Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

Whatever he was told, he did with such a will, that presently Mabel looked up, and exclaimed with breathless delight – “Oh, I feel a little throb – I did feel a little flutter of the heart – I am almost sure I did.”

“My dear girl, rub away,” answered the Rector; “that is right, Major, is not it?”

“I believe so. Now is the critical time. A relapse – and all is over.”

“There shall be no relapse,” cried the Rector, working away with his shirt-sleeves up, and his ruddy face glowing in the firelight; “please God, there shall be no relapse; the bravest and the noblest maid in the world shall not go out of it. Do you know me, my darling? you ought to know your kind Uncle Struan.”

Purely white and beautiful as a piece of the noblest sculpture, Alice lay before them. Her bashful virgin beauty was (even in the shade of death) respected with pure reverence. The light of the embers (which alone could save her mouldering ash of life) showed the perfect outline, and the absence of the living gift, which makes it more than outline. Mabel’s face, intense with vital energy and quick resolve, shone and glowed in contrast with the apathy and dull whiteness over which she bent so eagerly. Now, even while she gazed, the dim absorption of white cheeks and forehead slowly passed and changed its dulness (like a hydrophane immersed) into glancing and reflecting play of tender light and life. Rigid lines, set lineaments, fixed curves, and stubborn vacancy, began to yield a little and a little, and then more and more, to the soft return of life, and the sense of being alive again.

There is no power of describing it. Those who have been through it cannot tell what happened to them. Only this we know, that we were dead and now we live again. And by the law of nature (which we under-crept so narrowly) we are driven to the opposite extreme of tingling vitality.

Softly as an opening flower, and with no more knowledge of the windy world around us, eyelids, fair as Cytherea’s, raised their fringe, and fell again. Then a long deep sigh of anguish (quite uncertain where it was, but resolved to have utterance), arose from rich, pure depth of breast, and left the kind heart lighter.

“Darling,” cried Mabel, “do you know me? Open your eyes again, and tell me.”

Alice opened her eyes again; but she could not manage to say anything. And she did not seem to know any one. Then the doctor pulled up at the paling-gate, skipped in, felt pulse, or felt for it, and forthwith ordered stimulants.

“Put her to bed in a very warm room. The carriage is here with the blankets, but on no account must she go home. Mrs. Bottler will give up her best room. Let Mrs. Merryjack sit up all night. She is a cook, she can keep a good fire up. Let her try to roast her young mistress. Only keep the air well moving. I see that you have a first-rate nurse – this pretty young lady – excuse me, ma’am. Well I shall be back in a couple of hours. I have a worse case to see to.”

He meant Sir Roland; but would not tell them. He had met the groom from Coombe Lorraine; and he knew how the power of life has dropped, from a score of years to threescore.

CHAPTER LXXIII.

POLLY’S DOLL

In this present state of things, and difficulty everywhere, the one thing most difficult of all is to imagine greater goodness than that of Mr. Bottler. He had a depression that could not be covered by a five-pound note, to begin with, in the value of the pig-meat he was dressing scientifically, when he had to turn it all out to be frozen, and take in poor Alice to thaw instead. Of that he thought nothing, less than nothing – he said so; and he tried to feel it. But take it as you will, it is something. A man’s family may be getting lighter, as they begin to maintain themselves; but the man himself wants more maintenance, after all his exertions with them; and the wife of his old bosom lacks more nourishment than the bride of his young one. More money goes out as more money comes in.

And not only that, but professional pride grows stronger as a man grows older and more thoroughly up to his business, especially if a lot of junior fellows, like the man at Bramber, rush in, and invent new things, and boast of work that we know to be clumsy. If any man in England was proud of the manner in which he turned out his pork, that man was Churchwarden Bottler. Yet disappointment combined with loss could not quench his accustomed smile, or plough one wrinkle in his snowy hose, as he quitted his cart on the following morning, and made his best duty and bow to Alice.

