The Duchess of Rosemary Lane. A Novel. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold
but Nelly's face bids fair to rival it. A sigh escapes her bosom, and she sinks back, insensible.
The gardener's son calls to her in alarm, but she does not reply. He sees a light in a cottage window a short distance off, and he draws up at the door. Yet even as he lifts Nelly down with gentle care, she recovers, and asks him with a frightened air why he has stopped.
"You fainted," he explains.
"I am well now," she cries, with feverish eagerness. "Go on-go on!"
He answers, with a determination, that he will not proceed until she has taken something to sustain her strength-a cup of tea, a little brandy, anything-and she is compelled to yield. He knocks at the cottage door. A labourer opens it. The young gardener explains the nature of his errand, and produces money.
"You are in luck's way," says the labourer. "The missus has just made herself a cup of tea."
His wife turns her head, with a reproachful look, towards the door, the opening of which has brought a blast of cold air into the room. She is kneeling by a cradle at the fireside, and with common, homely words of love is singing her baby to sleep. Nelly catches her breath as the song and its meaning fall upon her ears and understanding, and in an agony of agitation she begs the young gardener to take her away. The tears stream down her cheeks, and her face is convulsed as she thus implores him. The soft sweet song of the mother has cut into her heart with the sharp keenness of cruelly-edged steel.
"Let me go," she cries wildly, "let me go! O my heart, my heart!"
The labourer's wife comes hurriedly forward, still with the mother's love-light in her eyes. But instead of speaking soothing words to the girl, she exclaims,
"Lord save us! What brings you out on such a night as this, and where do you belong to? You ought to be ashamed of yourself" – (this to the young gardener) – "carrying the poor child about in such a condition!"
"Ay, ay, dame," replies the young gardener, gently, with an observant glance at Nelly, a glance which brings a troubled look into his own face; "it is a bitter night-"
Nelly stops his further speech, and putting her arm about the woman's neck, whispers to her. The young gardener turns his back upon the women, and the labourer sits on a chair, with his eyes to the ground. For a minute or so the men do not stir from the positions they have assumed; then, as though moved by a common thought, they step softly from the cottage, and stand in silence outside for many minutes, until the wife comes to the door, and beckons them in. Nelly is on her knees by the cradle.
"Get along as quick as you can," whispers the labourer's wife to the young gardener; "there's little time to lose."
There are tears on her face, and on Nelly's also, as she rises from her knees.
"God bless you, my dear!" says the woman to the unhappy girl; and when Nelly and her protector have departed, she turns to her husband, and kisses his weather-worn face, with a grateful feeling in her breast, to which she could not have given expression in speech. But words are not needed at this moment.
In the meanwhile the travellers are speeding onwards.
"Only four miles to go now," says the young gardener, cheerfully; "keep up your strength."
Nelly nods, and hides her face from her companion. It might make his heart faint to see the suffering depicted there.
It is difficult travelling, for the snow lies nearly a foot thick on the road, but John works with such good will, and the horse is so willing a creature, that they make fair progress. On they go, through wide and narrow spaces, clothed in purest white, and John now begins to wonder how this night's work will end. The reflection disturbs him, and he shakes the reins briskly, as though, by doing so, he can shake off distressing thoughts. Another mile is done, and another, and another. The young gardener's tongue keeps wagging all the way.
"I see the lights in the town," he says, in a tone of satisfaction, pointing with his whip.
The words have no sooner passed his lips than the horse twists its hoof in a hole hidden by the snow, and falls to the ground. John jumps out hastily, and lifts Nelly from the conveyance. The willing animal, in obedience to the gardener's urging, strives to rise, and partially succeeds, but slips down immediately with a groan.
"The horse is lamed," says John; "what shall we do now?"
He looks around for assistance. Not a house nor a human being is near them, and the town is nearly a mile distant. The lights which they could see from their elevation in the conveyance are no longer visible to them. Nelly's hands are tightly clasped as she looks imploringly into the face of her companion. "Can you walk?" asks John.
The reply comes from lips contracted with pain. "I must."
"I will carry you. I can!"
She shrinks from him, and moans that he must not touch her, and that she will try to walk. Slowly they plod along through the heavy snow, he encouraging her by every means in his power. Half an hour passes, and a church clock strikes ten. The church is quite close to them-a pretty, old-time place of worship, with many gables and an ancient porch; and a quaint churchyard adjoining, where hearts are at rest, and where human passions no longer bring woe and suffering.
Nelly clings to the gate of the church.
"John," she whispers.
"Yes," he answers, bending down to her.
"You have been a good friend to me. Will you continue to do what I wish?"
She speaks very slowly, with a pause between each word. She feels that consciousness is departing from her, that her strength has utterly left her, that she cannot walk another dozen yards. But she has something to say, and by a supreme effort of will-only to be summoned in such a bitter crisis as this in her young life-she retains her senses until it is said.
"I will do as you wish," says John, supporting her fainting form, and knowing instinctively, as he places his arms about her, that it is almost death to her that he shall touch her.
"I cannot walk another step. My strength is gone."
"What must I do?"
"Take me to that porch. Lay me there-and leave me."
"Leave you!"
"If you raise me in your arms, I shall die! If you attempt to carry me into the town, I shall die! If you do not obey me, I shall die, and think of you as my enemy!"
He listens in awe. He has never heard language like this-he has never heard a voice like this.
"Lay me in that porch. Then seek a woman with a kind heart, and send her to me. Then-then-"
She struggles with nature. With the strength of a death's agony she fights for another minute of consciousness.
"And then?" he prompts, with his ear close to her lips, for the snow falls scarcely less lightly than the word; she breathes forth.
"Then," she whispers, "seek him, and bring him to my side."
She has finished, and sinks into his arms, where she lies insensible and motionless, with her white face turned upwards to the sky, and the soft snow floating down upon it.
Implicitly he obeys her. Swiftly, and with the gentleness of a good woman, he bears her to the porch, and stripping off his outer coat, wraps her in it, and lays her within the holy hood of the house of prayer. Once or twice he speaks to her, but receives no answer; and once, with a sudden fear upon him, he places his ear to her heart, and hears with thankfulness its faint beating. He wipes the snow from her face, and, his task being thus far accomplished, he leaves her to seek for help.
The churchyard, with its silent dead, is not outwardly more still than is the form of this hapless girl; and but for the mystery within her, hidden mercifully from the knowledge of men, she might have been as dead as any buried in that ancient place. The soft snow falls and falls, and vagrant flakes float into the porch, and rest lightly upon her, like white-winged heralds of love and pity. In the churchyard are tombs of many designs-some lying low in humility, some rearing their heads with an arrogance befitting, mayhap, the clay they cover when it was animated with life. Lies there beneath these records the dust of any woman's