Fated to Be Free Part 64

It was to cost about three thousand pounds, a large sum; but the payment was to be spread over three or four years, and Valentine, at present, had few other claims. He had, for instance, no poor relations, at least he thought not; but he had scarcely given his word for the building of the church when he received a letter from Mrs. Peter Melcombe--"an ugly name," thought Valentine. "Mrs. Valentine Melcombe will sound much better. Oh, I suppose the young woman will be Mrs. Melcombe, though."

Mrs. Peter Melcombe let Valentine know that she and Laura had returned to England, and would now gladly accept his invitation, given in the spring, to come and stay a few weeks with him whenever this should be the case.

"I have always considered Laura a sacred trust," continued the good lady. "My poor dear Peter, having left her to me--my means are by no means large--and I am just now feeling it my duty to consider a certain very kind and very flattering offer. I am not at all sure that a marriage with one whom I could esteem might not help me to bear better the sorrow of my loss in my dear child; but I have decided nothing.

Laura has actually only five hundred pounds of her own, and that, I need not say, leaves her as dependent on me as if she was a daughter."

"Now look here," exclaimed Valentine, laying the letter down flat on the table, and holding it there with his hand--"now look here, this is serious. You are going to bring that simpleton Laura to me, and you would like to leave her here, would you? Preposterous! She cannot live with me! Besides, I am such a fool myself, that if I was shut up with her long, I should certainly marry her. Take a little time, Val, and consider.

"'Wilt them brave?

Or wilt thou bribe?

Or wilt thou cheat the kelpie?'

"Let me see. Laura is my own cousin, and the only Melcombe. Now, if Craik had any sense of grat.i.tude--but he hasn't--it seems so natural, 'I built you a church, you marry my cousin. Do I hear you say you won't? You'd better think twice about that. I'd let you take a large slice of the turnip-field into your back garden. Turnips, I need hardly add, you'd have _ad lib._ (very wholesome vegetables), and you'd have all that capital substantial furniture now lying useless in these attics, and an excellent family mangle out of the messuage or tenement called the laundry--the wedding breakfast for nothing. I think you give in, Craik?'

Yes; we shake hands--he has tears in his eyes. 'Now, Laura, what have you got to say?' '_He has sandy hair._' 'Of course he has, the true Saxon colour. Go down on your knees, miss, and thank heaven fasting for a good man's love (Shakespeare).' '_And he has great red hands._'

'Surely they had better be red than green--celestial rosy red, love's proper hue.' Good gracious! here he is."

"Ah, Craik! is that you? How goes it?"

One of Mr. Craik's gifts was that he could sigh better than almost anybody; whenever he was going to speak of anything as darkly mysterious, his sigh was enough to convince any but the most hardened.

He _fetched_ a sigh then (that is the right expression)--he fetched it up from the very bottom of his heart, and then he began to unfold his grievances to Valentine, how some of his best school-girls had t.i.ttered at church, how some of his favourite boys had got drunk, how some of the farmers had not attended morning service for a month, and how two women, regular attendants, had, notwithstanding, quarrelled to that degree that they had come to blows, and one of them had given the other a black eye, and old Becky Maddison is ill, he concluded. "I've been reading to her to-day. I don't know what to think about administering the Holy Communion to her while she persists in that lie."

"Do you mean the ghost story?" asked Valentine.

"Yes."

"It may have been a lie when she first told it; but in her extreme old age she may have utterly forgotten its first invention. It may possibly not be now a conscious lie, or, on the other hand, it may be true that she did see something."

"Your grandmother always considered that it was a lie, and a very cruel lie."

"How so? She accused no one of anything."

"No, but she made people talk. She set about a rumour that the place was haunted, and for some years the family could hardly get a servant to live with them."

"Poor old soul!" thought Valentine. "I suppose it would be wrong to try and bribe her to deny it. I wish she would though."

"I think," said Mr. Craik, an air of relief coming over his face--"I think I shall tell her that I regard it in the light you indicated."

Soon after that he went away. It was evening, the distant hills, when Valentine sauntered forth, were of an intense solid blue, gloomy and pure, behind them lay wedges of cloud edged with gold, all appeared still, unchanging, and there was a warm balmy scent of clover and country crops brooding over the place.

