The House by the Churchyard, Page 46

  'I thank you—that’ll do, Sir,' said the lawyer, with a lazy chuckle.

  'I’ll now do myself the honour to make my compliments to Mrs. Sally Nutther,' said Father Roach, making a solemn bow to Mrs. Matchwell, who, with a shrill sneer, pursued him as he disappeared with—

  'The lady in the bed–room, your reverence?'

  Whereat Dirty Davy renewed his wheezy chuckle.

  Nothing daunted, the indignant divine stumped resolutely up stairs, and found poor Sally Nutter, to whose room he was joyfully admitted by honest Betty, who knew his soft honest brogue in a panic, the violence of which had almost superseded her grief. So he consoled and fortified the poor lady as well as he could, and when she urged him to remain in the house all night.

  'My dear Ma’am,' says he, lifting his hand and shaking his head, with closed eyes, 'you forget my caracter. Why, the house is full iv faymales. My darlin' Mrs. Nutther, I—I couldn’t enthertain sich an idaya; and, besides,' said he, with sudden energy, recollecting that the goose might be overdone, 'there’s a religious duty, my dear Ma’am—the holy sacrament waitin'—a pair to be married; but Pat Moran will keep them quiet till mornin,' and I’ll be down myself to see you then. So my sarvice to you, Mrs. Nutther, and God bless you, my dear Ma’am.'

  And with this valediction the priest departed, and from the road he looked back at the familiar outline of the Mills, and its thick clumps of chimneys, and two twinkling lights, and thought of the horrible and sudden change that had passed over the place and the inmates, and how a dreadful curse had scathed them: making it, till lately the scene of comfort and tranquillity, to become the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

  Doctor Toole arrived at ten o’clock next morning, with news that shook the village. The inquest was postponed to the evening, to secure the attendance of some witnesses, who could throw a light, it was thought, on the enquiry. Then Doctor Toole was examined, and identified the body at first, confidently.

  'But,' said he, in the great parlour of the Phoenix, where he held forth, 'though the features were as like as two eggs, it struck me the forehead was a thought broader. So, said I, I can set the matter at rest in five minutes. Charles Nutter’s left upper arm was broken midway, and I set it; there would be the usual deposit where the bone knit, and he had a sword thrust through his right shoulder, cicatrised, and very well defined; and he had lost two under–teeth. Well, the teeth were gone, but three instead of two, and on laying the arm–bone bare, 'twas plain it had never been broken, and, in like manner, nothing wrong with the right shoulder, and there was nothing like so much deltoid and biceps as Nutter had. So says I, at once, be that body whose it may, 'tis none of Charles Nutter’s, and to that I swear, gentlemen; and I had hardly made an end when 'twas identified for the corpse of the French hair–dresser, newly arrived from Paris, who was crossing the Liffey, on Tuesday night, you remember, at the old ferry–boat slip, and fell in and was drowned. So that part of the story’s ended.

  'But, gentlemen,' continued Toole, with the important and resolute bearing of a man who has a startling announcement to make, 'I am sorry to have to tell you that poor Charles Nutter’s in gaol.'

  In gaol! was echoed in all sorts of tones from his auditory, with an abundance of profane ejaculations of wonderment, concern, and horror.

  'Ay, gentlemen, in the body of the gaol.'

  Then it came out that Nutter had been arrested that very morning, in a sedan–chair, at the end of Cook Street, and was now in the county prison awaiting his trial; and that, no doubt, bail would be refused, which, indeed, turned out truly.

  So, when all these amazing events had been thoroughly discussed, the little gathering dispersed to blaze them abroad, and Toole wrote to Mr. Gamble, to tell him that the person, Mary Matchwell, claiming to be the wife of Charles Nutter, has established herself at the Mills, and is disposed to be troublesome, and terrifies poor Mrs. Sally Nutter, who is ill; it would be a charity to come out, and direct measures. I know not what ought to be done, though confident her claim is a bag of moonshine and lies, and, if not stopped, she’ll make away with the goods and furniture, which is mighty hard upon this unfortunate lady,' etc., etc.

