“Alike they are, though in much they differ—
Strong resemblance is ’twixt the twain;
So that sometimes you may question whether
It can be Pleasure you feel, or Pain.
Thus ’tis, that whatever of deep emotion
Stirreth the heart—be it grave or gay
Tears are the Symbol—from feeling’s ocean
These are the fountains that rise to-day.
“Should not this teach us calmly to welcome
Pleasure when smiling our hearths beside?
If she be the substance, how dark the shadow;
Close doth it follow, the near allied.
Or if Pain long o’er our threshold hover,
Let us not question but Pleasure nigh
Bideth her time her face to discover,
Rainbow of Hope in a clouded sky.”
Yes, it was a good time. To look at us round that dinner-table, you’d have said there was nothing but pleasure in the world. Not but that ever and anon the poor young gipsy woman’s troubled face and her sad wild eyes, and the warning some subtle instinct seemed to be whispering to her about her husband, would rise between me and the light.
The afternoon was wearing on when I got back to the glade with William Whitney (for we had all gone strolling about after dinner) and found some of the ladies there. Mrs. Todhetley had gone into Rednal’s cottage to talk to his wife, Jessy; Anna was below in the dell; all the rest were in the glade. A clean-looking, stout old lady, in a light cotton gown and white apron, a mob cap with a big border and bow of ribbon in front of it, turned round from talking to them, smiled, and made me a curtsy.
The face seemed familiar to me: but where had I seen it before? Helen Whitney, seeing my puzzled look, spoke up in her free manner.
“Have you no memory, Johnny Ludlow? Don’t you remember Mrs. Ness!—and the fortune she told us on the cards?”
It came upon me with a rush. That drizzling Good Friday afternoon at Miss Deveen’s, long ago, and Helen smuggling up the old lady from downstairs to tell her fortune. But what brought her here? There seemed to be no connection between Miss Deveen’s house in town and Briar Wood in Worcestershire. I could not have been more at sea had I seen a Chinese lady from Pekin. Miss Deveen laughed.
“And yet it is so easy of explanation, Johnny, so simple and straightforward,” she said. “Mrs. Ness chances to be aunt to Rednal’s wife, and she is staying down here with them.”
Simple it was—as are most other puzzles when you have the clue. The old woman was a great protégée of Miss Deveen’s, who had known her through her life of misfortune: but Miss Deveen did not before know of her relationship to Rednal’s wife or that she was staying at their cottage. They had been talking of that past afternoon and the fortune-telling in it, when I and Bill came up.
“And what I told you, miss, came true—now didn’t it?” cried Mrs. Ness to Helen.