CHAPTER XXX. REBECCA WYTHAN

The earl was looked for at the, chief office of the mines, and each

day an expectation of him closed in disappointment, leaving it to be

surmised that there were more serious reasons for his continued absence

during a crisis than any discussed; whether indeed, as when a timepiece

neglects to strike the hour which is, by the reckoning of natural

impatience, past, the capital charge of ‘crazy works’ must not be

brought against a nobleman hitherto precise upon business, of a just

disposition, fairly humane. For though he was an absentee sucking the

earth through a tube, in Ottoman ease, he had never omitted the duty of

personally attending on the spot to grave cases under dispute. The son

of the hardheaded father came out at a crisis; and not too highhandedly:

he could hear an opposite argument to the end. Therefore, since

he refused to comply without hearing, he was wanted on the spot

imperatively, now.

Irony perusing History offers the beaten and indolent a sugary acid in

the indication of the spites and the pranks, the whims and the tastes,

at the springs of main events. It is, taken by itself, destructive

nourishment. But those who labour in the field to shovel the clods of

earth to History, would be wiser of their fellows for a minor dose

of it. Mr. Howell Edwards consulting with Mr. Owain Wythan on the

necessity, that the earl should instantly keep his promise to appear

among the men and stop the fermentation, as in our younger days a

lordly owner still might do by small concessions and the physical

influence--the nerve-charm--could suppose him to be holding aloof for

his pleasure or his pride; perhaps because of illness or inability to

conceive the actual situation at a distance. He mentioned the presence

of the countess, and Mr. Wythan mentioned it, neither of them thinking

a rational man would so play the lunatic as to let men starve, and wreck

precious mines, for the sake of avoiding her.

Sullen days went by. On these days of the slate-cloud or the

leaden-winged, Carinthia walked over the hills to her staring or

down-eyed silent people, admitted without a welcome at some doors,

rejected at some. Her baskets from the castle were for the most part

received as graciously. She continued to direct them for delivery where

they were needed, and understood why a charity that supplied the place

of justice was not thanked. She and her people here were one regarding

the master, as she had said. They could not hurt her sensitiveness,

she felt too warmly with them. And here it was not the squalid, flat,

bricked east-corner of London at the close of her daily pilgrimage. Up

from the solitary street of the slate-roofs, she mounted a big hill and

had the life of high breathing. A perpetual escape out of the smoky,

grimy city mazes was trumpeted to her in the winds up there: a

recollected contrast lightened the skyless broad spaces overhead almost

to sunniness. Having air of the hills and activity for her limbs, she

made sunshine for herself. Regrets were at no time her nestlings.

Look backward only to correct an error of conduct for the next attempt,

says one of her father’s Maxims; as sharply bracing for women as for

men. She did not look back to moan. Now that her hunger for the safety

of her infant was momentarily quieted, she could see Kit Ines hanging

about the lower ground, near the alehouse, and smile at Madge’s

comparison of him to a drummed-out soldier, who would like to be taken

for a holiday pensioner.

He saluted; under the suspicion of his patron’s lady his legs were

hampered, he dared not approach her; though his innocence of a deed not

proposed to him yet--and all to stock that girl Madge’s shop, if done!

knocked at his ribs with fury to vindicate himself before the lady and

her maid. A gentleman met them and conducted them across the hills.

And two Taffy gentlemen would hardly be sufficient for the purpose,

supposing an ill-used Englishman inclined to block their way!--What, and

play footpad, Kit Ines? No, it’s just a game in the head. But a true man

hates to feel himself suspected. His refuge is the beer of the country.

Next day there were the two gentlemen to conduct the lady and her maid;

and Taffy the first walks beside the countess; and that girl Madge

trudges along with no other than my lord’s Mr. Woodseer, chattering like

a watering-can on a garden-bed: deuce a glance at Kit Ines. How can she

keep it up and the gentleman no more than nodding? How does he enjoy

playing second fiddle with the maid while Mr. tall brown-face Taffy

violins it to her ladyship a stone’s throw in front? Ines had less

curiosity to know the object of Mr. Woodseer’s appearance on the scene.

Idle, unhandsomely treated, and a cave of the yawns, he merely commented

on his observations.