Valentine sauntered on through the peaceful old churchyard, and over the brow of the little hill. What a delightful evening view! A long hollow, with two clear pools (called in those parts meres) in it, narrow, and running side by side, the evening star and crescent moon, little more than a gold line, reflected in one of them. The reed warbler was beginning to sing, and little landrails were creeping out of the green sedges, the lilies were closing and letting themselves down. There was something so delightful, so calm, that Valentine felt his heart elevated by it. The peace of nature seems a type of the rest of G.o.d. It reminds man of that deep awful leisure in which his Maker dwells, taking thought for, and having, as we express it, time, to bless and think upon his creatures.

Valentine watched the gold in the sky, and the primrose-tinted depths beyond. He was thankful for his delightful home; he felt a good impulse in him, urging that he must do his duty in this his day and generation; he seemed to respond to it, hoped the new church would be of use in the neighbourhood, and felt that, even if it cost him some sacrifice, Laura must be provided for; either he must settle on her something that she could live on, or he must promise her a marriage portion.

As for himself, he was a good young fellow, better than many, and when he went on to think of himself, he saw, in his vision of his own future, nothing worse than an almost impossibly pretty girl as his bride, one with whom he was to take a specially long and agreeable wedding tour; and some time after that he supposed himself to see two or three jolly little boys rolling about on the gra.s.s, the Melcombes of the future, and with them and their mother he saw himself respected and happy.

Sauntering on still, he came past Becky Maddison's cottage, a pleasant abode, thatched, whitewashed, and covered with jasmine, but too close to the mere. "I will talk to that poor old soul again, and see if I can make anything of her. I am sure Craik is mistaken about her."

"She fails fast," said the daughter, when accosted by Valentine; and she took him up-stairs to see her mother. He first made himself welcome by giving her a handsome alms, and then inquired about her health.

The daughter had gone down of her own accord. "I'n bin very bad with my _sparms_" meaning spasms, she answered in a plaintive voice. Valentine saw a very great change in her, the last sunset's afterglow fell upon her face, it was sunk and hollow, yet she spoke in clear tones, full of complaint, but not feeble. "And I'n almost done wi' this world."

"Mr. Craik comes to see you, I know; he told me to-day that you were ill."

"Parson were always hard on I."

"Because he doesn't believe the ghost story."

"Ay, told me so this blessed marnin'; and who be he? wanted I to own 'twas a lie, and take the blessed sacrament, and make a good end. 'Sir,'

says I, 'Mr. Martimer believed it, that's Mr. Melcombe now--and so 'e did, sir.'"

"No, I didn't," said Valentine.

"No?" she exclaimed, in a high piping tone.

"No, I say. I thought you had either invented it--made it up, I mean--or else dreamed it. I do not wish to be hard on you, but I want to remind you how you said you had almost done with this world."

"Why did 'e goo away, and never tell I what 'e thought?" she interrupted.

Valentine took no notice, but went on. "And the parson feels uneasy about you, and so do I. I wish you would try to forget what is written down in the book, and try to remember what you really saw; you must have been quite a young girl then. Well, tell me how you got up very early in the morning, almost before it was light, and tell what you saw, however much it was, or however little; and if you are not quite sure on the whole that you saw anything at all, tell that, and you will have a right to hope that you shall be forgiven."

"I'n can't put it in fine words."

"No, and there is no need."

"Would 'e believe it, if I told it as true as I could?"

"Yes, I would."

"I will, then, as I hope to be saved."

"I mean to stand your friend, whatever you say, and I know how hard it is to own a lie.'

"Ay, that it be, and G.o.d knows I'n told a many."

"Well, I ask you, then, as in the sight of G.o.d, is this one of them?"

"No, sir. It ain't."

"What! you did see a ghost?"

"Ay, I did."

Valentine concealed his disappointment as well as he could, and went on.

"You told me the orchard of pear-trees and cherry-trees was all in blossom, as white as snow. Now don't you think, as it was so very early, almost at dawn, that what you saw really might have been a young cherry-tree standing all in white, but that you, being frightened, took it for a ghost?"

"The sperit didn't walk in white," she answered; "I never said it was in white."

"Why, my good woman, you said it was in a shroud!"

"Ay, I told the gentleman when he took it down, the ghost were wrapped up in a cloak, a long cloak, and he said that were a shroud."