“Why should I tell upon you? I have nothing to say. It appears that it is someone you know; but I—don’t know who it is.”
“Oh, Miss Chatty, you are the real good one,” said Lizzie, “you don’t think everybody’s wicked. I don’t love her ways, but I love her, that poor, poor thing. Don’t tell Granny I was with her; but it is only to say goodbye;—that was all, for the last time, just to say goodbye.”
“Is she—going away?” Chatty spoke in a low and troubled voice, knowing that she ought not to show any interest, but with a pity and almost awe of the sinner which was beyond all rule.
“Oh yes, Miss Warrender, she is going away; the gentleman spoke the truth when he said it always comes to misery. There may be a fine appearance for a time, and everything seem grand and gay; but it always comes to misery in the end.”
To this Chatty made no reply. It was not a lesson that she required in her innocence and absence from all temptation, to learn; but she had an awe of it as if a gulf had opened at her feet and she had seen the blackness of darkness within.
“And if you’ll believe me, she once was just as good and as innocent—! Well, and she’s a kind of innocent now for that matter. Oh, poor thing! Oh, Miss Warrender, don’t you be angry if I’m choking and crying, I can’t help it! She don’t know what she’s doing. She don’t know bad from good, or right from wrong. There’s some like that. Just what pleases them at the moment, that’s all they think of. She once had as happy a life before her! and a good husband, and served hand and foot.”
“Lizzie,” said Chatty, with a shudder, “don’t please tell me any more. If anything can be done—”
“Nothing,” said the girl, shaking her head. “What could be done? If the good ladies were to get her into their hands, they would put her in a penitentiary or something. A penitentiary for her! Oh, Miss Chatty, it’s little they know. If they could put her in a palace, and give her horses and carriages and plenty to amuse her, that might do. But she doesn’t want to repent; she doesn’t know what it means. She wants to be well off and happy. And she’s so young. Oh, don’t think I would be like that for the world, not for the world, don’t think it! But I can’t help knowing how she feels. Oh, my poor dear, my poor dear!”
The wonder with which Chatty heard this strange plea was beyond description; but she would ask no more questions, and hear no more, though Lizzie seemed ready enough to furnish her with all details. She went back with the girl to the shop, thus disarming Mrs. Bagley, who was always full of suspicions and alarm when Lizzie was out of the way, and stood talking to the old woman while Lizzie stole into the parlour behind and got rid of the traces of her tears. Chatty felt very solemn as she stood and talked about her patterns, feeling as if she had come from a deathbed or a funeral It was something still more terrible and solemnising; it was her first glimpse into a darkness of which she knew nothing, and her voice sounded in her own ears like a mockery as she asked about the bundle of new things that had come from Highcombe. “There’s one as is called the honeysuckle,” said Mrs. Bagley: “it will just please you, Miss Chatty, as likes nice delicate little things.” The old woman thought she must be feeling her sister’s loss dreadful, looking as melancholy as if it was her coffin she was buying. And Chatty accepted the honeysuckle pattern and looked out the materials for working it, without relaxing from that seriousness which was so little habitual to her. She even forgot all about her own problems, as she went home, seeing constantly before her the pretty childlike face all blurred with tears. Was it true, as Lizzie said, that there was no way to help or deliver? If she had stopped, perhaps, as she had almost been impelled to do, and said, as it was on her lips to say, “Oh, I am so sorry for you; oh, don’t do wrong any more,” would the unhappy creature perhaps have listened to her, and repented, though Lizzie said she did not want to repent? Chatty could not forget that pitiful face. Would she ever, she wondered, meet it again?
XXVI
Markland lay as usual, bare and white against the sun, upon that day of fate. The young trees had grown a little and stood basking, scarcely shivering, leaning their feeble young heads together in the sun, but making little show as yet; all was wrapped in the warmth and stillness of the summer morning. The old butler stood upon the steps of the great door, his white head and black figure making a point in the bright, unbroken, still life about. Within, Lady Markland was in the morning-room with her business books and papers, but not doing much; and Geoff in another, alone with his books, not doing much; thinking, both of them, of the expected visitor now riding up in a breathless white heat of excitement to the hall door.
The entire house knew what was coming. Two or three maids were peeping at the windows above, saying, “There he is,” with flutters of sympathetic emotion. That was why the butler himself stood on the steps waiting. All these spectators in the background had watched for a long time past; and a simultaneous thrill had run through the household, which no one was conscious of being the cause of, which was instinctive and incontrovertible. If not yesterday, then today; or tomorrow, if anything should come in the way today.