  'That Mary Matchwell, as I think, ought to be in gaol for the assault on Sturk; her card, you know, was found in the mud beside him, and she’s fit for any devil’s work.'

  This was addressed by Toole to his good wife.

  'That card? said Jimmey, who happened to be triturating a powder in the corner for little Master Barney Sturk, and who suspended operations, and spoke with the pestle in his fingers, and a very cunning leer on his sharp features: 'I know all about that card.'

  'You do—do you? and why didn’t you spake out long ago, you vagabond?' said Toole. 'Well, then! come now!—what’s in your knowledge–box?—out with it.'

  'Why, I had that card in my hand the night Mr. Nutter went off.'

  'Well?—go on.'

  ''Twas in the hall at the Mills, Sir; I knew it again at the Barracks the minute I seen it.'

  'Why, 'tis a printed card—there’s hundreds of them—how d’ye know one from t’other, wisehead?'

  'Why, Sir, 'twas how this one was walked on, and the letter M. in Mary was tore across, an' on the back was writ, in red ink, for Mrs. Macnamara, and they could not read it down at the Barracks, because the wet had got at it, and the end was mostly washed away, and they thought it was MacNally, or MacIntire; but I knew it the minute I seen it.'

  'Well, my tight little fellow, and what the dickens has all that to do with the matter?' asked Toole, growing uneasy.

  'The dickens a much, I believe, Sir; only as Mr. Nutter was goin' out he snatched it out o' my hand—in the hall there—and stuffed it into his pocket.'

  'You did not tell that lying story, did you, about the town, you mischievous young spalpeen?' demanded the doctor, shaking his disciple rather roughly by the arm.

  'No—I—I didn’t—I did not tell, Sir—what is it to me?' answered the boy, frightened.

  'You didn’t tell—not you, truly. I lay you a tenpenny–bit there isn’t a tattler in the town but has the story by rote—a pretty kettle o' fish you’ll make of it, with your meddling and lying. If 'twas true, 'twould be another matter, but—hold your tongue;—how the plague are you to know one card from another when they’re all alike, and Mrs. Macnamara, Mrs. Macfiddle. I suppose you can read better than the adjutant, ha, ha! Well, mind my words, you’ve got yourself into a pretty predicament; I’d walk twice from this to the county court–house and back again, only to look at it; a pleasant cross–hackling the counsellors will give you, and if you prevaricate—you know what that is, my boy—the judge will make short work with you, and you may cool your heels in gaol as long as he pleases, for me.'

  'And, look’ee,' said Toole, returning, for he was going out, as he generally did, whenever he was profoundly ruffled; 'you remember the affidavit–man that was whipped and pilloried this time two years for perjury, eh? Look to it, my fine fellow. There’s more than me knows how Mr. Nutter threatened to cane you that night—and a good turn 'twould have been—and 'twouldn’t take much to persuade an honest jury that you wanted to pay him off for that by putting a nail in his coffin, you young miscreant! Go on—do—and I promise you’ll get an airing yet you’ll not like—you will.'

  And so Toole, with a wag of his head, and a grin over his shoulder, strutted out into the village street, where he was seen, with a pursed mouth, and a flushed visage, to make a vicious cut or two with his cane in the air as he walked along. And it must be allowed that Master Jimmey’s reflections were a little confused and uncomfortable, as he pondered over the past and the future with the pestle in his fingers and the doctor’s awful words ringing in his ears.

  CHAPTER LXXIX.

  SHOWING HOW LITTLE LILY’S LIFE BEGAN TO CHANGE INTO A RETROSPECT; AND HOW ON A SUDDEN SHE BEGAN TO FEEL BETTER.

  As time wore on, little Lilias was not better. When she had read her Bible, and closed
it, she would sit long silent, with a sad look, thinking; and often she would ask old Sally questions about her mother, and listen to her, looking all the time with a strange and earnest gaze through the glass door upon the evergreens and the early snowdrops. And old Sally was troubled somehow, and saddened at her dwelling so much upon this theme.

