A Dark Night's Work (17 page)

As soon as Mr. Ness had left her, Ellinor rang the bell, and startled the
servant who answered it by her sudden sharp desire to have the horses at
the door as soon as possible, and to tell Dixon to be ready to go out
with her.

She felt that she must speak to him, and in her nervous state she wanted
to be out on the free broad common, where no one could notice or remark
their talk. It was long since she had ridden, and much wonder was
excited by the sudden movement in kitchen and stable-yard. But Dixon
went gravely about his work of preparation, saying nothing.

They rode pretty hard till they reached Monk's Heath, six or seven miles
away from Hamley. Ellinor had previously determined that here she would
talk over the plan Mr. Ness had proposed to her with Dixon, and he seemed
to understand her without any words passing between them. When she
reined in he rode up to her, and met the gaze of her sad eyes with
sympathetic, wistful silence.

"Dixon," said she, "they say I must leave Ford Bank."

"I was afeared on it, from all I've heerd say i' the town since the
master's death."

"Then you've heard—then you know—that papa has left hardly any money—my
poor dear Dixon, you won't have your legacy, and I never thought of that
before!"

"Never heed, never heed," said he, eagerly; "I couldn't have touched it
if it had been there, for the taking it would ha' seemed too like—"
Blood-money, he was going to say, but he stopped in time. She guessed
the meaning, though not the word he would have used.

"No, not that," said she; "his will was dated years before. But oh,
Dixon, what must I do? They will make me leave Ford Bank, I see. I
think the trustees have half let it already."

"But you'll have the rent on't, I reckon?" asked he, anxiously. "I've
many a time heerd 'em say as it was settled on the missus first, and then
on you."

"Oh, yes, it is not that; but you know, under the beech-tree—"

"Ay!" said he, heavily. "It's been oftentimes on my mind, waking, and I
think there's ne'er a night as I don't dream of it."

"But how can I leave it!" Ellinor cried. "They may do a hundred
things—may dig up the shrubbery. Oh! Dixon, I feel as if it was sure to
be found out! Oh! Dixon, I cannot bear any more blame on papa—it will
kill me—and such a dreadful thing, too!"

Dixon's face fell into the lines of habitual pain that it had always
assumed of late years whenever he was thinking or remembering anything.

"They must ne'er ha' reason to speak ill of the dead, that's for
certain," said he. "The Wilkinses have been respected in Hamley all my
lifetime, and all my father's before me, and—surely, missy, there's ways
and means of tying tenants up from alterations both in the house and out
of it, and I'd beg the trustees, or whatever they's called, to be very
particular, if I was you, and not have a thing touched either in the
house, or the gardens, or the meadows, or the stables. I think, wi' a
word from you, they'd maybe keep me on i' the stables, and I could look
after things a bit; and the Day o' Judgment will come at last, when all
our secrets will be made known wi'out our having the trouble and the
shame o' telling 'em. I'm getting rayther tired o' this world, Miss
Ellinor."

"Don't talk so," said Ellinor, tenderly. "I know how sad it is, but, oh!
remember how I shall want a friend when you're gone, to advise me as you
have done to-day. You're not feeling ill, Dixon, are you?" she
continued, anxiously.

"No! I'm hearty enough, and likely for t' live. Father was eighty-one,
and mother above the seventies, when they died. It's only my heart as is
got to feel so heavy; and as for that matter, so is yours, I'll be bound.
And it's a comfort to us both if we can serve him as is dead by any care
of ours, for he were such a bright handsome lad, with such a cheery face,
as never should ha' known shame."

They rode on without much more speaking. Ellinor was silently planning
for Dixon, and he, not caring to look forward to the future, was bringing
up before his fancy the time, thirty years ago, when he had first entered
the elder Mr. Wilkins's service as stable-lad, and pretty Molly, the
scullery-maid, was his daily delight. Pretty Molly lay buried in Hamley
churchyard, and few living, except Dixon, could have gone straight to her
grave.

In a few days Miss Monro obtained a most satisfactory reply to her letter
of inquiries as to whether a daily governess could find employment in
East Chester. For once the application seemed to have come just at the
right time. The canons were most of them married men, with young
families; those at present in residence welcomed the idea of such
instruction as Miss Monro could offer for their children, and could
almost answer for their successors in office. This was a great step
gained. Miss Monro, the daughter of a precentor to this very cathedral,
had a secret unwillingness to being engaged as a teacher by any wealthy
tradesman there; but to be received into the canons' families, in almost
any capacity, was like going home. Moreover, besides the empty honour of
the thing, there were many small pieces of patronage in the gift of the
Chapter—such as a small house opening on to the Close, which had
formerly belonged to the verger, but which was now vacant, and was
offered to Miss Monro at a nominal rent.

