Every voice in the church uttered 'Amen,' except Mr Walcot's. He was struggling with his sobs. Unexpected and excessive as were the tokens of his grief, Hester could not but respect it. It was so much better than gross selfishness and carelessness, that she could pity and almost honour it. She felt that Mr Walcot was as far superior to the quacks who were making a market of the credulity of the suffering people, as her husband, with his professional decision, his manly composure, and his forgetfulness of the injuries of his foes in their hour of suffering, was above Mr Walcot. The poor young man drank in, as if they were direct from Heaven, the suggestions contained in the preacher's plain sermon on the duties of the time. Plain it was indeed,--familiarly practical to an unexampled degree; so that most of his hearers quitted the church with a far clearer notion of their business as nurses and neighbours than they had ever before had. The effect was visible as they left their seats, in the brightening of their countenances, and the increased activity of their step as they walked.

"There, go," said Hester, kindly, to her companion. "Many must be wanting you: but you have lost no time by coming here."

"No, indeed. But Mr Hope--"

"Rely upon him. He will do his duty. Go and do yours."

"G.o.d bless you!" cried Walcot, squeezing her hand affectionately.

Mrs Rowland saw this, as she always saw everything. She beckoned to Mr Walcot, with her most engaging smile, and whispered him with an air of the most intimate confidence, till she saw that her presence was wanted elsewhere, when she let him go.

Mr Rowland, followed by Philip, slipped out of his pew as Hester pa.s.sed, and walked down the aisle with her. He was glad to see her there; he hoped it was a proof that all her household were well in this sickly time. Philip bent forward to hear the answer. Mr Rowland went on to say how still and dull the village was. The shutters up, or the blinds down, at all the Greys' windows, looked quite sad; and he never saw any of his friends from the corner-house in the shrubbery now. They had too many painful duties, he feared, to allow of their permitting themselves such pleasures: but his friends must take care not to overstrain their powers. They and he must be very thankful that their respective households were thus far unvisited by the disease; and they should all, in his opinion, favour their health by the indulgence of a little rational cheerfulness. Hester smiled, aware that never had their household been more cheerful than now.

Whether it was that Hester's smile was irresistible, or that other influences were combined with it, it had an extraordinary effect upon Philip. He started forward in front of her, and offered his hand, saying, so as to be heard by her alone--

"Will you not?--I have no quarrel with you."

"And can you suppose," she replied, in a tone more of compa.s.sion than of anger, "that I have none with you?--How strangely you must forget!" she added, as he precipitately withdrew his offered hand, and turned from her.

"Forget! I forget!" he murmured, turning his face of woe towards her for one instant. "How little you know me!"

"How little we all know each other!" said Hester, for the moment careless what construction might be put upon her words.

"Even in this place," said Dr Levitt, who had now joined them, and had heard the last words: "even in this place, where all hearts should be open, and all resentments forgotten. Are there any here who refuse to shake hands--at such a time as this?"

"It is not for myself," said Hester, distressed: "but how can I?"

"It is true; she cannot. Do not blame her, Dr Levitt," said Philip; and he was gone.

It was this meeting which had cut short Mrs Rowland's whispers with Mr Walcot, and brought her down the aisle in all her stateliness, with her train of children behind her.

When Hester went home, she thought it right to tell Margaret exactly what had happened.

"I knew it?" was all that Margaret said; but her heightened colour during the day told what unspeakable things were in her heart.

Hester was occupied with speculations as to what might have been the event if Margaret had been to church instead of herself. Her husband would only shake his head, and look hopeless: but she still thought all might have come right, under the influences of the hour. Whether it were to be wished that Philip and Margaret should understand each other again, was another question. Yesterday Hester would have earnestly desired that Margaret should never see Enderby again. To-day she did not know what to wish. She and Margaret came silently to the same conclusion; "there is nothing for it but waiting." If he had heard this, Hope would have shaken his head again.

CHAPTER FORTY THREE.

WORKING ROUND.

Several days pa.s.sed, and there was no direct news of Enderby. Maria never spoke of him, though many little intervals in Margaret's busy life occurred when the friends were together, and Maria ought have taken occasion to say anything she wished. It was clear that she chose to avoid the subject. Her talk was almost entirely about the sick, for whom she laboured as strenuously as her strength would permit. She could not go about among them, nor sit up with the sufferers: but she cooked good things over her fire for them, all day long; and she took to her home many children who were too young to be useful, and old enough to be troublesome in a sick house. Between her cooking, teaching, and playing with the children, she was as fully occupied as her friends in the corner-house, and perhaps might not really know anything about Mr Enderby.