Alice, still looking very pale and frail, was lying on the couch in the pigman’s drawing-room; while Mabel, who had been with her all the night, sat on her chair by her pillow. Alice had spoken, with tears in her eyes, of the wonderful kindness of every one. Her mind was in utter confusion yet as to anything that had befallen her; except that she had some sense of having done some desperate deed, which had caused more trouble than she was worthy of. Her pride and courage were far away. Her spirit had been so near the higher realms where human flesh is not, that it was delighted to get back, and substantially ashamed of itself.

“What will my dear father say? And what will other people think? I seem to have considered nothing; and I can consider nothing now.”

“Darling, don’t try to consider,” Mabel answered softly; “you have considered far too much; and what good ever comes of it?”

“None,” she answered; “less than none. Consider the lilies that consider not. Oh, my head is going round again.”

It was the roundness of her head, which had saved her life in the long dark water. Any long head must have fallen back, and yielded up the ghost; but her purely spherical head, with the garden-hat fixed tightly round it, floated well on a rapid stream, with air and natural hair resisting any water-logging. And thus the Woeburn had borne her for a mile, and vainly endeavoured to drown her.

“Oh, why does not my father come?” she cried, as soon as she could clear her mind; “he always used to come at once, and be in such a hurry, even if I got the nettle-rash. He must have made his mind up now, to care no more about me. And when he has once made up his mind, he is stern – stern – stern. He never will forgive me. My own father will despise me. Where now, where is somebody?”

“You are getting to be foolish again,” said Mabel; much as it grieved her to speak thus; “your father cannot come at the very first moment you call for him. He is full of lawyers’ business, and allowances must be made for him. Now, you are so clever, and you have inherited from the Normans such a quick perception. Take this thing; and tell me, Alice, what it can be meant for.”

From the place of honour in the middle of the mantelpiece, Mabel Lovejoy took down a tool which had been dwelling on her active mind ever since the night before. She understood taps, she had knowledge of cogs, she could enter into intricate wards of keys, and was fond of letter-padlocks; but now she had something which combined them all; and she could not make head or tail of it.

“I thought that I knew every metal that grows,” she said, as Alice opened her languid hand for such a trifle; “I always clean our forks and spoons, and my mother’s three silver teapots. But I never beheld any metal of such a colour as this has got, before. Can you tell me what this metal is?”

“I ought to know something, but I know nothing,” Alice answered, wearily; “my father is acknowledged to be full of learning. Every minute I expect him.”

“No doubt he will tell us, when he comes. But I am so impatient. And it looks like the key of some wonderful lock, that nothing else would open. May I ask what it is? Come, at least say that.”

“It will give me the greatest delight to know,” said Alice, with a yawn, “what the thing is; because it will please you, darling. And it certainly does look curious.”

Upon this question Mrs. Bottler, like a good woman, referred them to her learned husband, who came in now from his morning drive, scraping off the frozen snow, and accompanied, of course by Polly.

“Polly’s doll, that’s what we call it,” he said; “the little maid took such a liking to it, that Bonny was forced to give it to her. Where the boy got it, the Lord only knows. The Lord hath given him the gift of finding a’most everything. He hath it both in his eyes and hands. I believe that boy’d die Lord Mayor of London, if he’d only come out of his hole in the hill.”

“But cannot we see him, Mr. Bottler?” asked Mabel; “when he is finding these things, does he lose himself?”

“Not he, Miss!” replied the man of bacon. “He knows where he is, go where he will. You can hear him a-whistling down the lane now. He knoweth when I’ve a been easing of the pigs, sharper than my own steel do. Chittlings, or skirt, or milt, or trimmings – oh, he’s the boy for a rare pig’s fry – it don’t matter what the weather is. I’d as lief dine with him as at home a’most.”

“Oh, let me go and see him at the door,” cried Mabel; “I am so fond of clever boys.” So out she ran without waiting for leave, and presently ran back again. “Oh, what a nice boy!” she exclaimed to Alice; “so very polite, and he has got such eyes! But I’m sadly afraid he’ll be impudent when he grows much older.”

“Aha, Miss, aha, Miss! you are right enough there,” observed Mr. Bottler, with a crafty grin. “He ain’t over bashful already, perhaps.”

