CHAPTER V.—A NEW EDEN.
She was still standing at the door to which she had accompanied Mr Hadleigh, and was looking after him, when a kindly voice behind her said: ‘He does look a woeful man. I wonder if he has any real friends.’
Madge turned. Aunt Hessy was standing there, a pitying expression on her comely face, and she was wiping her hands in her apron. There was nothing in Mrs Crawshay’s manner or appearance to indicate her Quaker antecedents, except the frequent use of thee and thou—she did not always use that form of speech—and the quiet tone of all the colours of her dress. Yet, until her marriage she had been, like her father, a good Wesleyan; after her marriage she accompanied her husband to the church in which his family had kept their place for so many generations. To her simple faith it was the same whether she worshipped in church or chapel.
‘Why do you say that, aunt?’
‘Because he seems to be so much alone.’
‘Mr Hadleigh alone! What about all the people who visit the manor?’
‘Ay, they visit the manor,’ answered Aunt Hessy, with a slight shake of the head and a quiet smile.
That set Madge thinking. He did impress her as a solitary man, notwithstanding his family, his many visitors, his school treats, his flower-shows, and other signs of a busy and what ought to be a happy life. Then there was the strange thing that he should come to ask her assistance to enable him to come to terms with the harvesters.
‘I believe you are right, aunt. He is very much alone, and I suppose that was why he came to me to-day.’
‘What did he want?’ asked Dame Crawshay, with unusual quickness and an expression of anxiety Madge could not remember ever having seen on her face before. She did not understand it until long afterwards.
Having explained the object of Mr Hadleigh’s visit, as she understood it, she was surprised to see how much relieved her aunt looked. Knowing that that good woman had never had a secret in her life, and never made the least mystery about anything, she put the question direct: ‘Did you expect him to say anything else?’
‘I don’t know, Madge. He is a queer man, Mr Hadleigh, in a-many ways. He spoke to your uncle about this, and he would have nothing to do with it.’
‘And that is why they fell out at the market, I suppose.’
‘Where is Philip? He must take after his mother, for he is straightforward in everything.’
‘He is out in the garden. Shall I go for him?’
‘Nay. I want more peas, so we can find him on our way for them.’
Philip had not gone far. He had walked down to the duck-pond; but after that distant excursion, he kept near the little gate beside the dairy, glancing frequently at the house-door. He was dallying with the last hours of the bright morning of his love, and he grudged every moment that Madge was away from him. A few days hence he would be looking back to this one with longing eyes. How miserable he would be on board that ship! How he would hate the sound of the machinery, knowing that every stroke of the piston was taking him so much farther away from her. And then, as the waters widened and stretched into the sky, would not his heart sink, and would he not wish that he had never started on this weary journey?
In response to that lover-like question, he heard the echo of Madge’s voice in his brain: ‘It was your mother’s wish.’
This simple reminder was enough, for he cherished the sad memory of that sweet pale face, which smiled upon him hopefully a moment before it became calm in death.
He sprang away from these sorrowful reflections. Yes; he would look back longingly to this day when sea and sky shut out Willowmere and Madge from sight. But they would both be palpable to his mental vision; and he would look forward to that still brighter day of his return, his mission fulfilled, and nothing to do but marry Madge and live happy ever after. Ay, that should comfort him and make the present parting bearable.
Besides, who could say with what fortune he might come back? The uncle to whom he was going was rumoured to be the possessor of fabulous wealth, and although married he was childless. True, also, he was reported to be so eccentric that nobody could understand him, or form the slightest conception of how he would act under any given circumstances. But it was known that before he went abroad, his sister—Philip’s mother—had been the one creature in whom all his affection seemed to be concentrated. An inexplicable coldness appeared in his conduct towards her after her marriage. The reason had never been explained.
Shortly before her death, however, there had come a letter from him, which made her very happy. But she had burned the letter, by his instructions, without showing it to any one or revealing its contents. Evidently it was this letter which induced her to lay upon her son the charge of going to her brother Austin Shield, whenever he should be summoned. But the uncle held no correspondence with any one at Ringsford. That he was still alive, could be only surmised from vague reports and the fact that on every anniversary of Mrs Hadleigh’s birthday, with one exception, a fresh wreath of flowers was found on her grave—placed there, it was believed, by his orders. Then a few months ago, a letter had come to Philip, containing an invitation from his uncle, suggesting possible advantages, and inclosing a draft for expenses. So, being summoned, he was going; and whether the result should be good or ill fortune, his mother’s last command would be obeyed, and he would return with a clear conscience to marry Madge.
That thought kept him in good-humour throughout the weary ages which seemed to elapse before he saw Madge and her aunt approaching. He ran to meet them.
‘I thought you were never coming,’ was his exclamation.
‘Thou’lt be able to do without her for a longer time than this without troubling thyself, by-and-by,’ said Dame Crawshay with one of her pleasant smiles.
‘When that day comes, I will say you are a prophetess of evil,’ he retorted, laughing, but with an air of affectionate respect. That was the feeling with which she inspired everybody.
‘Nay, lad; but it need not be evil, for you may be apart, surely, doing good for each other.’
‘Yes; but not without wishing we were together.’
‘Wilt ever be wishing that?’
‘For ever and ever.’
He answered with burlesque solemnity outwardly; but Madge knew that he spoke from his heart, and in the full faith of his words. She gave him a quiet glance with those soft wistful eyes, and he was very happy.
They had reached a tall row of peas, at which Dame Crawshay had been already busy that morning, as a wooden chair placed beside it indicated. Here she seated herself, and began to pluck the peas, shelling them as she plucked; then dropping the pods into her lap and the peas into a basin. She performed the operation with mechanical regularity, which did not in any way interfere with conversation.
