VI
Mrs. Jenny’s simple faith in the talents of Rufus Smith underwent a severe trial during the ensuing night. She had left Julia still sleeping, and the memory of the last glance she had bestowed upon the white face in the light of the carefully-shaded candle haunted her all night, and roused a foreboding too dismal to be expressed, or even formulated in definite thought. The matchmaker lay and trembled all night at that terrible idea, and again the pale-faced dawn visited a sleepless pillow, and found her haggard with anxiety and lack of sleep. Juliet’s query to the Friar had been, ‘What if the potion should not work?’ but Mrs. Jenny’s terrified inquiry of her own soul was, ‘What if it had worked too well?’ What if it had killed Julia in very deed? It was too horrible to happen, Mrs. Jenny said to herself. Too horrible to think of. But, if it had happened, she would have nothing else to think of all her life, and the fancy drove her nearly mad.
She was dressed and afoot even earlier than on the preceding morning. She crept out and encircled the Mountain Farm in a radius of a mile or thereabouts, looking anxiously towards it at every step, as if its silent walls might speak comfort or confirm her fears, even at that distance. The house looked peaceful enough amid its surrounding trees under the tranquilly broadening light of dawn, but Mrs. Rusker knew how ghastly white the face of the poor child she loved as her own might look in that roseate glow. Presently a thin line of smoke curled from a chimney on the noiseless air. The farm was waking to its daily round of life. A burly figure on horseback came towards her as she stood on a little eminence. She waited long enough to identify Samson Mountain, and hid among the ferns and bushes until the horse’s hoof-beats had clattered swiftly by on the stony road below her, and faded in the distance.
Time crept on, slow but inexorable. She longed, as she had never longed before for anything, for the courage to go to the farmhouse and ask tidings of Julia. But her fear was greater than her longing, and she roamed at random in a circle, never losing sight of the house, but not daring to approach it or be seen from its windows. She dreaded what might be the news to greet her there. She feared her own face, with its haggard lines of sleeplessness and anxious watching. At last, from the very depths of her misery, she plucked the heart of despairing hope, and made for the farm. The farm labourers and country folk she met stared after her. Even their bovine understandings were troubled by her scared face. She scarcely saw them, or anything but the farmhouse, which drew her now with an influence as strong as its repulsion had been an hour ago. She entered the house by the back door, and made straight for the sitting-room. Mrs. Mountain was there, arranging a tray, on which were tea and jam and other homely luxuries. She wore her ordinary look of placid contentment, and at the sight of her quiet face Mrs. Rusker dropped panting, with a vague unformulated feeling of relief, into a chair.
‘Sakes alive! Whativer is the matter?’ demanded Mrs. Mountain.
‘Julia!’ panted the visitor. ‘How’s Julia?’
‘Why,’ said Mrs. Mountain, ‘how should her be?’
‘Is she awake yet?’ asked Mrs. Jenny, more calmly.
‘No. Her was sleepin’ when I seed her, jist for a minute, a hour ago. I’m jist goin’ upstairs wi’ some breakfast for her. Well, I declare, yo’ look as pale as a ghost. What’s the matter with you?’