‘Yes, there he is, don’t look at him,’ Madge said to Gower; ‘and

whatever he’s here for, he has a bad time of it, and rather more than

it’s pleasant for him to think over, if a slave to a “paytron” thinks

at all. I won’t judge him; my mistress is bitten with the fear for

the child, worse than ever. And the earl, my lord, not coming, and

he wanting her to move again, seems to her he durstn’t do it here and

intends to snap at the child on the road. She-’s forced to believe

anything of such a husband and father. And why does he behave so?

I can’t spell it. He’s kind to my Sally--you’ve seen the Piccadilly

shop?--because she was... she did her best in love and duty for my lady.

And behaves like a husband hating his wife’s life on earth! Then he went

down with good Mr. Woodseer, and called on Sally, pretending to inquire,

after she was kidnapped by that Kit Ines acting to please his paytron,

he must be shown up to the room where she slept, and stands at the door

and peeps in, Sally’s letter says, and asks if he may enter the room. He

went to the window looking on the chimneys she used to see, and touched

an ornament over the fireplace, called grandfather’s pigtail case--he

was a sailor; only a ridiculous piece of china, that made my lady laugh

about the story of its holding a pigtail. But he turns it over because

she did--Sally told him. He couldn’t be pretending when he bought the

beautiful shop and stocked it for Sally. He gets her lots of customers;

and no rent to pay till next Michaelmas a year. She’s a made woman

through him. He said to her, he had heard from Mr. Woodseer the Countess

of Fleetwood called her sister; he shook her hand.’

‘The Countess of Fleetwood called both of you her sisters, I think,’

said Gower.

‘I’m her servant. I’d rather serve her than have a fortune.’

‘You were born with a fortune one would like to have a nibble at,

Madge.’

‘I can’t lay hand on it, then.’

‘It’s the capacity for giving, my dear.’

‘Please, Mr. Gower, don’t say that; you’ll make me cry. He keeps his

wife so poor she hasn’t a shilling of her own; she wearies about her

brother; she can’t help. He can spend hundreds on my Sally for having

been good to her, in our small way--it’s a fairy tale; and he won’t hear

of money for his wife, except that she’s never to want for anything it

can buy.’

‘You give what it can’t buy.’

‘Me. I’m “a pugilist’s wench”--I’ve heard myself called. She was the

first who gave me a lift; never mind me. Have you come to take her away?

She’d trust herself and the child to you.’

‘Take her?--reason with her as to the best we can do. He holds off from

a meeting just now. I fancy he’s wearing round to it. His keeping his

wife without money passes comprehension. After serving him for a few

months, I had a store invested to support me for years--as much as I

need before I join the ranks of the pen. I was at my reading and writing

and drowsing, and down he rushes: I ‘m in harness again. I can’t say

it’s dead waste of time; besides I pick up an independence for the

days ahead. But I don’t respect myself for doing the work. Here’s the

difference between us two servants, Madge: I think of myself, and you

don’t.’

‘The difference is more like between the master and mistress we serve,

Mr. Gower.’

‘Well, I’d rather be the woman in this case.’

‘You know the reputation I’ve got. And can only just read, and can’t

spell. My mistress teaches me bits of German and French on her walks.’

Gower took a new observation of this girl, whom he had not regarded as

like himself, a pushing blade among the grasses. He proposed to continue

her lessons, if she cared to learn; saying it could be done in letters.

‘I won’t be ashamed of writing, if you mean it,’ said she. ‘My mistress

will have a usefuller servant. She had a strange honeymoon of a

marriage, if ever was--and told me t’ other day she was glad because it

brought us together--she a born lady!’

‘A fling-above born ladies. She’s quick as light to hit on a jewel where

there is one, whether it shines or not. She stands among the Verities of

the world.’

‘Yes,’ Madge said, panting for more. ‘Do speak of her. When you praise

her, I feel she’s not wasted. Mistress; and friend and wife--if he’d

let her be; and mother; never mother like her. The boy ‘ll be a sturdy.

She’ll see he has every chance. He’s a lucky little one to have that

mother.’

‘You think her handsome, Madge?’

Gower asked it, wishing to hear a devotee’s confusion of qualities and

looks.

The question was a drop on lower spheres, and it required definitions,

to touch the exact nature of the form of beauty, and excuse a cooler

tone on the commoner plane. These demanded language. She rounded

the difficulty, saying: ‘You see engravings of archery; that ‘s her

figure--her real figure. I think her face... I can’t describe... it

flashes.’

