I may be soft beyond most people—although it is a fault more shared than shown—but when I had spread that simple frock upon the bed, which I never entered now, and passing both hands down the bosom, clumsily searched (as a man must do) for the mouth of the little pocket, and then could only get three fingers in—all the strength of my resolve to be quite firm and manly quivered on my lips, and melted in the haze that crept across my eyes. A tiny notebook, with a pencil, and a silver thimble, a little house-wife, and a button meant to be sewn on my coat, two or three jujubes (which she kept to pop into my mouth, because she fancied I was hoarse sometimes) nothing for herself, but all for me, or for my service; and then a little scrap of paper, my last scribble from the garden—“Darling, not till nine o’clock”—as I took them one by one, all seemed fragrant with her sweetness, and holy from her loving hand.
I could not bring myself to go through Tabby’s rigmarole that night; for my mind was full of larger thoughts, neither would I go upstairs into the lonely bedroom; but I gazed for some time at the moon, as people when in sorrow do, by some mysterious instinct. And then I placed a pillow, instead of the roll of mat beneath my head, and under it my dear wife’s house-wife, and her pretty thimble, not for that night only, but as my companions henceforth; and therewith I cast myself on the hard church-cushion, and thought of her. Before very long, I fell asleep, having done a good day’s garden-work at sundry jobs that were sadly in arrear.
But Tabby’s jingle was still in my head, moving without my will or wish, as a mouse comes in the wainscote; and with the moon shining into the room, one of my last reflections was that I had been very lucky in yielding to no witchcraft. Not that there could be anything to frighten me in my darling, “whether white, or whether red;” by which the old chant seemed to mean, whether she might be in the bloom of health, or the wan hue of the winding-sheet. In either case she would love me still; and that was the thing I cared most to know.
Suddenly, I sat up and looked. The old church clock was striking slowly, and the sleepy sound loitered on the drowsy air. The moon was gliding calmly on her southern road, and being in her humble summer state, she could scarcely top the big pear-tree which stood before my window. The room was full of light and shade, in bars, in patches, and in triangles, with no strong contrast in and out, but fused, like silver-wire netting, or water parted by the weir-posts, and rejoining under them. And there, in this faint flow of light and wavering ebb of shadow, I saw my Kitty, sitting calmly, and gazing at me steadfastly.
No surprise or fear whatever crossed my mind—which seems to show that I was not altogether wide awake; but I waited for her to say something, while she kept on looking at me. I had left off wearing a nightcap ever since I went to Hampton School; not that I ever slept there, but because the boys had laughed at it. My Uncle Corny always said that this was tempting Providence; and now I tried to put up my hands, but they would not go, and I sat and gazed, being a little surprised, but not amazed, as some people might have been. Then Kitty put up her hand to me, showing the palm of it quite rosy, as it always had been; and I saw that her dress was the one in the drawer; but that did not surprise me.
“Darling, you must be patient still. I am thousands of miles away from you;” she spoke as quietly as if she were saying—“The tea is not quite drawn yet,” and I received it as quietly. “There is a good reason for my going; and you know it better than I do. Only, be happy till I come back; for whatever you feel, I feel. When I come home, we shall never part again.”
This was a little too much for me, high and tragical as it seemed.
“I want you now. Oh Kitty, Kitty, don’t run away again!” I cried; and over went both my Windsor chairs, as I sprang up, to fling my arms round her.
But when I came to the place where she had been, lo, there was no one! Everything was cold and hard; instead of her soft warm figure, all I embraced was a kitchen towel; and the handle of a gridiron came between my vainly opened lips.