Each one of the family had caught glimpses of him at one time or another. There was reason to think that he was active among Mr Walcot's poor patients; and Hope had encountered him more than once in the course of his rounds, when a few words on the business of the moment were exchanged, and nothing more happened. Margaret saw him twice: once on horseback, when he turned suddenly down a lane to avoid her; and at the Rowlands' dining-room window, with Ned in his arms. She never now pa.s.sed that house when she could help it: but this once it was necessary; and she was glad that Philip had certainly not seen her. His back was half-turned to the window at the moment, as if some one within was speaking to him. Each time, his image was so stamped in upon her mind, that, amidst all the trials of such near neighbourhood without intercourse, his presence in Deerbrook was, on the whole, certainly a luxury. She had gained something to compensate for all her restlessness, in the three glimpses of him with which she had now been favoured. A thought sometimes occurred to her, of which she was so ashamed that she made every endeavour to banish it. She asked herself now and then, whether, if she had been able to sit at home, or take her accustomed walks, she should not have beheld Philip oftener:--whether she was not sadly out of the way of seeing him at the cottage in the lane, and the other sordid places where her presence was necessary. Not for this occasional question did she stay away one moment longer than she would otherwise have done from the cottage in the lane; but while she was there, it was apt to recur.

There she sat one afternoon, somewhat weary, but not dreaming of going home. There lay the three sick creatures still. The woman was likely to recover; the boy lingered, and seemed waiting for his father to go with him. Platt had sunk very rapidly, and this day had made a great change. Margaret had taken the moaning and restless child on her lap, for the ease of change of posture: and she was now shading from his eyes with her shawl, the last level rays of the sun which shone in upon her from the window. She was unwilling to change her seat, for it seemed as if the slightest movement would quench the lingering life of the child: and there was no one to draw the window-curtain, the old woman having gone to buy food in the village. Mrs Platt slept almost all the day and night through, and she was asleep now: so Margaret sat quite still, holding up her shawl before the pallid face which looked already dead.

Nothing broke the silence but the twitter of the young birds in the thatch, and the mutterings of the sick man, whom Margaret imagined to be somewhat disturbed by the unusual light that was in the room. It had not been the custom of the sun to shine into any houses of late; and the place full of yellow light, did not look like itself. She knew that in a few minutes the sun would have set; and she hoped that then poor Platt would be still. Meantime she appeared to take no notice, but sat with her eyes fixed on the boy's face, marking that each sigh was fainter than the last. At length a louder sound than she had yet heard from the sick man, made her look towards him; and the instant throb of her heart seemed to be felt by the child, for he moved his head slightly. Platt was trying to support himself upon his elbow, while in the other shaking hand, he held towards her her turquoise ring. She remembered her charge, and did not spring to seize it; but there was something in her countenance that strongly excited the sick man. He struggled to rise from his bed, and his face was fierce. Margaret spoke gently--as calmly as she could--told him she would come presently--that there was no hurry, and urged him to lie down till she could put the child off her lap; but her voice failed her, in spite of herself; for now, at last, she recognised in Platt the tall woman. This was the look which had perplexed her more than once.

"Patience! a little further patience!" she said to herself, as she saw the ring still trembling in the sick man's hand, and felt one more sigh from the little fellow on her lap. No more patience was needed. This was the boy's last breath. His head fell back, and the sunlight, which streamed in upon his half-closed eyes, could now disturb them no more.

Margaret gently closed them and laid the body on its little bed in the corner, straightening and covering the limbs before she turned away.

She then gently approached the bed, and took her ring into a hand which trembled little less than the sick man's own. She spoke calmly, however. She strove earnestly to learn something of the facts: she tried to understand the mutterings amidst which only a word here and there sounded like speech. She thought, from the earnestness with which Platt seized and pressed her hand, that he was seeking pardon from her; and she spoke as if it were so. It grew very distressing--the earnestness of the man, and the uncertainty whether his mind was wandering or not. She wished the old woman would come back. She went to the door to look for her. The old woman was coming down the lane.

Margaret put on her ring, and drew on her gloves, and determined to say nothing about it at present.

"Mr Platt has been talking almost ever since you went," said Margaret; "and I can make out nothing that he says. Do try if you can understand him. I am sure there is something he wishes me to hear. There is no time to lose, I am afraid. Do try."

The woman coaxed him to lie down, and then turning round, said she thought he wanted to know what o'clock it was.

"Is that all? Tell him that the sun is now setting. But if you have a watch, that will show more exactly. Are you sure you have no watch in the house?"

The old woman looked suspiciously at her, and asked her what made her suppose that poor folks had watches, when some gentlefolks had none?

Margaret inquired whether a watch was not a possession handed down from father to son, and sometimes found in the poorest cottages. She believed she had seen such at Deerbrook. The old woman replied by saying, she believed Margaret might have understood some few things among the many the poor sick creature had been saying. Not one, Margaret declared; but it was so plain that she was not believed, that she had little doubt of Hester's watch having been harboured in this very house, if it was not there still.