‘That’s it,’ said Gower, delighted with his perception of a bare mind

at work and hitting the mark perforce of warmth. ‘When it flashes, it’s

unequalled. There’s the supremacy of irregular lines. People talk of

perfect beauty: suitable for paintings and statues. Living faces, if

they’re to show the soul, which is the star on the peak of beauty, must

lend themselves to commotion. Nature does it in a breezy tree or over

ruffled waters. Repose has never such splendid reach as animation--I

mean, in the living face. Artists prefer repose. Only Nature can express

the uttermost beauty with her gathering and tuning of discords. Well,

your mistress has that beauty. I remember my impression when I saw her

first on her mountains abroad. Other beautiful faces of women go pale,

grow stale. The diversified in the harmony of the flash are Nature’s

own, her radiant, made of her many notes, beyond our dreams to

reproduce. We can’t hope to have a true portrait of your mistress. Does

Madge understand?’

The literary dose was a strong one for her; but she saw the index, and

got a lift from the sound. Her bosom heaved. ‘Oh, I do try, Mr. Gower.

I think I do a little. I do more while you’re talking. You are good to

talk so to me. You should have seen her the night she went to meet my

lord at those beastly Gardens Kit Ines told me he was going to. She was

defending him. I’ve no words. You teach me what’s meant by poetry. I

couldn’t understand that once.’

Their eyes were on the countess and her escort in advance. Gower’s

praises of her mistress’s peculiar beauty set the girl compassionately

musing. His eloquence upon the beauty was her clue.

Carinthia and Mr. Wythan started at a sharp trot in the direction of the

pair of ponies driven by a groom along the curved decline of the narrow

roadway. His whip was up for signal.

It concerned the house and the master of it. His groom drove rapidly

down, while he hurried on the homeward way, as a man will do, with the

dread upon him that his wife’s last breath may have been yielded before

he can enfold her.

Carinthia walked to be overtaken, not daring to fever her blood at a

swifter pace; ‘lamed with an infant,’ the thought recurred.

‘She is very ill, she has fainted, she lies insensible,’ Madge heard

from her of Mrs. Wythan. ‘We were speaking of her when the groom

appeared. It has happened twice. They fear the third. He fears it,

though he laughs at a superstition. Now step, I know you like walking,

Mr. Woodseer. Once I left you behind.’

‘I have the whole scene of the angel and the cripple,’ Gower replied.

‘O that day!’

They ‘were soon speculating on the unimpressionable house in its clump

of wood midway below, which had no response for anxieties.

A maid-servant at the garden gate, by Mr. Wythan’s orders, informed

Carinthia that her mistress had opened her eyes: There was a hope of

weathering the ominous third time. But the hope was a bird of short

flight from bush to bush until the doctor should speak to confirm it.

Even the child was under the shadow of the house. Carinthia had him in

her arms, trusting to life as she hugged him, and seeing innumerable

darts out of all regions assailing her treasure.

‘She wishes to have you,’ Mr. Wythan came and said to her. ‘Almost her

first word. The heart is quickening. She will live for me if she can.’

He whispered it. His features shot the sparkle.

Rebecca Wythan had strength to press Carinthia’s hand faintly. She

made herself heard: ‘No pain.’ Her husband sat upright, quite still,

attentive for any sign. His look of quiet pleasure ready to show,

sprightliness dwelt on her. She returned the look, unable to give it

greeting. Past the sense of humour, she wanted to say: ‘See the poor

simple fellow who will think it a wife that he has!’ She did but look.

Carinthia spoke his name, ‘Mr. Wythan,’ by chance, and Rebecca breathed

heavily until she formed the words: ‘Owain to me.’

‘To me,’ Owain added.

The three formed a chain of clasped hands.

It was in the mind of the sick lady to disburden herself of more than

her weakness could utter, so far was she above earthly links. The desire

in her was to be quit of the flesh, bearing a picture of her husband as

having the dues of his merits.

Her recovered strength next day brought her nearer to our laws. ‘You

will call him Owain, Carinthia?’ she said. ‘He is not one to presume on

familiarity. I must be going soon. I cannot leave him the wife I would

choose. I can leave him the sister. He is a sure friend. He is the

knightly man women dream of. I harp on it because I long for testimony

that I leave him to have some reward. And this may be, between two so

pure at heart as you two.’

