Borderland

by Jessie Fothergill

So she wandered on, out of the town, faint and feeble for want of food and rest; crazy, and growing every moment more so, with woe, and fear, and wretchedness. Soon she was on a lonely road, stretching out to the north-east, with few houses, and, at that hour, scarcely a person on it. How beautiful it all was, in this golden morning sunshine, with the mists rising from the river, and the trees, clad in yellow and scarlet and russet, heavy and drooping in the windless air of a frosty October morning, precursor of a glorious autumn day!

Then she emerged from the shade of these trees, and found herself upon a wild upland road, with sweeps of country stretching far and wide around her; fields of yellow stubble, pastures, meadows; stretches of heavy wood; here and there the gleam of the river, and on every side, the wall of blue fells in the distance. The rough, uphill road lay before her, with scarce a house to be seen; and overhead a blue sky, from which fleecy white clouds were everywhere rolling back to show the fathomless, serene expanse.

‘Ay, but I’m so tired, so tired!’ Ada sighed, as she stumbled, and then recovered herself. ‘This is not being a lady; why does he not come home? If I had the carriage he promised me,—he said he would drive to Balder Hall with me, to see Miss Wynter, and show her what he thought of me, when we were married.’

Here she found herself opposite to a tiny house at the roadside, or rather, at a corner where four roads met; and at its door a woman stood, saw her, called out to her, and wished her good day.

‘Good day!’ said Ada, with a sudden affectation of her old mincing manner. ‘Might I beg a drink of water from you?’

The woman, who was kindly, though rough, would have had her come in and have some bread and milk, but she would not. She had quite forgotten Eleanor Askam by this time, and said she had far to go, and must not wait. The water was bestowed upon her, and she stood to drink it, holding the cup with her right hand, while her left rested upon the table. The woman looked at her, and drew her own conclusions from what she saw. Ada thanked her, with an affectation of superiority and patronage, and left the cottage. Its mistress stood watching her, as she turned to the right, along a high, toilsome road, and marched slowly and heavily along it.

‘Some poor crazy creature, whose hour is not far off. God pity her!’ she said within herself, and for a moment felt inclined to run after the girl, and insist on sheltering her. But the thought of her ‘man,’ and the trouble he would feel it to have such a person in the house deterred her. She went inside again, to her morning’s work.

Ada crept on, till she saw at a little distance, gray farm-buildings and a whitewashed house, with a long, low front; and it came across her mind that she could not walk any farther, but that she would go there, and ask them to let her rest till her carriage came, which was to meet her there, and take her home to lunch. And if they asked her who she was—why, the answer was simple—Mrs. Askam, of Thorsgarth. And in fancy, she saw curtseys dropped, and heard them begging her to be seated. For she was now quite crazy, only in this way; the connecting string in all her wild thoughts, was the vague recollection of real promises.

Before she arrived at the farm, she swerved to one side; her knees gave way, and in a little hollow in the wall, where there was a heap of stones, she sank down, feeling as if she were going to sleep; but the sleep became a long, deadly faint, and Ada Dixon, the petted beauty of the old town where she had been born and bred, who had been the plighted wife of a good man, lay in a heap by the roadside, with only the broad sky above her, with nothing but her mother earth on which to rest her dainty limbs.

And here she continued to lie, till Michael Langstroth rode up, having made inquiries on his way, and learnt from the woman at the cross-roads, that such a young woman as he described had passed.