The poor boy, who had had little care from his natural guardians while alive from the hour of his being doomed by the fortune-teller, was now loudly mourned as dead. Yet the mourning was strangely mixed with exultation at the fortune-teller having been right in the end. The mother, suddenly awakened, groaned and screamed, so that it was fearful to hear her. All efforts to restore quiet were in vain. Margaret was moved, shocked, terrified. She could not keep her own calmness in such a scene of confusion: but, while her cheeks were covered with tears, while her voice trembled as she implored silence, she never took off her glove. In the midst of the tumult, Platt sank back and died. The renewed cries had the effect of bringing some neighbours from the end of the lane. While they were there, Margaret could be of no further use.

She promised to send coffins immediately--that stage of pestilence being now reached when coffins were the first consideration--and then slipped out from the door into the darkness, and ran till she had turned the corner of the long lane. She usually considered herself safe abroad, even in times like these, as she carried no property of value about with her: but now that she was wearing her precious ring again, she felt too rich to be walking alone in the dark.

She did not slacken her pace till she approached lights and people; and then she was glad to stop for breath. She could not resist going first to Maria, to show her the recovered treasure; and this caused her to direct her steps through the churchyard. It was there that she came in view of lights and people; and under the limes it was that she stopped for breath. The churchyard was now the most frequented spot in the village. The path by the turnstile was indeed grown over with gra.s.s: but the great gate was almost always open, and the ground near it was trodden bare by the feet of many mourners. Funeral trains--trains which daily grew shorter, till each coffin was now followed only by two or by three--were pa.s.sing in from early morning, at intervals, till sunset, and now might be often seen by torchlight far into the night. The villager pa.s.sing the churchyard wall might hear, in the night air, the deep voice of the clergyman announcing the farewell to some brother or sister, committing "ashes to ashes, and dust to dust." There was no disturbance now from boys leaping over the graves, or from little children, eager to renew their noisy play. Such of the young villagers as remained above ground appeared to be silenced and subdued by the privation, the dreariness, the neglect, of these awful days: they looked on from afar, or avoided the spot. Instead of such, the observer of the two funerals which were now in the churchyard, was a person quite at the other extremity of life. Margaret saw the man of a hundred years, Jem Bird, the pride of the village in his way, seated on the bench under the spreading tree, which was youthful in comparison with himself. He was listlessly watching the black figures which moved about in the light of a solitary torch, by an open grave, while waiting for the clergyman who was engaged with the group beyond.

"You are late abroad, Mr Bird," said Margaret. "I should not have looked for you here so far on in the evening."

"What's your will?" said the old man.

"Grandfather won't go home ever, till they have done here," said a great-grandchild of the old man, running up from his amus.e.m.e.nt of hooting to the owls in the church tower. "They'll soon have done with these two, and then grandfather and I shall go home. Won't we, granny?"

"Does it not make you sad to see so many funerals?" said Margaret, sitting down on the bench beside him.

"Ay."

"Had you not better stay at home than see so many that you knew laid in the ground?"

"Does he understand?" she asked aside of the boy. "Does he never answer but in this way?"

"Oh! he talks fast enough sometimes. It is just as you happen to take him."

Margaret was curious to know what were the meditations among the tombs of one so aged as this man: so she spoke again.

"I have heard that you knew this place before anybody lived in it: and now you seem likely to see it empty again."

"It was a wild place enough in my young time," said Jem, speaking now very fluently. "There was nothing of it but the church; and that was never used, because it had had its roof pulled off in the wars. There was only a footpath to it through the fields then, and few people went nigh it--except a few gentry that came a-pleasuring here, into the woods. The owls and I knew it as well then as we do to-day, and n.o.body else that is now living. The owls and I."

And the old man laughed the chuckling laugh which was all he had strength for.

"The woods!" said Margaret. "Did the Verdon woods spread as far as this church in those days? And were they not private property then?"

"It was all forest hereabouts, except a clear s.p.a.ce round the church tower. It might be thin sprinkled, but it was called forest. The place where I was born had thorns all about it; and when I could scarce walk alone, I used to scramble among the blossoms that made the ground white all under those thorns. The birds that lived by the haws in winter were prodigious. That cottage stood, as near as I can tell, where Grey and Rowland's great granary is now. There used to be much swine in the woods then; and many's the time they have thrown me down when I was a young thing getting acorns. That was about the time of my hearing the first music I ever heard--unless you call the singing of the birds music (we had plenty of that), and the bells on the breeze from a distance, when the wind was south. The first music (so to call it) that I heard was from a blind fiddler that came to us. What brought him, I don't know--whether he lost his way, or what; but he lost his way after he left us. His dog seems to have been in fault: but he got into a pool in the middle of the wood, and there he lay drowned, with one foot up on the bank, when I went to see what the harking of the dog could be about.

He clutched his fiddle in drowning; and I remember I tried to get the music out of it as it lay wet and broken on the bank, while father was saying the poor soul must have been under the water now two days. So I have reason to remember the first music I heard."