Eve

CHAPTER LIII.

BY LANTERN-LIGHT

When Barbara had finished her needlework, the wonder which had for some time been obtruding itself upon her – what had become of Eve – became prominent, and awoke a fear in her lest she should have run off into the wood to Martin. She did not wish to think that Eve would do such a thing; but, if she were not in the house, and neither her step nor her voice announced her presence, where was she? Eve was never able to amuse herself, by herself, for long. She must be with someone – with a maid if no one else were available. She had no resources in herself. If she were with Jasper, it did not matter; but Barbara hardly thought Eve was with him.

She laid aside her needlework, looked into her sister’s room, without expecting to see Eve there, then descended and sought Jane, to inquire whether her father had given signs of being awake by knocking. Jane, however, was not in the pantry nor in the kitchen. Jane had not been seen for some time. Then Barbara very softly stole through the hall and tapped at her father’s door. No answer. She opened it and looked in. The room was quite dark. She stood still and listened. She did not hear her father breathe. In some surprise, but hardly yet in alarm, she went for a candle, and returned with it to the room Mr. Jordan occupied. To her amazement and alarm, she found it empty. She ran into the parlour – no one was there. She sought through the house and garden, and stables – not a sign of her father anywhere, and, strangely enough, not of Eve, or of Jane either. Jasper, likewise, had not been seen for some time. Then, in her distress, Barbara rang the alarm-bell, long, hastily, and strongly. When, after the lapse of some while spent in fruitless search, Barbara arrived at the Raven Rock, she was not alone – two or three of the farm labourers and Joseph the policeman were with her. Jane had found her sweetheart on his way to Morwell to visit her. The light of the fire on the Rock, illumining the air above the trees, had attracted the notice of one of the workmen, and now the entire party came on to the Rock as Mr. Jordan had finished his confession, and Jasper, sick at heart, horror-stricken, stood back, speechless, not able to speak.

Barbara uttered a cry of dismay when she saw her father, and threw herself on her knees at his side. He made a sign to her to keep back, he did not want her; he beckoned to Jasper.

‘One word more,’ he said in a low tone. ‘My hours are nearly over. Lay us all three together – my wife, my child, and me.’

‘Papa,’ said Barbara, ‘what do you mean? what is the matter?’

He paid no attention to her. ‘I have told you where she lies. When you have recovered my poor child – ’

‘What child?’ asked Jasper.

‘Eve; what other?’

Jasper did not understand, and supposed he was wandering.

‘He – your brother – leaped off the precipice with her in his arms.’

‘Papa!’ cried Barbara.

‘She is dead – dashed to pieces – and he too.’

Barbara looked at Jasper, then, in terror ran to the edge. Nothing whatever could be seen. That platform of rock might be the end of the world, a cliff jutting forth into infinite space and descending into infinite abysses of blackness. She leaned over and called, but received no answer. Jasper could hardly believe in the truth of what had been said. Turning to the policeman and servants, he spoke sternly: ‘Mr. Jordan must be removed at once. Let him be lifted very carefully and carried into the house. He has lain here already unsuccoured too long.’

‘I will not be removed,’ said the old man; ‘leave me here, I shall take no further harm. Go – seek for the body of my poor Eve.’

‘John Westlake,’ called Barbara to one of the men, ‘give me the lantern at once.’ The man was carrying one. Then, distracted between fear for her sister and anxiety about her father, she ran back to Mr. Jordan to know how he was.

‘You need be in no immediate anxiety about him,’ said Jasper. ‘It is true that his wound has opened and bled, but I have tightly bandaged it again.’

Joseph, the policeman, stood by helpless, staring blankly about him and scratching his ear.

Then Barbara noticed a blanket lying in a heap on the rock – the blanket Jasper had brought to his brother, but which had been refused. She caught it up at once and tore it into shreds, knotted the ends together, took the lantern from the man Westlake, and let the light down the face of the crag. The lantern was of tin and horn, and through the sides but a dull light was thrown. She could see nothing – the lantern caught in ivy and heather bushes and turned on one side; the candle-flame scorched the horn.

‘I can see nothing,’ she said despairingly. ‘What shall I do!’

Suddenly she grasped Jasper’s hand, as he knelt by her, looking down.

‘Do you hear?’

A faint moan was audible. Was it a human voice, or was a bough swayed and groaning in the wind?

