Chapter XXXV: Entirely Vanished!

THE SAME—continued.

I WATCHED Thyrza, as she crossed actively the broken but on the whole level space, between the road and the steep mountain-sides: and I saw her begin to climb with easy speed.

It was a temptation to me to join her, even then. I am a good climber by nature: and an ascent has always a fascination for me. But I knew that without any such additional exertion, I should have taxed my powers pretty severely by the time we reached home. So I followed Thyrza's advice, and remained quiet, seated on a rock by the roadside, with my face toward the flowing green slopes.

The deep stillness of the scene impressed me again, more forcibly than ever. For now I had not a companion. I was entirely alone. Not even the trickling of water was to be heard. One solitary dream-like "ba-a-a" sounded, to be answered by a second. Then silence again. No human being was in sight, except the figure of Thyrza, growing momentarily smaller, as she went upward.

Her ascent seemed very slow, as I gazed. I began to realise how much steeper and loftier those heights were than we two had imagined.

But Thyrza went on, sometimes pausing, sometimes turning to right or left, as if choosing her steps. At present she showed no inclination to come back.

I observed her movements steadily, wondering how much farther she would go. Her last words had been—"Perhaps I shall have had enough of it half-way up." She appeared now to be more than half-way up, but there were no signs that she had had enough of it. Hardly probable that she should. If the enthusiasm of climbing had possession of her, she would scarcely rest content short of the summit.

The little black figure still rose,—more and more like a big ant clinging to the wall of a house; or I thought so.

All at once she came to a pause. I judged that she had mounted somewhere about three-quarters of the height from my level: but it is very difficult to judge truly, looking upward. For some minutes she remained perfectly still. I supposed her to be resting: yet it seemed a curious spot to choose for a rest.

I was growing rather nervous at her prolonged fixity in one position, when I distinctly saw her move. She seemed to crawl a few paces to the right, and there to pause afresh. At all events, she could start again, when she chose. That set my mind at ease. It seemed likely that she saw the last piece to be too much for her powers: and that after a brief repose she would come down.

"Time enough too," I said aloud; and my voice sounded strange in the solitude. "This takes longer than I calculated on. We ought to be getting homeward."

Then, curiously, it flashed into my mind that I had an unread letter with me. Why not wile away some minutes by reading it, as I sat there?

I pulled out the black-edged envelope, which was a good deal crumpled; and noticed the London postmark. "Not Bath!" I said, with momentary surprise. And one look at the agitated uneven handwriting showed me that it was not Ellen Smyth's,—but—Miss Millington's! Strange that I had not recognised it at first sight; only hers, as I had known it previously, was neither agitated nor uneven, but neat and precise to a fault.

Within were two sheets, blotted, blurred, and closely filled.

Then that which I expected had come at last!—And I knew it!

I am ashamed to say that I forgot all about Thyrza. I think I even forgot where I was. Noises were sounding in my ears, like the distant roar of a great city; and a dread of what I might find in that letter had possession of me.

For I could see it to be some manner of outpouring; and I could conjecture what the outpouring might include. I quailed before the prospect. Suspicion was one thing; certainty would be another. I believed that I had fully forgiven Miss Millington. Would the battle have now to be fought all over again?

With a voiceless prayer, and with a resolute effort, I took up the sheets, not reading yet, but glancing rapidly at a sentence here or there. When I reached the end thus, one short assertion only remained on my mind—

"I was not really sure."

I must have sunk into a dream upon those five words, and their possible meaning. Then I woke up to the fact that the letter contained much besides, especially the sad news of Mrs. Millington's death.

I began again at the beginning, and read the whole through carefully. It was a sorrowful composition,—bitter, self-reproachful, miserable in tone. I cannot copy the whole, and I will not keep the original. A few sentences will be enough.

"I don't know what kept me from speaking, that day," she wrote. "For I did really want to tell you I was sorry; only I could not. I suppose it was pride. I know I am proud. I did so hate to take the money; and yet somehow I could not say no, for I thought it might save my Mother's life. And it has not. That is the worst of all. I have gone through that horrible humiliation for nothing. Mother did seem better for a time, and of course it was a real comfort to her to be out of debt, but she failed at last quite suddenly, and nothing more could be done.

"It was only yesterday that she died.

