Chapter XIII: Given Back

"The time draws near the birth of CHRIST:
The moon is hid; the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist."
--TENNYSON.

A hard winter followed that beautiful summer, and Christmas Eve, when it came, was one of the coldest days that Markwood could remember. This is saying a good deal, for the cold of those valleys can be something which higher and drier regions do not know. The frost-fog that lingers there on a level with the river has the power of piercing to the marrow of one's bones; it is colder than the bitterest wind that ever blew.

Mary Alfrick thought she had never been so cold in her life as on that Christmas Eve, when she came home for her first holiday after fifteen months of steady work at the Orphanage. She had had a long cross-country journey. Her father met her with his trap at the station; he seemed glad to see her in his rough way, and the welcome, careless as it was, made Mary feel that she had been right in coming. She had not been very willing to come; there was not much love at home for her; the associations of Markwood could only be painful; and yet sometimes she knew that her heart fairly ached with longing to see the place again from which she had banished herself so resolutely.

It was not so foggy on the high ground near the station, though the ground was as hard as iron, and the red sky foretold sharper frost still. Lower down, through Fiddler's Wood, they seemed truly to drive into the Arctic regions. A slight covering of snow lay on the road, enough to make driving bad and slippery; but the rime frost itself, the congealed white fog, which hung on everything, clothing every twig and bush in a thick coat of snowy crystals, had almost a more wintry effect than actual snow. Among the trees the mist hovered; it lay like a cold white sea in the valley, catching their breath as they descended into it and drove through the village, where in the advancing dusk nobody was to be seen, except a few boys sliding on the side of the road. Farmer Alfrick shouted at them angrily, and growled a good deal about broken legs.

They did not pass the blacksmith's shop, which was further on towards the church, and they could not see along the street through the fog. It was a little better when they turned into their own lane and climbed the short hill to the farm. Here Mary's welcome was cordial enough; her stepmother was pleased at her coming--"somebody to speak to at Christmas-time," as she said--and the children, especially Lizzie, were glad to see her. Mrs. Alfrick had honoured her guest by lighting a fire in the parlour, and here she and Mary sat in the evening after supper, when the children had been sent to bed and the father was smoking his pipe in the kitchen, which he found the warmest room of the two.

Before sitting down with her stepmother, Mary went to the house door and looked out. It was quite light, for a moon was shining above the fog. Invisible herself through white misty clouds, she yet filled them with her light, so that the mist itself seemed to shine. It was intensely cold, freezing hard. The church bells in the valley were ringing a Christmas peal--"Peace on earth, goodwill to men"--but their sweet and joyous voice only filled Mary with a deeper sadness. She almost wished now that she had not come. It was bad to be reminded of happy Christmas Days gone by. She closed the door and went quietly back into the parlour, where Mrs. Alfrick was poking the fire, and began unpacking some presents she had brought for the children.

"Well, Polly, I always did say you had a good heart," said Mrs. Alfrick. "My word, they will be pleased! There, sit down; you look perished. Your father said you were improved in looks, but for my part I don't see it. You're ever so thin, and to my mind you look years older than when you went away. I expect you've been harder worked than at home. I wish you could have settled your mind to have stayed--there was nothing to drive you away as I could ever see. You and John was a pair of idiots to make such a fuss about nothing, and now you see that child's gone, so you wouldn't have had much longer to wait."

Alfrick and his wife were both right about Mary. She looked thinner and older, though in fact her work had been easy. But in other ways she was improved; better dressed, gentler in manner and voice; an extremely nice, refined-looking girl, who did not now, with a wider knowledge of the world, think it necessary to hide her natural goodness under a rough, hard manner, or to "speak her mind," whether reasonable or not, on every occasion. Mary quite saw that she had herself, by her own obstinate temper, destroyed John's happiness and her own. Many a time she had said to herself, "I might have forgiven him when he asked me. I needn't have broke it all off like that." But regret seemed useless. John had his pride too, plenty of it; and even if they met again, a reconciliation hardly seemed possible; neither of them, now, could easily ask for it.

"Well--that's over, so don't let us talk about it," said Mary. "How's Mrs. Randal, though?"

Mrs. Alfrick pulled a long face and shook her head. "Didn't your father tell you? She's alive, and that's about all."

Mary started. "Mrs. Randal--dying! You don't mean it, mother!"

"I do. It's the bronchitis. She never was over strong. She caught cold the beginning of this severe weather, you know, and for the last week she's been as ill as ill can be. John's so grumpy, I haven't liked to go there much myself, but I saw Ellen Nash this morning, and she'd seen the doctor coming out, and he said it was very serious."