  And one evening, as they sat together in the drawing–room—she and the good old rector—she asked him, too, gently, about her; for he never shrank from talking of the beloved dead, but used to speak of her often, with a simple tenderness, as if she were still living.

  In this he was right. Why should we be afraid to speak of those of whom we think so continually? She is not dead, but sleepeth! I have met a few, and they very good men, who spoke of their beloved dead with this cheery affection, and mingled their pleasant and loving remembrances of them in their common talk; and often I wished that, when I am laid up in the bosom of our common mother earth, those who loved me would keep my memory thus socially alive, and allow my name, when I shall answer to it no more, to mingle still in their affectionate and merry intercourse.

  'Some conflicts my darling had the day before her departure,' he said; 'but such as through God’s goodness lasted not long, and ended in the comfort that continued to her end, which was so quiet and so peaceable, we who were nearest about her, knew not the moment of her departure. And little Lily was then but an infant—a tiny little thing. Ah! if my darling had been spared to see her grown–up, such a beauty, and so like her!'

  And so he rambled on; and when he looked at her, little Lily was weeping; and as he looked she said, trying to smile—

  'Indeed, I don’t know why I’m crying, darling. There’s nothing the matter with your little Lily—only I can’t help crying: and I’m your foolish little Lily, you know.'

  And this often happened, that he found she was weeping when he looked on her suddenly, and she used to try to smile, and both, then, to cry together, and neither say what they feared, only each unspeakably more tender and loving. Ah, yes! in their love was mingling now something of the yearning of a farewell, which neither would acknowledge.

  'Now, while they lay here,' says sweet John Bunyan, in his 'Pilgrim’s Progress,' 'and waited for the good hour, there was a noise in the town that there was a post come from the celestial city, with matter of great importance to one Christiana. So enquiry was made for her, and the house was found out where she was; so the post presented her with a letter, the contents whereof were, "Hail, thou good one! I bring thee tidings that the Master calleth for thee, and expecteth that thou shouldst stand in his presence, in clothes of immortality, within these ten days."'

  'When he had read this letter to her, he gave her therewith a sure token that he was a true messenger, and was come to bid her make haste to be gone. The token was an arrow with a point sharpened with love, let easily into her heart, which by degrees wrought so effectually with her, that at the time appointed she must be gone.

  'When Christiana saw that her time was come, and that she was the first of this company that was to go over, she called for Mr. Greatheart, her guide, and told him how matters were.'

  And so little Lily talked with Mr. Greatheart in her own way; and hearing of her mother, gave ear to the story as to a sweet and solemn parable, that lighted her dark steps. And the old man went on:—

  'It is St. John who says, "And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. So when they had rowed about five–and–twenty, or thirty furlongs, they see the Lord walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid. But he saith unto them, It is I, be not afraid." So is it with the frail bark of mortality and the trembling spirit it carries. When "it is now dark," and the sea arises, and the "great wind" blows, the vessel is tost, and the poor heart fails within it; and when they see the dim form which they take to be the angel of death walking the roaming waters, they cry out in terror, but the voice of the sweet Redeemer, the Lord of Life is heard, "It is I; be not afraid," and so the faithful ones "willingly receive him into the ship," and immediately it is at the land whither they go: yes, at the land whither they go. But, oh! the lonely ones, left behind on the other shore.'

  One morning, old Sally, who, in her quiet way, used to tell all the little village news she heard, thinking to make her young mistress smile, or at least listen, said—

  'And that wild young gentleman, Captain Devereux, is growing godly, they say; Mrs. Irons tells me how he calls for his Bible o' nights, and how he does not play cards, nor eat suppers at the Phoenix, nor keep bad company, nor go into Dublin, but goes to church; and she says she does not know what to make of him.'

  Little Lily did not speak or raise her head; she went on stirring the little locket, that lay on the table, with the tip of her finger, looking on it silently. She did not seem to mind old Sally’s talk, almost to hear it, but when it ended, she waited, still silent, as a child, when the music is over, listens for more.

  When she came down she placed her chair near the window, that she might see the snowdrops and the crocuses.