‘Dear soul friend, yes, and Owain, yes, I can say it,’ Carinthia

rejoined. ‘Brother? I have only my Chillon. My life is now for him. I

am punished for separating myself from the son of my father. I have no

heart for a second brother. What I can give to my friend I will. I shall

love you in him, if I am to lose you.’

‘Not Owain--it was I was the wretch refused to call on the lonely

lady at the castle until I heard she had done a romantic little bit of

thing--hushed a lambkin’s bleating. My loss! my loss! And I could afford

it so poorly. Since then Carinthia has filled my days. I shudder to

leave you and think of your going back to the English. Their sneer

withers. They sent you down among us as a young woman to be shunned.’

‘I did wildly, I was ungoverned, I had one idea,’ said Carinthia. ‘One

idea is a bullet, good for the day of battle to beat the foe, father

tells us. It was a madness in me. Now it has gone, I see all round. I

see straight, too. With one idea, we see nothing--nothing but itself.

Whizz! we go. I did. I shall no longer offend in that way. Mr. Gower

Woodseer is here from my lord.’

‘With him the child will be safe.’

‘I am not alarmed. It is to request--they would have me gone, to prepare

the way for my lord.’

‘You have done, it; he has the castle to himself. I cannot-spare you.

A tyrant ordering you to go should be defied. My Lord Fleetwood puts

lightning into my slow veins.’

‘We have talked: we shall be reproved by the husband and the doctor,’

said Carinthia.

Sullen days continued and rolled over to night at the mines. Gower’s

mission was rendered absurd by the countess’s withdrawal from the

castle. He spoke of it to Mr. Wythan once, and the latter took a big

breath and blew such a lord to the winds. ‘Persuade our guest to leave

us, that the air may not be tainted for her husband when he comes? He

needn’t call; he’s not obliged to see her. She’s offered Esslemont to

live in? I believe her instinct’s right--he has designs on the child.

A little more and we shall have a mad dog in the fellow. He doubles my

work by keeping his men out. If she were away we should hear of black

doings. Twenty dozen of his pugilists wouldn’t stop the burning.’

They agreed that persuasions need not be addressed to the countess. She

was and would remain Mr. Wythan’s guest. As for the earl, Gower inclined

to plead hesitatingly, still to plead, on behalf of a nobleman owning

his influence and very susceptible to his wisdom, whose echo of a

pointed saying nearly equalled the satisfaction bestowed by print. The

titled man affected the philosopher in that manner; or rather, the crude

philosopher’s relish of brilliant appreciation stripped him of his robe.

For he was with Owain Wythan at heart to scorn titles which did not

distinguish practical offices. A nation bowing to them has gone to pith,

for him; he had to shake himself, that he might not similarly stick; he

had to do it often. Objects elevated even by a decayed world have their

magnetism for us unless we nerve the mind to wakeful repulsion. He

protested he had reason to think the earl was humanizing, though he

might be killing a woman in the process. ‘Could she wish for better?’

he asked, with at least the gravity of the undermining humourist; and

he started Owain to course an idea when he remarked of Lord Fleetwood:

‘Imagine a devil on his back on a river, flying a cherub.’

Owain sparkled from the vision of the thing to wrath with it.

‘Ay, but while he’s floating, his people are edging on starvation. And

I’ve a personal grievance. I keep, you know, open hall, bread and cheese

and beer, for poor mates. His men are favouring us with a call. We have

to cart treble from the town. If I straighten the sticks he dies to

bend, it’ll be a grievance against me--and a fig for it! But I like to

be at peace with my neighbours, and waft them “penillion” instead of

dealing the “cleddyfal” of Llewellyn.’

At last the tension ceased; they had intelligence of the earl’s arrival.

His countess was little moved by it; and the reason for that lay in her

imagination being absorbed. Henrietta had posted her a journal telling

of a deed of Chillon’s: no great feat, but precious for its ‘likeness

to him,’ as they phrased it; that is, for the light it cast on their

conception of the man. Heading a squadron in a riotous Midland town, he

stopped a charge, after fire of a shot from the mob, and galloped up

the street to catch a staggering urchin to his saddle-bow, and place the

mite in safety. Then it was a simple trot of the hussars ahead; way was

made for him.

Now, to see what banquet there is for the big of heart in the world’s

hot stress, take the view of Carinthia, to whom her brother’s thoughtful

little act of gentleness at the moment of the red-of-the-powder smoke

was divinest bread and wine, when calamity hung around, with the future

an unfooted wilderness, her powers untried, her husband her enemy.