"Did he say there was no hope?"

"Well, I can't repeat his words, but that's how I understood her. She said this here frosty fog was killing her, spite of all John could do."

"Who is nursing her?" said Mary.

"Why, John. He don't seem to care about the neighbours coming in. Mrs. Nash says she'd do anything, 'cause Mrs. Randal was always good to her; but there, she's a weak sort of creature, not much use in a sick-room."

Mary did not say much. Mrs. Alfrick went on talking, and she sat listening like somebody in a dream. Perhaps half-an-hour passed in this way. She gazed at the fire, but saw Mrs. Randal's pale kind face, and remembered that June day long ago when John was out in the thunderstorm, and his mother had said words that sounded so sweet, telling the girl Polly that if trouble was to come she would sooner have her there than any one else. Then the storm had passed away, and in the golden evening John had come in with the little lost child in his arms.

"GOD forgive me!" thought Mary. "Even then I was a bit jealous of that child. I tried to do my duty by her, so I did, but that's not much after all."

Presently one of the children upstairs began to cry, and Mrs. Alfrick went up to it, leaving Mary alone in the parlour. After a few minutes she went out again into the passage and opened the front door. All was the same there--cold, still, misty and shining. Mary turned back into the house, remembering that she had left her warm shawl in the parlour. She threw it round her head and shoulders, slipped gently out once more, down the path, through the garden gate, into the quiet lane. Less than five minutes, even in this thick mist which obscured the way, would bring her to John's door.

Markwood is an old-fashioned place, and goes to bed early. Even the bells were silent now, and though it was Christmas Eve the houses were shut up; no lights glimmered through the fog when Mary turned the corner into the village and hurried along the street. Almost sooner than she expected she was close to the blacksmith's forge: her hand was on the old gate once more, she was lifting the familiar latch. But before going further she stood still and looked at the cottage; a red light rose and fell in the kitchen window where the blind was not drawn down, and the window above shone with a steadier light; that was Mrs. Randal's room. Mary stood at the gate trembling, partly with cold, partly with the fear of being too late, most of all with extreme nervousness at meeting John again. She had never known she was so weak, and felt surprised at herself, but at that moment she nearly turned round and ran back to the farm.

The house seemed to be quite silent. Mary collected herself, told herself this was no time for shyness, that her old friend wanted her help, whatever John might think or say. She went with light steps along the yard and looked in at the window. The kitchen was empty, only the old tabby cat lay asleep before the fire. Mary did not knock, but gently tried the latch of the door; it opened easily, she stepped quickly in and shut it again, so that the cold mist might not follow her. Then she stood in the middle of the room listening.

If John was awake, his quick ears would certainly have heard some one come in; if he had fallen asleep from fatigue, poor fellow--well, she could wait a minute or two and then go softly up to his mother's room. She had hardly time to think this before she heard a sound upstairs; a chair moved; slow, careful footsteps crossed the floor, and now were coming down. Mary suddenly felt suffocated by her shawl, and threw it off; there she stood in the ruddy firelight, in the middle of the room, with flushed cheeks and shining eyes, a strange vision indeed to John, who came down cautiously without a light to see what unexpected visitor Christmas Eve Lad brought him.

For a moment they looked at each other in silence, and then Mary, seeing that she must break the ice, came towards him and held out her hand.

"You'll forgive me, John?" she said, in a very low, tremulous voice, "and let me nurse your mother."

John's answer was not made in words. A few minutes later, when he had a little recovered from his first bewildered joy, he told Mary that his mother was better that evening, wonderfully better. Her cough had been less troublesome all day; she had been far less feverish, and now, not long ago, she had dropped off into a beautiful sleep.

"I thought them bells would keep her awake," said John; "but no, she lay there and listened as if it was sweet music, and went to sleep as happy as a child, with a smile on her face. I believe she knew you was coming."

"I think the bells made me want to come," said Mary. "They always sound so like old times, don't they? Let me go up and see her."

"You must be as quiet as ever you can. Oh, Mary, I've got more than I deserve. I thought maybe I should never see you again."

"Well--I told you once I'd wait all my life," said Mary; "but to-night I found I couldn't wait any longer."

After an hour's refreshing sleep, Mrs. Randal woke to see the faces of her two children bending over her. Just then the bells broke out once more, so loud and joyous that they almost shook the old cottage roof with their swinging.

"I'm better," said Mrs. Randal. "Polly dear, is that you? A happy Christmas!"