Old Squire Harry did not talk any more about Charlie. About a month after this he sent to Craybourne to say that Dobbs must come up to Wyvern. Dobbs’ heart failed him when he heard it. Everyone was afraid of old Squire Harry, for in his anger he regarded neither his own interest nor other men’s safety.
“Ho, Dobbs! you’re not fit for Craybourne, the farm’s too much for you, and I’ve nothing else to gi’e ye.” Dobbs’ heart quailed at these words. “You’re a fool, Dobbs—you’re a fool—you’re not equal to it, man. I wonder you didn’t complain o’ your rent. It’s too much—too high by half. I told Cresswell to let you off every rent day a good penn’orth, for future, and don’t you talk about it to no one, ’twould stop that.” He laid his hand on Dobbs’ shoulder, and looked not unkindly in his face.
And then he turned and walked away, and Dobbs knew that his audience was over.
And the old Squire was growing older, and grass and weeds were growing apace over handsome Charlie Fairfield’s grave in Wyvern. But the old man never sent to Carwell Grange, nor asked questions about Alice. That wound was not healed, as death heals some.
Harry came, but Alice was ill, and could not see him. Lady Wyndale came, and her she saw, and that good-natured kinswoman made her promise that she would come and live with her so soon as she was well enough to leave the Grange.
And Alice lay still in her bed, as the doctor commanded, and her heart seemed breaking. The summer would return, but Ry would never come again. The years would come and pass—how were they to be got over? And, oh! the poor little thing that was coming!—what a sad welcome! It would break her heart to look at it. “Oh, Ry, Ry, Ry, my darling!”
So the morning broke and evening closed, and her great eyes were wet with tears—“the rain it raineth every day.”
XLVIII
A Twilight Visit
In the evening Tom had looked in at his usual hour, and was recruiting himself with his big mug of beer and lump of bread and cheese at the kitchen table, and now the keen edge of appetite removed, he was talking agreeably. This was what he called his supper. The flush of sunset on the sky was fading into twilight, and Tom was chatting with old Mildred Tarnley.
“Who’d think it was only three weeks since the funeral?” said Tom—“three weeks tomorrow.”
“Ay, tomorrow. ’Twas a Thursday, I mind, by the little boy comin’ from Gryce’s mill, for the laundress’s money, by noon. Two months ago, to look at him, you’d ’a said there was forty years’ life in him; but death keeps no calendar, they say. I wonder Harry Fairfield isn’t here oftener. Though she might not talk wi’ him nor see him, the sound o’ his voice in the house would do her good—his own brother, you know.”
“Dead men, ’tis an old sayin’, is kin to none,” said Tom. “They goes their own gate, and so does the livin’.”
“There’s that woman in jail. What’s to be done wi’ her, and who’s to talk wi’ the lawyer folk?” said Mildred.
“Ill luck came wi’ her to Carwell,” said Tom. “Pity he ever set eyes on her; but chances will be, and how can cat help it if maid be a fool? I don’t know nothin’ o’ that business, but in this world nout for nout is the most of our wages, and I take it folks knows what they are about, more or less.”
Mildred Tarnley sniffed at this oracular speech, and turned up her nose, and went over to the dresser and arranged some matters there.
“The days is shortening apace. My old eyes can scarce see over here without a candle,” she said, returning. “But there’s a many a thing to be settled in this house, I’m thinkin’.”
Tom nodded an acquiescence, and stood up and stretched himself, and looked up to the darkening sky.
“The crows is home in Carwell Wood; ’twill be time to be turning keys and drawing of bolts,” said Tom. “Ay, many a thing’ll want settlin’, I doubt, down here, and who’s to do it?”
“Ay, who’s to do it?” repeated Mildred. “I tell ye, Tom, there’s many a thing—too many a thing—more than ye wot of—enough to bring him out o’ his grave, Tom—as I’ve heered stories, many a one, wi’ less reason.”
As she ceased, a clink of a horseshoe was heard in the little yard without, and a tall figure leading a horse, as Charles Fairfield used often to do, on his late returns to his home, looked in at the window—in that uncertain twilight, in stature, attitude, and, as well as she could see, in face, so much resembling the deceased master of Carwell Grange, that Mrs. Tarnley gasped—
“My good Lord! Who’s that?”
Something of the same momentary alarm puzzled Tom, who frowned wildly at it, with his fists clenched beside him.
It was Harry Fairfield, who exhibited, as sometimes happens in certain lights and moments, a family resemblance, which had never struck those most familiar with his appearance.
“Lawk, it’s Mr. Harry; run out, Tom, and take his nag, will ye?”
Out went Tom, and in came Harry Fairfield. He looked about him. He did not smile facetiously and nod, and take old Mildred’s dubious hand, as he was wont, and crack a joke, not always very welcome or very pleasant, to the tune of—
“Nobody coming to marry me—
Nobody coming to woo.”
On the contrary, he looked as if he saw nothing there but walls and twilight, and as heavy laden with gloomy thoughts as the troubled ghost she had imagined.
“How is Miss Ally? how is your mistress?” at last he inquired abruptly. “Only middling?”
“Ailing, sir,” answered Mildred, dryly.
“Tell her I’m here, will ye? and has something to tell her and talk over, and will make