“And where do you think he found this most extraordinary instrument? At Shoreham, drawn up by the nets from the sea! And they said that it must have been dropped from a ship, many and many a year ago, when Shoreham was a place for foreign traffic. And he is almost sure that it must be a key of some very strange old-fashioned lock.”

“Then you may depend upon it, that it is a key, and nothing else,” said Bottler, with his fine soft smile. “That boy Bonny hath been about so much among odds, and ends, and rakings, that he knoweth a bit about everything.”

“An old-fashioned key from the sea at Shoreham? Let me think of something,” said Alice, leaning back on her pillow, with her head still full of the Woeburn. “I seem to remember something, and then I am not at all sure what it is. Oh! when is my father coming?”

“Your father hath sent orders, Miss Alice,” said Bottler, coming back with a good bold lie, “that you must go up to the house, if you please. He hath so much to see to with them Chapman lot, that he must not leave home nohow. The coach is a-coming for you now just.”

“Very well,” answered Alice, “I will do as I am told. I mean to do always whatever I am told for all the rest of my life, I am sure. But will you lend me Polly’s doll?”

“Lord bless you, Miss, I daren’t do it for my life. Polly would have the house down. She’m is the strangest child as you ever did see, until you knows how to manage her. Her requireth to be taken the right side up. Now, if I say ‘Poll’ to her, her won’t do nothing; but if I say ‘Polly dear,’ – why, there she is!”

Alice was too weak and worn to follow this great question up. But Mabel was as wide awake as ever, although she had been up all night. “Now, Mr. Bottler, just do this: Go and say, ‘Polly, dear, will you lend your doll to the pretty lady, till it comes back covered with sugar-plums?’” Mr. Bottler promised that he would do this; and by the time Alice was ready to go, square Polly, with a very broad gait, came up and placed her doll without a word, in the hands of Alice and then ran away, and could never stop sobbing, until her father put the horse in on purpose, and got her between his legs in the cart. “Where are you going?” cried Mrs. Bottler. “We will drive to the end of the world,” he answered; “I’m blowed if I think there’ll be any gate to pay between this and that, by the look of things. Polly, hold on by daddy’s knees.”

CHAPTER LXXIV.

FROM HADES’ GATES

In the old house and good household, warmth of opinion and heat of expression abounded now about everything. Pages might be taken up by saying what even one man thought, and tens of pages would not contain the half of what one woman said. Enough, that when poor Alice was brought back through the snow-drifts quietly, every moveable person in the house was at the door. Everybody loved her, and everybody admired her; but now with a pendulous conscience. Also, with much fear about themselves; as the household of Admetus gazed at the pale return of Alcestis.

Alice, being still so weak, and quite unfit for anything, was frightened at their faces, and drew back and sank with faintness.

“Sillies!” cried Mabel, jumping out, with Polly’s doll inside her muff; “naturals, or whatever you are, just come and do your duty.”

They still hung away, and not one of them would help poor Alice across her own father’s threshold, until a great scatter of snow flew about, and a black horse was reigned up hotly.

“You zanies!” cried the Rector; “you cowardly fools! You never come to church, or you would know what to do. You skulking hounds, are you afraid of your own master’s daughter? I have got my big whip. By the Lord, you shall have it. Out of my parish I’ll set to and kick every dastardly son of a cook of you.”

“Where is my father?” said Alice faintly; “I hoped that he would have come for me.”

At the sound of her voice they began to perceive that she was not the ghost of the Woeburn; and the Rector’s strong championship cast at once the broad and sevenfold shield of the church over the maiden’s skeary deed. “Oh, Uncle Struan,” she whispered, hanging upon his arm, as he led her in; “have I committed some great crime? Will my father be ashamed of me?”

“He should rather be ashamed of himself, I think,” he answered, for the present declining the subject which he meant to have out with her some day; “but, my dear, he is not quite well; that is why he does not come to see you. And, indeed, he does not know – I mean he is not at all certain how you are. Trotman, open that door, sir, this moment.”