“But the squire will be sure to find you, darling,” said Alice, still whispering; “you don’t think he’ll be content and never make any search, and he’ll soon find you if you always go by your own name?”
“I will do nothing clandestine,” I said, with displeasure; “nothing shall ever make me deny my name. No, Alice, we are not fugitives—we are not guilty—I fear no one finding me.”
She went away after this without a word, and then the dialogue in the kitchen was resumed. Her lady was Mrs. Southcote, a lady from Cambridgeshire, Alice said, and wanted quiet and fresh air for a term, though she could not tell how long; and then there were many curious questions about my health, and many inquiring hints as to my motive in coming here; but to all this Alice turned a deaf ear, and answered nothing. One thing she insisted upon earnestly, and that was that we should have immediate possession. The widow demurred, but Alice carried her point, and came back to me triumphant, to tell me that we were to remain here, and have the house entirely to ourselves to-morrow. She commenced operations immediately to improve the appearance of the little parlor. She drew up the blinds, removed the lower one, opened the window, for the day was very warm, and began to tug the reluctant sofa out of its corner, to place it at the window for me. While she was so occupied, and while this crazy piece of furniture creaked and jolted on its way to its new position, I caught the anxious eye of the mistress of the house looking in at the door watching her proceedings. This good woman did not understand the shifting of her much-beloved and cherished furniture. The sofa was the true inhabitant of the room, while we were only strangers and sojourners; she came in with a half courtesy to hint a remonstrance; she hoped I would not be offended; she had seen better days, and never thought to be in her present position, and her furniture, would I please to have it taken care of? and then she went to offer her services to help Alice to lift the sofa, for it would tear her good carpet, she was most sure.
Alice did not receive this obliging offer with a very good grace; I for my part looked on with quiet amusement; I was astonished to find how much the novelty of all this lightened my mind, and relieved me from myself. I could not have believed when I left home twenty-four hours ago that anything would have brought a smile to my lips so soon; yet so it was; and when the widow went away, I took my place in a corner of the hard sofa, and looked out upon the river, with a dreamy ease and leisure at my heart which astonished me still more. Ship after ship, great and small—I could not tell one from another, nor had the slightest conception of any distinctions of class or name between them—went gliding downward, majestic with their full white sails and lofty masts, upon the current, which was flowing strongly to the sea. Little steamers fumed and fretted upon the peaceful river, going up and down and across. Great ones came in, making a solemn rustle in the water with their unseen footsteps. Little shadowy skiffs shot along like sea-birds on the top of the stream, and more substantial wherries, laden with parties of pleasure, now and then went by, keeping cautiously to the side of the river. The tide had ebbed a little from the stony beach of our small bay. A boat which had been floating an hour since, was now stranded on the shore. This was altogether new to me. I knew nothing, except words, of those mysterious ocean tides, nor of where they penetrated and where they strayed. I watched the water gleaming further back at every ripple with a strange delight, watching and wondering how far back it would go, almost counting the soft peaceful waves. I looked anxiously out upon the course of the river, where those far away white specks were dancing on the roughened edge of the sea. I speculated on the voyages which these stately wayfarers were bound upon. I thought with a shudder of the storm at sea which I had myself seen, and I was only roused from my pleasant occupation by the voice of Alice, as she stood beside me looking out also, but with different thoughts. “I warrant there’s many a pretty boy and many a child’s father in such great ships,” said Alice, with a sigh; “they’re beautiful to look at, Miss Hester, but I had a deal rather see them coming home. Many a house will be dreary to-day for want of them that’s sailing there.”
I know well she did not mean to grieve me, but even while she spoke my burden came back upon me; I looked after the ships with a wistful glance; yes, many a home had given its best blood to these frail gallant ships, to risk the storms and the sea. Why? for duty and necessity, for daily bread, for honest labor; but what pretence had I for making my home desolate, or launching my poor boat upon this unknown sea of life? I had no answer to make; I had no resource but to turn my back upon the question, and ignore it. I turned from the window suddenly, and laid my head down upon the hard, prickly, hair-cloth cushion, and said I would rest a little. I was not quite so miserable even now as I had been yesterday, but my thoughts had returned to the same channel again.
