Ovington's Bank

by Stanley John Weyman

“Send him, Calamy,” said Josina.

Calamy retired. Miss Peacock looked out, a shawl about her head. “Jos! Where are you?” she cried. “Come in at once, girl. Do you think I am going to be left alone, and the door open? Jos! Jos!”

But Josina was gone, groping her way down the drive. When Fewtrell followed with his lanthorn he came on her sitting on the bridge, and he got a rare start, thinking it was a ghost. “Lord A’mighty!” he cried as the light fell on her pale face. “Aren’t you afraid to sit there by yourself, miss?”

But Josina was not afraid, and after a word or two he shambled away, the lanthorn swinging in his hand. The girl watched the light go bobbing along as far the highway fifty yards on, saw it travel to the left along the road, lost it for some moments, then marked it again, a faint blur of light, moving towards the village.

Presently it vanished and she was left alone with her fears. She strained her ears to catch the first sound of wheels. The stream murmured beneath her, a sick sheep coughed, the breeze whispered in the hedges, the cry of an owl, thrice repeated, sank into silence. But that was all, and in the presence of the silent world about her, of the all-enveloping night, of the solemn stars shining as they had shone from eternity, the girl knew herself infinitely helpless, without remedy against the stroke of impending fate. She recognized that lighted rooms and glowing fires and the indoor life did but deceive; that they did but blind the mind to the immensity of things, to the real issues, to life and death and eternity. Anguished, she owned that a good conscience was the only refuge, and that she had it not. She had deceived her father, and it would be her fate to endure a lasting remorse. At last, her eyes opened, she fancied that she detected behind the mask a father’s face. But too late, for the bridge which he had crossed innumerable times, the drive, rough and rutted, yet the harbinger of home, which he had climbed from boyhood to age, the threshold which he had trodden so often as master—they would know him no more! At the thought she broke down and wept, feeling all its poignancy, all its pitifulness, and finding for the moment no support in Clement, no recompense in a love which deceit and secrecy had tainted.

Doubtless she would not have taken things so hardly had she not been overwrought; and, as it was, the first sound that reached her from the Garthmyle road brought her to her feet. A light showed, moving from that direction, travelling slowly through the darkness. It vanished, and she held her breath. It came into view again, and she groped her way forward until she stood in the road. The light was close at hand now, though viewed from the front it moved so little that her worst forebodings were confirmed. But now, now that she saw her fears justified, the woman’s fortitude, that in enduring is so much greater than man’s, came to her aid, and it was with a calmness that surprised herself that she awaited the slow procession, discerned by the lanthorn-light her father’s huddled form, and in a trembling voice asked if he still lived.

“Yes, yes!” Arthur cried, and hastened to reassure her. “He will do yet, but he is hurt. Go back, Jos, and get his bed ready, and hot water, and some linen. The doctor will be here in a minute.”

His voice, firm and collected, struck the right note, and the girl answered to it bravely. She made no lamentation, shed no tears—there would be time for tears later—but gathering up her skirts she sped up the drive, and before the carriage had passed the bridge she had given the alarm in the house. There, in a moment, all was confusion. Miss Peacock, whatever fears she had expressed, was ill prepared for the fact, and it was Josina, who, steadied by that half-hour of self-examination, stilled the outcry of the maids, gave the needful orders, and seconded Calamy in carrying them out, had candles placed on the stairs, and with her own hand brought out a stout chair. When the carriage, the lanthorn gleaming sombrely on the shining trunks, drew slowly out of the darkness, she was there with lights and brandy. For her the worst was over. The scared faces of the women, their stifled cries and confused hovering, were but a background to her steady courage.

Still, even she yielded the first place to Arthur. Whatever pity or horror he had felt, he had had time to overcome, and to think both of the present and the future. And he rose to the occasion. He directed, arranged, and was himself the foremost worker. By the time Mr. Farmer, the village doctor, arrived, he had done much which had to be done. The Squire had been carried upstairs, and lay, breathing stertorously, on his great four-post bed with the dingy drab curtains and the two watch-pockets at the head; and everything which could be of use had been brought to hand.

The doctor shut out the frightened maids and shut out Miss Peacock. But Arthur was only at the beginning of his resources. His nerve was good and he aided Farmer in his examination, while Jos, standing out of sight behind the curtain, calm but quivering in every nerve, handed to him or to Calamy what they needed. Even then, however, and while he was thus employed, Arthur found occasion to whisper a cheering word to the girl, to reassure her and give her hope. He forced her to take a glass of wine, and when Calamy, shaking his head, muttered that he had known a man to recover who had been worse hurt—but he was a strong young fellow—he damned the butler for an old fool, regardless of the fact that coming from Calamy this was a cheerful prognostic.