Madge, kneeling beside her, helped with nimble fingers; and Philip, hands clasped behind him, stood looking on admiringly. The sun was shining upon them; and, darting shafts of light through the surrounding trees, made bright spots amidst the moving shadows underneath. Everything seemed to be still and sleepy. The breeze was so light that there was only a gentle rustle of leaves, and through it was heard the occasional thud of an over-ripe apple or pear as it fell, and the drowsy hum of the bees.
Light, warmth, peace. ‘Ah,’ thought Philip, ‘if we could only go on this way always! If we could fix ourselves thus as in a photograph, what a blessed Eden this would be!’
‘Thou’dst find it dull soon, Philip, standing there looking at us shelling peas, if thou wert forced to do it,’ said Dame Crawshay, looking up at him with a curious smile.
‘That shows you cannot guess my thoughts. They were of quite a different nature, for I was wishing that there had been some fixing process in nature, so that there might never be any change in our present positions.’
Madge looked as if she had been thinking something very similar; but she went on silently shelling peas; and a sunbeam shooting through a gap in the green pea hedge, made a golden radiance on her face.
‘Eh, deary me, what love will do!’ exclaimed the dame, laughing, but shaking her head regretfully, as if sorry that she could not look at things in the same hopeful humour. ‘Other people have talked like that in the heyday of life. Some have found a little of their hope fulfilled; many have found none of it: all have found that they had to give up the thought of a great deal of what they expected. Some take their disappointment with wise content and make the best of things as they find them. They jog along as happily as mortals may, like Dick and me; a-many kick against the pricks and suffer sorely for it; but all have to give in sooner or later, and own that the world could not get along if everybody could arrange it to suit his own pleasure.’
How gently this good-natured philosopher brought them down from the clouds to what foolish enthusiasts call contemptuously ‘the common earth.’ Sensible people use the same phrase, but they use it respectfully, knowing that this ‘common earth’ may be made beautiful or ugly as their own actions instruct their vision.
To Philip it was quite true that most people sought something they could never attain; that many people fancied they had found the something they wanted, and discovered afterwards, to their sorrow, that they had not found the thing at all. But then, you see, it was an entirely different condition of affairs in his case. He had found what he wanted, and knew that there could be no mistake about it.
To Madge, her aunt’s wisdom appeared to be very cold and even wrong in some respects, considering the placid and happy experiences of her own life. She had her great faith in Philip—her dream of a life which should be made up of devotion to him under any circumstances of joy or sorrow, and she could not believe that it was possible that their experience should be as full of crosses as that of others. And yet there was a strange faintness at her heart, as if she were vaguely conscious that there were possibilities which neither she nor Philip could foresee or understand.
‘We shall be amongst the wise folk,’ said Philip confidently, ‘and take things as they come, contentedly. We shall be easily contented, so long as we are true to each other—and I don’t think you imagine there is any chance of a mistake in that respect.’
Aunt Hessy went on shelling peas for a time in silence. There was a thoughtful expression on her kindly face, and there was even a suggestion of sadness in it. Here were two young people—so young, so happy, so full of faith in each other—just starting on that troublous journey called Life, and she had to speak those words of warning which always seem so harsh to the pupils, until, after bitter experience, they look back and say: ‘If I had only taken the warning in time, what might have been?’
By-and-by she spoke very softly: ‘Thou art thinking, Madge, that I am croaking; and thou, Philip, are thinking the same.... Nay, there is no need to deny it. But I do not mean to dishearten thee. All I want is to make thee understand that there are many things we reckon as certain in the heyday of life, that never come to us.’
‘I daresay,’ said Philip, plucking a pea-pod and chewing it savagely; ‘but don’t you think, Mrs Crawshay, that this is very like throwing cold-water on us, and that throwing cold-water is very apt to produce the misadventure which you think possible?—that is, that something might happen to alter our plans?’
‘I am sorry for that, lad; I do not mean to throw cold-water on thee; but rather to help thee and to help Madge to look at things in a sensible way. Listen. I had a friend once who was like Madge; and she had a friend who was, as it might be, like you, Philip. He went away, as you are going, to seek his fortune in foreign parts. There was a blunder between them, and she got wedded to another man. Her first lad came back, and finding how things were, he went away again and never spoke more to her.’
‘They must have been miserable.’
‘For a while they were miserable enough; but they got over it.’
‘I’ll be bound the man never married.’
‘There thou’dst be bound wrong. He did marry, and is now wealthy and prosperous, though she was taken away in a fever long ago.’
‘Ay, but is he happy?’
‘That is only known to himself and Him that knows us all.’
‘Well, for our future I will trust Madge,’ said Philip, taking her hand, ‘in spite of all your forebodings; and she will trust me.’
Dame Crawshay had filled her basin with peas, and she rose.
‘God bless thee, Philip, wherever thou goest, and make thy hopes realities,’ she said with what seemed to the lovers unnecessary solemnity.
The dame went into the house. Madge and Philip went down the meadow, and under the willows by the merry river, forgot that there was any parting before them or any danger that their fortunes might be crossed.
Those bright days! Can they ever come again, or can any future joy be so full, so perfect? There are no love-speeches—little talk of any kind, and what there is, is commonplace enough. There is no need for speech. There is only—only!—the sense of the dear presence that makes all the world beautiful, leaving the heart nothing more to desire.
But the dreams in the sunshine there under the willows, with the river murmuring sympathetic harmonies at their feet! The dreams of a future, and yet no future; for it is always to be as now. Can it be possible that this man and woman will ever look coldly on each other—ever speak angry, passionate words? Can it be possible that there will ever flit across their minds one instant’s regret that they had come together?
No, no: the dreams are of the future; but the future will be always as now—full of faith and gladness.