All crowded to the edge and held their breath. Mr. Jordan was disregarded in the immediate interest attaching to the fate of Eve.

No other sound was heard.

Jasper ran and gathered fir and oak branches and grass, bound them into a faggot, set it on fire, and threw it over the edge, so that it might fall wide of the Rock and illumine its face. There was a glare for a moment, but the faggot went down too swiftly to be of any avail.

Then Walter, whom none had hitherto observed, pushed through, and, without saying a word to anyone, kicked off his shoes and went over the edge.

‘Let him go,’ said Jasper as one of the men endeavoured to stay him; ‘the boy can climb like a squirrel. Let him take the lantern, Barbara, that he may see where to plant his foot and what to hold.’ Then he took the blanket rope from her hand, raised the light, and slowly lowered it again beside the descending boy.

Watt went down nimbly yet cautiously, clinging to ivy and tufts of grass, feeling every projection, and trying with his foot before trusting his weight to it. He did not hurry himself. He did not regard those who watched his advance. His descent was in zigzags. He crept along ledges, found a cleft or a step of stone, or a tuft of heather, or a stem of ivy. All at once he grasped the lantern.

‘I see something! Oh, Jasper, what can it be!’ gasped Barbara.

‘Be careful,’ he said; ‘do not overbalance yourself.’

‘I have found her,’ shouted Watt; ‘only her – not him.’

‘God be praised!’ whispered Barbara.

‘Is she alive?’ called Jasper.

‘I do not know, I do not care. Martin is not here.’

‘Now,’ said Jasper, ‘come on, you men – that is, all but one. We must go below; not over the cliff, but round through the coppice. We can find our way to the lantern. The boy must be at the bottom. She has fallen,’ he addressed Barbara now, ‘she has fallen, I trust, among bushes of oak which have broken the force of the fall. Do not be discouraged. Trust in God. Stay here and pray.’

‘Oh, Jasper, I cannot! I must go with you.’

‘You cannot. You must not. The coppice and brambles would tear your clothes and hands and face. The scramble is difficult by day and dangerous by night. You must remain here by your father. Trust me. I will do all in my power for poor Eve. We cannot bring her up the way we descend. We must force our way laterally into a path. You remain by your father, and let a man run for another or two more lanterns.’

Then Jasper went down by way of the wood with the men scrambling, falling, bursting through the brakes; some cursing when slashed across the face by an oak bough or torn through cloth and skin by a braid of bramble. They were quite invisible to Barbara, and to each other. They went downward: fast they could not go, fearing at every moment to fall over a face of rock; groping, struggling as with snakes, in the coils of wood; slipping, falling, scrambling to their feet again, calling each other, becoming bewildered, losing their direction. The lantern that Watt held was quite invisible to them, buried above their heads in the densest undergrowth. The only man of them who came unhurt out of the coppice was Joseph, who, fearing for his face and hands and uniform, unwilling that he should appear lacerated and disfigured before Jane, instead of finding his way down through the brush, descended leisurely by the path or road that made a long circuit to the water’s edge, and then ascended by the same road again to the place whence he had started.

Jasper, who had more intelligence than the rest, had taken his bearings, before starting, by the red star on the side of Hingston Hill, that shone out of a miner’s hut window. This he was able always to see, and by it to steer his course; so that eventually he reached the spot where was Watt with the lantern.

‘Where is she? What are you doing?’ he asked breathlessly. His hands were torn and bleeding, his face bruised.

‘Oh, I do not know. I left her. I want to find Martin – he cannot be far off.’

The boy was scrambling on a slope of fallen rubble.

‘I insist, Watt: tell me. Give me the lantern at once.’

‘I will not. She is up there. You can make out the ledge against the sky, and by the light of the fire above; but Martin – whither is he gone?’

Then away farther down went the boy with his lantern. Instead of following him, Jasper climbed up the rubble slope to the ledge. His eyes had become accustomed to the dark. He distinguished the fluttering end of a white or light-coloured dress. Then he swung himself up upon the ledge, and saw, by the faint light that still lingered in the sky, the figure of a woman – of Eve – lying on one side, with the hands clinging to a broken branch of ivy. A thick bed of heather was on this ledge – so thick that it had prevented Eve from rolling off it when she had fallen into the bush.

He stooped over her. He felt her heart, he put his ear to her mouth. Immediately he called up to Barbara, ‘She is alive, but insensible.’

