The Complete Works. George Eliot

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СКАЧАТЬ stuff. However, Dorkis got her to bed, an’ there she’s lay iver sin’, stoopid like, an’ niver speaks, an’ on’y teks little bits an’ sups when Dorkis coaxes her. An’ we begun to be frightened, and couldn’t think what had made her come away from the Manor, and Dorkis was afeared there was summat wrong. So this mornin’ she could hold no longer, an’ would hev no nay but I must come an’ see; an’ so I’ve rode twenty mile upo’ Blackbird, as thinks all the while he’s a-ploughin’, an’ turns sharp roun’, every thirty yards, as if he was at the end of a furrow. I’ve hed a sore time wi’ him, I can tell you, sir.’

      ‘God bless you, Knott, for coming!’ said Mr. Gilfil, wringing the old coachman’s hand again. ‘Now go down and have something and rest yourself. You will stay here to-night, and by-and-by I shall come to you to learn the nearest way to your house. I shall get ready to ride there immediately, when I have spoken to Sir Christopher.’

      In an hour from that time Mr. Gilfil was galloping on a stout mare towards the little muddy village of Callam, five miles beyond Sloppeter. Once more he saw some gladness in the afternoon sunlight; once more it was a pleasure to see the hedgerow trees flying past him, and to be conscious of a ‘good seat’ while his black Kitty bounded beneath him, and the air whistled to the rhythm of her pace. Caterina was not dead; he had found her; his love and tenderness and long-suffering seemed so strong, they must recall her to life and happiness.

      After that week of despair, the rebound was so violent that it carried his hopes at once as far as the utmost mark they had ever reached. Caterina would come to love him at last; she would be his. They had been carried through all that dark and weary way that she might know the depth of his love. How he would cherish her—his little bird with the timid bright eye, and the sweet throat that trembled with love and music! She would nestle against him, and the poor little breast which had been so ruffled and bruised should be safe for evermore. In the love of a brave and faithful man there is always a strain of maternal tenderness; he gives out again those beams of protecting fondness which were shed on him as he lay on his mother’s knee. It was twilight as he entered the village of Callam, and, asking a homeward-bound labourer the way to Daniel Knott’s, learned that it was by the church, which showed its stumpy ivy-clad spire on a slight elevation of ground; a useful addition to the means of identifying that desirable homestead afforded by Daniel’s description—‘the prittiest place iver you see’—though a small cow-yard full of excellent manure, and leading right up to the door, without any frivolous interruption from garden or railing, might perhaps have been enough to make that description unmistakably specific.

      Mr. Gilfil had no sooner reached the gate leading into the cow-yard, than he was descried by a flaxen-haired lad of nine, prematurely invested with the toga virilis, or smock-frock, who ran forward to let in the unusual visitor. In a moment Dorcas was at the door, the roses on her cheeks apparently all the redder for the three pair of cheeks which formed a group round her, and for the very fat baby who stared in her arms, and sucked a long crust with calm relish.

      ‘Is it Mr. Gilfil, sir?’ said Dorcas, curtsying low as he made his way through the damp straw, after tying up his horse.

      ‘Yes, Dorcas; I’m grown out of your knowledge. How is Miss Sarti?’

      ‘Just for all the world the same, sir, as I suppose Dannel’s told you; for I reckon you’ve come from the Manor, though you’re come uncommon quick, to be sure.’

      ‘Yes, he got to the Manor about one o’clock, and I set off as soon as I could. She’s not worse, is she?’

      ‘No change, sir, for better or wuss. Will you please to walk in, sir? She lies there takin’ no notice o’ nothin’, no more nor a baby as is on’y a week old, an’ looks at me as blank as if she didn’t know me. O what can it be, Mr. Gilfil? How come she to leave the Manor? How’s his honour an’ my lady?’

      ‘In great trouble, Dorcas. Captain Wybrow, Sir Christopher’s nephew, you know, has died suddenly. Miss Sarti found him lying dead, and I think the shock has affected her mind.’

      ‘Eh, dear! that fine young gentlemen as was to be th’ heir, as Dannel told me about. I remember seein’ him when he was a little un, a-visitin’ at the Manor. Well-a-day, what a grief to his honour and my lady. But that poor Miss Tina—an’ she found him a-lyin’ dead? O dear, O dear!’

      Dorcas had led the way into the best kitchen, as charming a room as best kitchens used to be in farmhouses which had no parlours—the fire reflected in a bright row of pewter plates and dishes; the sand-scoured deal tables so clean you longed to stroke them; the salt-coffer in one chimney-corner, and a three-cornered chair in the other, the walls behind handsomely tapestried with flitches of bacon, and the ceiling ornamented with pendent hams.

      ‘Sit ye down, sir—do,’ said Dorcas, moving the three-cornered chair, ‘an’ let me get you somethin’ after your long journey. Here, Becky, come an’ tek the baby.’

      Becky, a red-armed damsel, emerged from the adjoining back-kitchen, and possessed herself of baby, whose feelings or fat made him conveniently apathetic under the transference.

      ‘What’ll you please to tek, sir, as I can give you? I’ll get you a rasher o’ bacon i’ no time, an’ I’ve got some tea, or be-like you’d tek a glass o’ rum-an’-water. I know we’ve got nothin’ as you’re used t’ eat and drink; but such as I hev, sir, I shall be proud to give you.’

      ‘Thank you, Dorcas; I can’t eat or drink anything. I’m not hungry or tired. Let us talk about Tina. Has she spoken at all?’

      ‘Niver since the fust words. “Dear Dorkis,” says she, “tek me in;” an’ then went off into a faint, an’ not a word has she spoken since. I get her t’ eat little bits an’ sups o’ things, but she teks no notice o’ nothin’. I’ve took up Bessie wi’ me now an’ then’—here Dorcas lifted to her lap a curly-headed little girl of three, who was twisting a corner of her mother’s apron, and opening round eyes at the gentleman—‘folks’ll tek notice o’ children sometimes when they won’t o’ nothin’ else. An’ we gathered the autumn crocuses out o’ th’ orchard, and Bessie carried ’em up in her hand, an’ put ’em on the bed. I knowed how fond Miss Tina was o’ flowers an’ them things, when she was a little un. But she looked at Bessie an’ the flowers just the same as if she didn’t see ’em. It cuts me to th’ heart to look at them eyes o’ hers; I think they’re bigger nor iver, an’ they look like my poor baby’s as died, when it got so thin—O dear, its little hands you could see thro’ ’em. But I’ve great hopes if she was to see you, sir, as come from the Manor, it might bring back her mind, like.’

      Maynard had that hope too, but he felt cold mists of fear gathering round him after the few bright warm hours of joyful confidence which had passed since he first heard that Caterina was alive. The thought would urge itself upon him that her mind and body might never recover the strain that had been put upon them—that her delicate thread of life had already nearly spun itself out.

      ‘Go now, Dorcas, and see how she is, but don’t say anything about my being here. Perhaps it would be better for me to wait till daylight before I see her, and yet it would be very hard to pass another night in this way.’

      Dorcas set down little Bessie, and went away. The three other children, including young Daniel in his smock-frock, were standing opposite to Mr. Gilfil, watching him still more shyly now they were without their mother’s countenance. He drew little Bessie towards him, and set her on his knee. She shook her yellow curls out of her eyes, and looked up at him as she said,—‘Zoo tome to tee ze yady? Zoo mek her peak? What zoo do to her? Tiss her?’

      ‘Do you like to be kissed, Bessie?’

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