a clean breast, a clean breast!” she said, rocking herself. “If it was only me it concerned—if it was only me!”
“If it was only you what would it matter?” said the vagrant, with a philosophy which sounded less harsh to the person addressed than to him who looked on. “You—you’re old, and you’ll die, and there would be an end of it; but them that suffer most have years and years before them, and if you die before you do justice—— ”
“Then you can tell, that have aye wanted to tell!” she cried with a hot outburst of indignation mingled with tears. Then she resumed that monotonous movement, rocking herself again and again, and calmed herself down. It is not so intolerable to a peasant to be told of his or her approaching end as it is to others. She was used to plain speech, and was it not reasonable what he said? “It’s all true, quite true. I’m old, and I cannot bide here for ever to watch him and think of him—and I might make a friend, the Lord grant it, and find one to stand by him—— ”
“You mean another, a second one,” said her son. He stood through all this side dialogue munching his bread and cheese without once glancing at her even, his shoulders high against the mantelpiece, his eyes cast down.
After a moment’s interval ’Lizabeth rose. She came forward moving feebly in her agitation to where Geoff sat. “My young lord, if I tell you that that I would rather die than tell—that that breaks my heart; you’ll mind that I am doing it to make amends to the dead and to the living—and—you’ll swear to me first to keep it secret? You’ll swear your Bible oath?—without that, not another word.”
“Swear!” said Geoff, in alarm.
“Just swear—you can do it as well, they tell me, in one place as another, in a private house or a justice court. I hope we have Bibles here—Bibles enough—if we but make a right use of them,” said the old woman, perplexed, mingling the formulas of common life with the necessities of an extraordinary and unrealized emergency. “Here is a Testament, that is what is taken to witness in the very court itself. You’ll lay your hand upon it, and you’ll kiss the book and swear. Where are you going to, young man?”
Geoff rose and pushed away the book she had placed before him. He was half indignant, half disappointed. “Swear!” he said, “do you know what I want this information for? Is it to lock it up in my mind, as you seem to have done? I want it for use. I want it to help a man who has been cruelly treated between you. I have no right to stand up for him,” said Geoff, his nostrils expanding, his cheeks flushing, “but I feel for him—and do you think I will consent to put my last chance away, and hear your story for no good? No indeed; if I am not to make use of it I will go back again and find out for myself—I don’t want to be told.”
The old woman, and it may be added her son also, stood and gazed upon the glowing eager countenance of the young man with a mingling of feelings which it would be impossible to describe. Admiration, surprise, and almost incredulity were in them. He had not opposed them hitherto, and it was almost impossible to believe that he would have the courage to oppose them so decidedly; but as he stood confronting them, young, simple, ingenuous, reasonable, they were both convinced of their error. Geoff would yield no more than the hill behind. His very simplicity and easiness made him invulnerable. Wild Bampfylde burst into that sudden broken laugh which is with some the only evidence of emotion. He came forward hastily and patted Geoff’s shoulder, “That’s right, my lad, that’s right,” he cried.
“You will not,” said old ’Lizabeth; “not swear?—and not hear me?—oh, but you’re bold—oh, but you’ve a stout heart to say that to me in my ain house! Then the Lord’s delivered me, and I’ll say nothing,” she said with a sudden cry of delight.
Her son came up and took her by the arm. “Look here,” he said, “it was me that brought him. I did not approve, but I did your bidding, as I’ve always done your bidding; but I’ve changed my mind if you’ve changed yours. Now that he is here, make no more fuss, but tell him; for, remember, I know everything as well as you do, and if you will not, I will. We have come too far to go back now. Tell him; or I will take him where he can see with his own eyes.”
“See! what will he see?” cried ’Lizabeth, with a flush of angry colour. “Do you threaten me, lad? He’ll see a poor afflicted creature; but that will tell him nothing.”
“Mother! are you aye the same? Still him, always him, whatever happens. What has there been that has not yielded to him? the rest of us, your children as well, and justice and honour and right and your own comfort, and the young Squire’s life. Oh, it’s been a bonnie business from first to last! And if you will not tell now, then there is no hope that I can see; and I will do it myself. I am not threatening; but what must be, must be. Mother, I’ll have to do it myself.”
When he first addressed her as mother, ’Lizabeth had started with a little cry. What might be the reason that made this mode of expression unusual it was impossible to say; but it affected the old woman as nothing had yet done. She looked up at him with a wondering, wistful inquiry in her face, as if to ask in what meaning he used the word—kindly or unkindly, taunting or loving? When he repeated the name she started up as if the sound stung her, and stood for a moment like one driven half out of herself by force of pressure. She looked wildly round her as if looking for some escape, then suddenly seized the lighted candle, which still burned on the table. “Then if it must be, let it be,” she said. “Oh, lad! it’s years and years since I’ve heard that name! you that would not, and him that could not, and her that was far away; was there ever a mother as sore punished?” But it would seem that this expression of feeling exhausted the more generous impulse, for she set down the light on the table again, and dropping into her seat, threw her apron over her head. “No, I canna do it; I canna do it. Let him die in quiet. It canna be long.”