Then he put his hands to his mouth and shouted to the men who had started with him.

He was startled by seeing Watt with the lantern close to him: the light was on the boy’s face. It was agitated with fear, rage, and distress. His eyes were full of tears, sweat poured from his brow.

‘Why do you shout?’ he said, and shook his fist in Jasper’s face. ‘Have you no care for Martin? I cannot find him yet, but he is near. Be silent, and do not bring the men here. If he is alive I will get him away in the boat. If he is dead – ’ then his sobs burst forth. ‘Martin! poor Martin! where can he be! Do not call: let no one come here. Oh, Martin, Martin!’ and away went the boy down again. ‘Why is she fallen here and found at once, and he is lost! Oh, Martin – poor Martin!’ the edge of the rock came in the way of the light, and Jasper saw no more of the boy and the lantern.

Unrestrained by what his youngest brother had said, Jasper called repeatedly, till at last the men gathered where he was. Then, with difficulty Eve was moved from where she lay and received in the arms of the men below. She moaned and cried out with pain, but did not recover consciousness.

Watt was travelling about farther down with his dull light, sometimes obscured, sometimes visible. One of the men shouted to him to bring the lantern up, but his call was disregarded, and next moment Watt and his lantern were forgotten, as another came down the face of the cliff, lowered by Barbara.

Then the men moved away with their burden, and one went before with the light exploring the way. Barbara above knelt at the edge of the rock and prayed, and as she prayed her tears fell over her cheeks.

At length the little cluster of men appeared with their light through the trees, approaching the Rock from the wood; they had reached the path and were coming along it. Jasper took the lantern and led the way.

‘Lay her here,’ he said, ‘near her father, where there is moss, till we can get a couple of gates.’ Then, suddenly, as the men were about to obey him, he uttered an exclamation of horror. He had put the lantern down beside Mr. Jordan.

‘Stand back,’ he said to Barbara, who was coming up, ‘stand back, I pray you!’

But there was no need for her to stand back: she had seen what he would have hidden from her. In the darkness and loneliness, unobserved, Mr. Jordan had torn away his bandages, and his blood had deluged the turf. It had ceased to flow now – for he was dead.

CHAPTER LIV.

ANOTHER LOAD

The sad procession moved to Morwell out of the wood, preceded by the man Westlake, mounted on Jasper’s horse, riding hard for the doctor. Then came a stable-boy with the lantern, and after the light two gates – first, that on which was laid the dead body of Mr. Jordan; then another, followed closely by Barbara, on which lay Eve breathing, but now not even moaning. As the procession was half through the first field the bell of the house tolled. Westlake had communicated the news to the servant-maids, and one of them at once went to the bell.

Lagging behind all came Joseph Woodman, the policeman. The King of France in the ballad marched up a hill, and then marched down again, having accomplished nothing. Joseph had reversed the process: he had leisurely marched down the hill, and then more leisurely marched up it again; but the result was the same as that attained by the King of France.

On reaching Morwell Jasper said in a low voice to the men, ‘You must return with me: there is another to be sought for. Who saw the boy with the lantern last? He may have found him by this time.’

Then Joseph said slowly, ‘As I was down by the boathouse I saw something.’

‘What did you see?’

‘I saw up on the hill-side a lantern travelling this way, then that way, so’ – he made a zigzag indication in the air with his finger. ‘It went very slow. It went, so to speak, like a drop o’ rain on a window-pane, that goes this way, then it goes a little more that way, then it goes quite contrary, to the other side. Then it changes its direction once again and it goes a little faster.’

‘I wish you would go faster,’ said Jasper impatiently. ‘What did you see at last?’

‘I’m getting into it, but I must go my own pace,’ said Joseph with unruffled composure. ‘You understand me, brothers – I’m not speaking of a drop o’ rain on a window-glass, but of a lantern-light on the hill-side – and bless you, that hill-side was like a black wall rising up on my right hand into the very sky. Well then, the light it travelled like a drop o’ rain on a glass – first to this side, then to that. You’ve seen drops o’ rain how they travel’ – he appealed to all who listened. ‘And I reckon you know how that all to once like the drop, after having travelled first this road, then that road, in a queer contrary fashion, and very slow, all to once like, as I said, down it runs like a winking of the eye and is gone. So exactly was it with thicky (that) there light. It rambled about on the face of the blackness: first it crawled this way, then it crept that; always, brothers, going a little lower and then – to once – whish! – I saw it shoot like a falling star – I mean a raindrop – and I saw it no more.’