  'The spring, at last, Sally, my darling, and I feel so much better;' and Lily smiled on the flowers through the windows, and I fancy the flowers opened in that beautiful light.

  And she said, every now and then, that she felt 'so much better—so much stronger,' and made old Sally sit by her, and talk to her, and smiled so happily, and there again were all her droll engaging little ways. And when the good rector came in, that evening, she welcomed him in the old pleasant way: though she could not run out, as in other times, when she heard his foot on the steps, to meet him at the door, and there was such a beautiful colour in her clear, thin cheeks, and she sang his favourite little song for him, just one verse, with the clear, rich voice he loved so well, and then tired. The voice remained in his ears long after, and often came again, and that little song, in lonely reveries, while he sat listening, in long silence, and twilight, a swan’s song.

  'You see, your little Lily is growing quite well again. I feel so much better.'

  There was such a childish sunshine in her smile, his trembling heart believed it.

  'Oh! little Lily, my darling!' he stopped—he was crying, and yet delighted. Smiling all the time, and crying, and through it a little laugh, as if he had waked from a dream of having lost her, and found her there—his treasure—safe. 'If anything happened to little Lily, I think the poor old man'—and the sentence was not finished; and, after a little pause, he said, quite cheerily—'But I knew the spring would bring her back. I knew it, and here she is; the light of the house; little Lily, my treasure.'

  And so he blessed and kissed her, and blessed her again, with all his fervent soul, laying his old hand lightly on her fair young head; and when she went up for the night, with gentle old Sally, and he heard her room door shut, he closed his own, and kneeling down, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, in a rapture of gratitude, he poured forth his thanksgivings before the Throne of all Mercies.

  These outpourings of gratitude, all premature, for blessings not real but imagined, are not vain. They are not thrown away upon that glorious and marvellous God who draws near to all who will draw near to Him, reciprocates every emotion of our love with a tenderness literally parental, and is delighted with his creatures' appreciation of his affection and his trustworthiness; who knows whereof we are made, and remembers that we are but dust, and is our faithful Creator. Therefore, friend, though thou fearest a shadow, thy prayer is not wasted; though thou rejoicest in an illusion, thy thanksgiving is not in vain. They are the expressions of thy faith recorded in Heaven, and counted—oh! marvellous love and compassion!—to thee for righteousness.

  CHAPTER LXXX.

  IN WHICH TWO ACQUAINTANCES BECOME, ON A SUDDEN, MARVELLOUSLY FRIENDLY IN THE CHURCH–YARD; AND MR. DANGERFIELD SMOKES A PIPE IN THE BRASS CASTLE, AND RESOLVES THAT THE DUMB SHALL SPEAK.

  On Sunday, Mervyn, after the good doctor’s sermon and benediction, wishing to make enquiry of the rector touching the movements of
his clerk, whose place was provisionally supplied by a corpulent and unctuous mercenary from Dublin, whose fat presence and panting delivery were in signal contrast with the lank figure and deep cavernous tones of the absent official, loitered in the church–yard to allow time for the congregation to disperse, and the parson to disrobe and emerge.

  He was reading an epitaph on an expansive black flag–stone, in the far corner of the church–yard—it is still there—upon several ancestral members of the family of Lowe, who slept beneath 'in hope,' as the stone–cutter informed the upper world; and musing, as sad men will, upon the dates and vanities of the record, when a thin white hand was lightly laid upon his sleeve from behind; and looking round, in expectation of seeing the rector’s grave, simple, kindly countenance, he beheld, instead, with a sort of odd thrill, the white glittering face of Mr. Paul Dangerfield.

  'Hamlet in the church–yard!' said the white gentleman, with an ambiguous playfulness, very like a sneer. 'I’m too old to play Horatio; but standing at his elbow, if the Prince permits, I have a friendly word or two to say, in my own dry way.'

  There was in Mervyn’s nature something that revolted instinctively from the singular person who stood at his shoulder. Their organisations and appetites were different, I suppose, and repellent. Cold and glittering was the 'gelidus anguis in herbâ'—the churchyard grass—who had lifted his baleful crest close to his ear.