The vagrant watched her with a keen scrutiny quite unlike his usual careless ways. “It’s not them as are a burden on the earth that dies,” he said. “You’ve said that long—let him die in peace; let him die in peace. Am I wishing him harm? There’s ne’er a one will hurt him. He’s safe enough. Whoever suffers, it will not be him.”
“Oh, lad, lad!” cried the mother, uncovering her face to look at him. At ’Lizabeth’s age there are no floods of tears possible. Her eyes were drawn together and full of moisture—that was all, She looked at him with a passion of reproach and pain. “Did you say suffer? What’s a’ the troubles that have been into this house to his affliction? My son, my son, my miserable lad! You that can come and go as you like, that have a mind free, that have your light heart—oh ay, you have a light heart, or how could you waste your days and your nights among beasts and wild things? How can the like of you judge the like of him?”
During this long discussion, to which he had no sort of clue, Geoff stood looking from one to another in a state of perplexity impossible to describe. It could not be John Musgrave they were talking of? Who could it be? Some one who was “afflicted,” yet who had been exempt from burdens which had fallen in his stead upon others. Young Lord Stanton, who had come here eager to hear all the story in which he was so much interested, anxious to discover everything, stood, his eyes growing larger, his lips dropping apart in sheer wonder, listening; and feeling all the time that these two peasants spoke a different language from himself, and one to which he had no clue. Just then, however, in the dead silence after ’Lizabeth had spoken, the faint sound like a muffled cry which he had heard before, broke in more loudly. It made Geoff start, who could not guess what it meant, and it roused his companions effectually, who did know. ’Lizabeth wrung her hands; she raised her head in an agony of listening. “He has got one of his ill turns,” she said. Bampfylde, too, abandoned his careless attitude by the mantelpiece, and stood up watchful, startled into readiness and preparation as for some emergency. But the cry was not repeated, and gradually the tension relaxed again. “It would be but an ill dream,” said ’Lizabeth, pressing a handkerchief to her wet eyes.
Geoff did not know what to do. He was in the midst of some family mystery, which might or might not relate to the other mystery which it was his object to clear up; and this intense atmosphere of anxiety awoke the young man’s ready sympathies. All his feelings had changed since he came into the cottage. He who had come a stranger, ready to extract what they could tell by any means, harsh or kind, and who did not know what harshness he might encounter or what danger he might himself run, had passed over entirely to their side. He was as safe as in his own house; he was as deeply interested as he would have been in a personal trouble. His voice faltered as he spoke. “I don’t know what it is that distresses you,” he said; “I don’t want to pry into your trouble; but if I can help you you know I will, and I will betray none of your secrets that you trust me with. I will say nothing more than is necessary to clear Musgrave—if Musgrave can be cleared.
“Musgrave! Musgrave!” cried old ’Lizabeth, impatiently; “it’s him you all think of, not my boy. And what has he lost, when all’s done? He got his way, and he got my Lily; never since then have I set eyes on her, and never will. I paid him the price of my Lily for what he did; and was that nothing? Musgrave! Speak no more o’ Musgrave to me!”
“Oh, mother,” said her son, with kindred impatience, as he walked towards her and seized her arm in sudden passion; “oh, ’Lizabeth Bampfylde! You do more than murder men, for you kill the pity in them! What’s all you have done compared to what John Musgrave has done? and me—am I nothing? Two—three of us! Lily, too, you’ve sacrificed Lily! And is it all to go on to another generation, and the wrong to last? I think you have a heart of stone—a heart of stone to them and to me!”