‘And then?’

‘Why – and then I came back the same road I went down.’

‘You did not go into the bushes in search?’

‘How should I?’ answered Joseph, ‘I’d my best uniform on. I’d come out courting, not thief-catching.’

‘And you know nothing further?’

‘How should I? Didn’t I say I went back up the road same way as I’d come down? I warn’t bound to get my new cloth coat and trousers tore all abroad by brimbles, not for nobody. I know my duty better than that. The county pays for ‘em.’

Directed by this poor indication, Jasper led the men back into the wood and down the woodman’s truck road, that led by a long sweep to the bottom of the cliffs.

The search was for a long time ineffectual; but at length, at the foot of a rock, they came on the object of their quest – the body of Martin – among fragments of fallen crag, and over it, clinging to his brother with one arm, the hand passed through the ring of a battered lantern, was Walter. The light was extinguished in the lantern and the light was beaten out of the brothers. Jasper looked into the poor boy’s face – a scornful smile still lingered on the lips.

Apparently he had discovered his brother’s body and then had tried to drag it away down the steep slope towards the old mine, in the hopes of hiding there and finding that Martin was stunned, not dead; but in the darkness he had stumbled over another precipice or slidden down a run of shale and been shot with his burden over a rock. Again the sad procession was formed. The two gates that had been already used were put in requisition a second time, and the bodies of Martin and Watt were carried to Morwell and laid in the hall, side by side, and he who carried a light placed it at their head.

Mr. Coyshe had arrived. For three of those brought in no medical aid was of avail.

Barbara, always practical and self-possessed, had ordered the cook to prepare supper for the men. Then the two dead brothers were left where they had been laid, with the dull lantern burning at their head, and the hungry searchers went to the kitchen to refresh.

Joseph ensconced himself by the fire, and Jane drew close to him.

‘I reckon,’ said the policeman, ‘I’ll have some hot grog.’ Then he slid his arm round Jane’s waist and said, ‘In the midst of death we are in life. Is that really, now, giblet pie? The cold joint I don’t fancy’ – he gave Jane a smack on the cheek. ‘Jane, I’ll have a good help of the giblet pie, please, and the workmen can finish the cold veal. I like my grog hot and strong and with three lumps of double-refined sugar. You’ll take a sip first, Jane, and I’ll drink where your honeyed lips have a-sipped. When you come to consider it in a proper spirit’ – he drew Jane closer to his side – ’there’s a deal of truth in Scriptur’. In the midst of death we are in life. Why, Jane, we shall enjoy ourselves this evening as much as if we were at a love-feast. I’ve a sweet tooth, Jane – a very sweet tooth.’

CHAPTER LV.

WHAT EVERY FOOL KNOWS

Jasper stood on the staircase waiting. Then he heard a step descend. There was no light: the maids, in the excitement and confusion, had forgotten their duties. No lamp on the staircase, none in the hall. Only in the latter the dull glimmer of the horn lantern that irradiated but did not illumine the faces of two who were dead. The oak door at the foot of the stairs was ajar, and a feeble light from this lantern penetrated to the staircase. The window admitted some greyness from the overcast sky.

‘Tell me, Barbara,’ he said, ‘what is the doctor’s report?’

‘Jasper!’ Then Barbara’s strength gave way, and she burst into a flood of tears. He put his arm round her, and she rested her head on his breast and cried herself out. She needed this relief. She had kept control over herself by the strength of her will. There was no one in the house to think for her, to arrange anything; she had the care of everything on her, beside her great sorrow for her father, and fear for Eve. As for the servant girls, they were more trouble than help. Men were in the kitchen; that sufficed to turn their heads and make them leave undone all they ought to have done, and do just those things they ought not to do. At this moment, after the strain, the presence of a sympathetic heart opened the fountain of her tears and broke down her self-restraint.

Jasper did not interrupt her, though he was anxious to know the result of Mr. Coyshe’s examination. He waited patiently, with the weeping girl in his arms, till she looked up and said, ‘Thank you, dear friend, for letting me cry here: it has done me good.’

‘Now, Barbara, tell me all.’

‘Jasper, the doctor says that Eve will live.’

‘God’s name be praised for that!’

‘But he says that she will be nothing but a poor cripple all her days.’

‘Then we must take care of her.’