As I thus reclined, sometimes watching her, sometimes seeing visions of Cottiswoode, and of all the agitation and tumult which must be there, Alice came and went between this little room and the kitchen, and began to spread the table, and to prepare our early, humble dinner. It soothed me to see her making all those little simple arrangements; everything was so far removed from the more stately regulations of home, and there seemed to me such a comfort and privacy in thus being able to do without the intervention of servants, to do everything “for ourselves,” as I flattered myself. What a rest and deliverance to my constrained mind would be the constant occupation which I must have had, had I really been the daughter of Alice! I thought of Amy’s cheerful bustle, of our simple maid Mary, singing at her work in my father’s house at Cambridge,—with tangible and real things in their hands and their thoughts all day long, what leisure would they have for the broodings of the mind diseased? What time for unprofitable self-communion? Ah, now I thought of it, that sickening doubt of myself came over me again; I was shaken in my false position; and now, when I wanted the fullest confidence in myself and in my course of action, my perverse heart began to glance back with dreadful suspicions of every step I had ever taken. I could no longer rest when this most ingenious process of self-torment began again. I had to rise and walk about, hurrying, as if to escape from it; and I was glad and thankful when Alice came in again with our simple meal.
After we had dined, I went with her, glad to be kept in any way from my own sole company, to unpack our trunk upstairs. I took out the things I had been working at, and my materials, and when she was ready to go with me, I carried them down stairs. I would not go without Alice. I made her sit by me, and take her own work, and be constantly at my side. By this time we had drawn a little table to the window for our sewing-things, and Alice sat opposite to me in a hard mahogany arm-chair, while I, half reclining on my sofa, went on slowly with my occupation. I was still busy with those delicate bits of embroidery; and I think almost the only pleasure I recollect in that dark time of my life, was the progress I made with these. I was putting some of them together now—“making them up,” as we call it in our woman’s language. I had a great pride in my needlework, and I have always had a singular pleasure in construction—so I was almost comfortable once more, and sometimes had such a thrill of strange delight at my heart, that it almost was a pang mingled of pain and joy, to see the definite shape these fine delicate bits of cambric took under my fingers. All this while Alice sat by working at similar work, and telling me tales of young wives like myself, and of mothers and children, and of all the natural experiences of womanhood. Like myself! with a shudder I wondered within myself whether there was one other in the world like me.
After a while, when I wearied of this—as, indeed, in my present mood of mind and weakness of frame, I soon wearied of anything, I made Alice get her bonnet and come out with me. It was now getting towards evening, and the usual hum of play and of rest, which always is about a comfortable village after the day’s work is over, was pleasantly audible here. At some distance from our house, behind it, some lads were playing cricket in a field, and women were gossiping at the cottage doors, and men lounging about, many of them in their blue woollen shirts and glazed hats—sailors, as we fancied in our ignorance, though they were, in reality, only watermen, who went a fishing sometimes, after a somewhat ignoble fashion, to the mouth of the river, and managed these pleasure-boats when they were at home. We wandered down close to the river, where the water now came rustling up to our feet, creeping closer and closer in every wave. “It is the tide,” said I, with involuntary reverence. Alice did not know much about the tide, but her heart, like every other natural heart, was charmed by that liquid soft-ringing music, the ripple of the water, as it rose and fell upon the beach, and Alice was reverential too. I bent down myself like a child, to put my hand upon the pebbly wet line, and feel the soft water heaving up upon it higher and higher. Ships were still passing down the beautiful calm river, gliding away silently into the night and the sea—the soft hum of the village was behind us, the musical cadence of these gentle waves filled the quiet air, yet soothed it, and we stood together saying nothing, strangers and solitary, knowing Nature, only one of us knowing God, but strangers to all the human people here.
As we went back, many of the cottage doors were closed, and through some of the half-curtained windows we saw the humble little families gathered together for the night. From the church, as we passed, there came some sounds of music; the organist had been practising, I suppose, and the “linked sweetness long drawn out,” the “dying fall,” which commands the imagination more entirely than anything perfect and completed can, was stealing into the darkening twilight as we passed by the half-open door. I cannot tell why all those sweet influences make even the happy pensive; but I know they brought such heaviness to my heart, and such tears to my eyes, as I would not like to feel again. Alice did not say anything, perhaps she saw that I was crying; but I was very glad to get home, and lay myself down upon my bed, and seek the sleep which always mercifully came to me. How glad I was always to fall asleep; no other way could I get rid of myself and my troubles; they looked in upon me with my first waking in the unwelcome light of the morning, but I had oblivion in my sleep.