"I am writing to you now, because I must. I dare not put off. I have such a dreadful feeling that perhaps, if I had spoken out sooner, God would not have taken my Mother. I dare say some people would say I am foolish to think this, but I know better. All these months I have known I ought to speak, and I have been struggling against it; and now she is gone, and I have nobody left except Jeannie. And perhaps if I do not speak out, she will be taken too. I don't think I could bear that. She looks ill, and it terrifies me. I dare say I deserve that, or anything,—but at all events, I am telling you the truth now. I wish I had before . . .

"You told me you had forgiven me: but I never could feel that was
real, because if you had known all, you would not have said so . . .

"I don't know what made me hate you as I did! I suppose it was partly your being Mrs. Romilly's friend. And I always thought you could not endure me: and when you seemed kind, I felt sure you had an object. I can't make up my mind how much you really know of things, or how much I ought to tell you—" and then followed melancholy particulars, written as it seemed to me in a half-broken half-bitter spirit, more because she dreaded not to tell from a haunting fear of punishment, than because her will was bowed to do God's will.

No need to copy out these details. Only—I have not judged her falsely.

For the Gurglepool trick was hers: and she did set herself to oppose my authority in every possible way. She endeavoured systematically to turn the girls against me. She used the opportunity to look into my private journal, and she employed afterwards the information so gained, making it a subject of jesting with the girls, and untruthfully professing to have learnt it through a friend of hers who lives in Bath.

Worse even than all this,—not morally worse, for that could hardly be, but worse in its actual results upon my happiness,—when Arthur came to Beckdale, to learn if he had any hope of winning me; which she seems to have divined as his object; she set herself deliberately, falsely, to quash his hopes. In a certain brief interview, she gave him to understand, not by assertion, but by insinuation no whit less untrue, that I had shown a marked dislike to him.

More still,—when she received her dismissal from Mrs. Romilly, she took a further step. She sent a brief note to Arthur to reach him at The Park, briefly warning him as a friend—a friend!!—that if he wished to consult his own interests and peace of mind, he would keep out of my way.

"I don't know what he thought of me. I think I must have been mad,—such a wild thing to do," she wrote. "He never answered my note or took any notice of it. But it took effect: and that was all I cared for. I had my revenge,—and I wanted nothing else.

"It is of no use to ask if you can possibly ever forget all this; for I know you can't. I could not in your place. I will never never be untruthful again,—but that can't alter what I have done to you. It is impossible that you should get over it."

And at the moment my heart cried out assent to the impossibility.

For he had come indeed to seek me once: and a second time we might have met; and twice she had driven him away.

Then at length I reached the mention of her more recent letter to Maggie, in which was contained the news of his engagement.

"I was so glad to have it to tell," she wrote, "that I would not ask any particulars,—I wouldn't even try to find out if it was true. I was not really sure. It was just told as a piece of gossip, and I knew there might be some mistake. I was not really sure. But I wrote to Maggie directly, and I have never heard any more. I do not even know where Captain Lenox is now. I think I should have heard if it were not true, and I am afraid it is. So I can do nothing at all to undo the past: and that makes me sure that I must not expect you ever to be friends with me again. Only for the sake of Jeannie, and because of my feeling that she will die, if I do not—I must tell you all."

I had not noticed before those words following the others,—fearing it was, after all, true.

It did seem to me too much—too great a wrong! I must have sat long, half unconscious of my own position, clasping the letter tightly between both hands. For a while I could not think,—I could only feel. The knowledge that a year ago he had still cared, touched me very keenly, with a mingling, of sweet and bitter. But the "might have been," and the "was not,"—and the sense of the great life-loss, the loneliness, the sadness to come,—all through her! How could I forgive?

The stony hardness broke up at last, and tears fell in a shower. I have not wept so freely for years, I think. And when that came to an end, the bitterness seemed gone. I could once more say,—"His will—not mine."

* * * * * * *

But Thyrza!

It came over me in a flash, vivid as lightning, how long I had been there. Thyrza ought by this time, surely, to have reached the lower slopes.

I looked up, running my eyes swiftly over the broad mountain face, searching from below to above, from right to left. In vain. No Thyrza was to be seen. I scanned the frowning beauty of the level summit, and travelled downward again to the spot where I had noted her last. But Thyrza had vanished.