At this moment there was another louder cry, and mother and son started together with one impulse, forgetting their struggle. ’Lizabeth took up the candle from the table, and Bampfylde hastily went to a cupboard in the corner, from which he took out something. He made an imperative sign to Geoff to follow, as he hurried after his mother. They went through a narrow winding passage lighted only by the flickering of the candle which ’Lizabeth carried, and by what looked like a mass of something white breaking the blackness, but was in reality the moonlight streaming in through a small window. At the end of the passage was a steep stair, almost like a ladder. Already Geoff, hurrying after the mother and son, was prepared by the cries for what the revelation was likely to be; and he was scarcely surprised when, after careful reconnoitring by an opening in the door, defended by iron bars, they both entered hastily, though with precaution, leaving him outside. Geoff heard the struggle that ensued, the wild cries of the madman, the aggravation of frenzy which followed, when it was evident they had secured him. Neither mother nor son spoke, but went about their work with the precision of long use. Geoff had not the heart to look in through the opening which Bampfylde had left free. Why should he spy upon them? He could not tell what connection this prison chamber had with the story of John Musgrave, but there could be little doubt of the secret here inclosed. He did not know how long he waited outside, his young frame all thrilling with excitement and painful sympathy. How could he help them? was what the young man thought. It was against the law, he knew, to keep a lunatic thus in a private house, but Geoff thought only of the family, the mysterious burden upon their lives, the long misery of the sufferer. He was overawed, as youth naturally is, by contact with misery so hopeless and so terrible. After a long time Bampfylde came out, his dress torn and disordered, and great drops of moisture hanging on his forehead. “Have you seen him?” he asked in a whisper. He did not understand Geoff’s hesitation and delicacy, but with a certain impatience pointed him to the opening in the door, which was so high up that Geoff had to ascend two rough wooden steps placed there for the purpose, to look through. The room within was higher than could have been supposed from the height of the cottage; it was not ceiled, but showed the construction of the roof, and in a rude way it was padded here and there, evidently to prevent the inmate doing himself a mischief. The madman lay upon a mattress on the floor, so confined now that he could only lie there and pant and cry; his mother sat by him, motionless. Though his face was wild and distorted, and his eyes gleaming furiously out of its paleness, this unhappy creature had the same handsome features which distinguished the family. Young Geoff could scarcely restrain a shiver, not of fear, but of nervous excitement, as he looked at this miserable sight. Old ’Lizabeth sat confronting him, unconscious of the hurried look which was all Geoff could give. She was clasping her knees with her hands in one of those forced and rigid attitudes almost painful, which seem to give a kind of ease to pain—and sat with her head raised, and her strained eyes pitifully vacant, in that pause of half-unconsciousness in which all the senses are keen, yet the mind stilled with very excitement. “I cannot spy upon them,” said Geoff, in a whisper. “Is it safe to leave her there?”
“Quite safe; and at his maddest he never harmed her,” said Bampfylde, leading the way down-stairs. “That’s my brother,” he said, with bitterness, when they had reached the living-room again; “my gentleman brother! him that was to be our honour and glory. You see what it’s come to; but nothing will win her heart from him. If we should all perish, what of that? ’Lizabeth Bampfylde will aye have saved her son from shame. But come, come, sit down and eat a bit, my young lord. At your age the like of all this is bad for you.”
“For me—what does it matter about me?” cried Geoff; “you seem to have borne it for years.”
“You may say that: for years—and would for years more, if she had her way; but a man must eat and drink, if his heart be sore. Take a morsel of something and a drink to give you strength to go home.”
“I am very, very sorry for you,” said Geoff, “but—you will think it heartless to say so—I have learned nothing. There is some mystery, but I knew as much as that before.”
Bampfylde was moving about in the back-ground searching for something. He re-appeared as Geoff spoke with a bottle in his hand, and poured out for him a glass of dark-coloured wine. It was port, the wine most trusted in such humble houses. “Take this,” he said; “take it, it’s good, it will keep up your strength; and bide a moment till she comes. She will tell you herself—or if not I will tell you; but now you’ve seen all the mysteries of this house, she will have to yield, she will have to yield at the last.”
Geoff obeyed, being indeed very much exhausted and shaken by all that had happened. He swallowed the sweet, strong decoction of unknown elements, which Bampfylde called port wine, and believed in as a panacea, and tried to eat a morsel of the oat-cake. They heard the distant moans gradually die out, as the blueness of dawn stole in at the window. Bampfylde, whose tongue seemed to be loosed by this climax of excitement, began to talk; he told Geoff of the long watch of years which they had kept, how his mother and he relieved each other, and how they had hoped the patient was growing calmer, how he had mended and calmed down, sometimes for long intervals, but then grown worse again; and the means they had used to restrain him, and all the details of his state. When the ice was thus broken, it seemed a relief to talk of it. “He was to make all our fortunes,” Bampfylde said; “he was a gentleman—and he was a great scholar. All her pride was in him; and this is what it’s come to now.”
They had fallen into silence when ’Lizabeth came in. Their excitement had decreased, thanks to the conversation and the natural relief which comes after a crisis, but hers was still at its full height. She came in solemnly, and sat down amongst them, the blue light from the window making a paleness about her as she placed herself in front of it; though the lamp was still burning on the mantelshelf, and the fire kept up a ruddy variety of light. She seated herself in the big wooden arm-chair with a solemn countenance and fixed her eyes upon Geoff, who, moved beyond measure by pity and reverence, did not know what to think.
“He will have told you,” she said. “I would have died sooner, my young lord; and soon I’ll die—but, my boy first, I pray God. Ay, you’ve seen him now. That was him that was my pride; that was the hope I had in my life; that was him that killed young Lord Stanton and made John Musgrave an exile and a wanderer. Ay—you know it all now.”