‘Yes, Jasper, I will devote my life to her.’

‘We will, Barbara.’

She took his hand and pressed it between both hers.

‘But,’ she said hesitatingly, ‘what if Mr. Coyshe – ’ She did not finish the sentence.

‘Wait till Mr. Coyshe claims her.’

‘He is engaged to her, so of course he will, the more readily now that she is such a poor crushed worm.’

Jasper said nothing. He knew Mr. Coyshe better than Barbara, perhaps. He had taken his measure when he went with him over the farm after the signing of the will.

‘This place is hers by her father’s will,’ said Jasper; ‘and, should the surgeon draw back, she will need you and me to look after her interests.’

‘Yes,’ said Barbara, ‘she will need us both.’

Then she withdrew her hands and returned upstairs.

A few days later Mr. Coyshe took occasion to clear the ground. He explained to Barbara that his engagement must be considered at an end. He was very sorry, but he must look out for his own interests, as he had neither parent alive to look out for them for him. It would be quite impossible for him to get on with a wife who was a cripple.

‘You are premature, Mr. Coyshe,’ said Miss Jordan stiffly. ‘If you had waited till my sister were able to speak and act, she would have, herself, released you.’

‘Exactly,’ said the unabashed surgeon; ‘but I am so considerate of the feelings of the lady, that I spare her the trouble.’

And now let us spread the golden wings of fancy, and fly the scenes of sorrow – but fly, not in space, but in time; measure not miles, but months.

It is autumn, far on into September, and Michaelmas has brought with it the last days of summer. Not this the autumn that we saw coming on, with the turning dogwood and bird-cherry, but another.

In the garden the colchicum has raised its pale lilac flowers. The Michaelmas daisy is surrounded by the humming-bird moth with transparent wings, but wings that vibrate so fast that they can only be seen as a quiver of light. The mountain ash is hung with clusters of clear crimson berries, and the redbreasts and finches are about it, tearing improvidently at the store, thoughtless of the coming winter, and strewing the soil with wasted coral.

Eve is seated in the sun outside the house, in the garden, and on her knees is a baby – Barbara’s child, and yet Eve’s also, for if Barbara gave it life, Eve gave it a name. Before her sister Barbara kneels, now just restored from her confinement, a little pale and large in eye, looking up at her sister and then down at the child. Jasper stands by contemplating the pretty group.

‘Eve,’ said Barbara in a low tremulous voice, ‘I have had for some months on my heart a great fear lest, when my little one came, I should love it with all my heart, and rob you. I had the same fear before I married Jasper, lest he should snatch some of my love away from the dear suffering sister who needs all. But now I have no such fear any more, for love, I find, is a great mystery – it is infinitely divisible, yet ever complete. It is like’ – she lowered her voice reverently – ’it is like what we Catholics believe about the body of our Lord, the very Sacrament of Love. That is in Heaven and in every church. It is on every altar, and in every communicant, entire. I thought once that when I had a husband, and then a little child, love would suffer diminution – that I could not share love without lessening the portion of each. But it is not so. I love my baby with my whole undivided heart; I love you, my sister, equally with my whole undivided heart; and I love my husband also,’ she turned and smiled at Jasper, ‘with my very whole and undivided heart. It is a great mystery, but love is divine, and divine things are perceived and believed by the heart, though beyond the reason.’

‘So,’ said Eve, smiling, and with her blue eyes filling, ‘my dear, dear Barbara, once so prosaic and so practical, is becoming an idealist and poetical.’

‘Wherever unselfish love reigns, there is poetry,’ said Jasper; ‘the sweetest of the songs of life is the song of self-sacrificing love. Barbara never was prosaic. She was always an idealist; but, my dear Eve, the heart needs culture to see and distinguish true poetry from false sentiment. That you lacked at one time. That you have now. I once knew a little girl, light of heart, and loving only self, with no earnest purpose, blown about by every caprice. Now I see a change – a change from base element to a divine presence. I see a sweet face as of old, but I see something in it, new-born; a soul full of self-reproach and passionate love; a heart that is innocent as of old, but yet that has learned a great deal, and all good, through suffering. I see a life that was once purposeless now instinct with purpose – the purpose to live for duty, in self-sacrifice, and not for pleasure. My dear Eve, the great and solemn priest Pain has laid his hands on you and broken you, and held you up to Heaven, and you are not what you were, and yet – and yet are the same.’