Ellinor had once more sunk into her old depressed passive state; Mr. Ness
and Miss Monro, modest and undecided as they both were in general, had to
fix and arrange everything for her. Her great interest seemed to be in
the old servant Dixon, and her great pleasure to lie in seeing him, and
talking over old times; so her two friends talked about her, little
knowing what a bitter, stinging pain her "pleasure" was. In vain Ellinor
tried to plan how they could take Dixon with them to East Chester. If he
had been a woman it would have been a feasible step; but they were only
to keep one servant, and Dixon, capable and versatile as he was, would
not do for that servant. All this was what passed through Ellinor's
mind: it is still a question whether Dixon would have felt his love of
his native place, with all its associations and remembrances, or his love
for Ellinor, the stronger. But he was not put to the proof; he was only
told that he must leave, and seeing Ellinor's extreme grief at the idea
of their separation, he set himself to comfort her by every means in his
power, reminding her, with tender choice of words, how necessary it was
that he should remain on the spot, in Mr. Osbaldistone's service, in
order to frustrate, by any small influence he might have, every project
of alteration in the garden that contained the dreadful secret. He
persisted in this view, though Ellinor repeated, with pertinacious
anxiety, the care which Mr. Johnson had taken, in drawing up the lease,
to provide against any change or alteration being made in the present
disposition of the house or grounds.

People in general were rather astonished at the eagerness Miss Wilkins
showed to sell all the Ford Bank furniture. Even Miss Monro was a little
scandalized at this want of sentiment, although she said nothing about
it; indeed justified the step, by telling every one how wisely Ellinor
was acting, as the large, handsome, tables and chairs would be very much
out of place and keeping with the small, oddly-shaped rooms of their
future home in East Chester Close. None knew how strong was the instinct
of self-preservation, it may almost be called, which impelled Ellinor to
shake off, at any cost of present pain, the incubus of a terrible
remembrance. She wanted to go into an unhaunted dwelling in a free,
unknown country—she felt as if it was her only chance of sanity.
Sometimes she thought her senses would not hold together till the time
when all these arrangements were ended. But she did not speak to any one
about her feelings, poor child; to whom could she speak on the subject
but to Dixon? Nor did she define them to herself. All she knew was,
that she was as nearly going mad as possible; and if she did, she feared
that she might betray her father's guilt. All this time she never cried,
or varied from her dull, passive demeanour. And they were blessed tears
of relief that she shed when Miss Monro, herself weeping bitterly, told
her to put her head out of the post-chaise window, for at the next
turning of the road they would catch the last glimpse of Hamley church
spire.

Late one October evening, Ellinor had her first sight of East Chester
Close, where she was to pass the remainder of her life. Miss Monro had
been backwards and forwards between Hamley and East Chester more than
once, while Ellinor remained at the parsonage; so she had not only the
pride of proprietorship in the whole of the beautiful city, but something
of the desire of hospitably welcoming Ellinor to their joint future home.

"Look! the fly must take us a long round, because of our luggage; but
behind these high old walls are the canons' gardens. That high-pitched
roof, with the clumps of stonecrop on the walls near it, is Canon
Wilson's, whose four little girls I am to teach. Hark! the great
cathedral clock. How proud I used to be of its great boom when I was a
child! I thought all the other church clocks in the town sounded so
shrill and poor after that, which I considered mine especially. There
are rooks flying home to the elms in the Close. I wonder if they are the
same that used to be there when I was a girl. They say the rook is a
very long-lived bird, and I feel as if I could swear to the way they are
cawing. Ay, you may smile, Ellinor, but I understand now those lines of
Gray's you used to say so prettily—

"I feel the gales that from ye blow.
A momentary bliss bestow,
And breathe a second spring."

Now, dear, you must get out. This flagged walk leads to our front-door;
but our back rooms, which are the pleasantest, look on to the Close, and
the cathedral, and the lime-tree walk, and the deanery, and the rookery."

It was a mere slip of a house; the kitchen being wisely placed close to
the front-door, and so reserving the pretty view for the little dining-
room, out of which a glass-door opened into a small walled-in garden,
which had again an entrance into the Close. Upstairs was a bedroom to
the front, which Miss Monro had taken for herself, because as she said,
she had old associations with the back of every house in the High-street,
while Ellinor mounted to the pleasant chamber above the tiny drawing-room
both of which looked on to the vast and solemn cathedral, and the
peaceful dignified Close. East Chester Cathedral is Norman, with a low,
massive tower, a grand, majestic nave, and a choir full of stately
historic tombs. The whole city is so quiet and decorous a place, that
the perpetual daily chants and hymns of praise seemed to sound far and
wide over the roofs of the houses. Ellinor soon became a regular
attendant at all the morning and evening services. The sense of worship
calmed and soothed her aching weary heart, and to be punctual to the
cathedral hours she roused and exerted herself, when probably nothing
else would have been sufficient to this end.

By-and-by Miss Monro formed many acquaintances; she picked up, or was
picked up by, old friends, and the descendants of old friends. The grave
and kindly canons, whose children she taught, called upon her with their
wives, and talked over the former deans and chapters, of whom she had
both a personal and traditional knowledge, and as they walked away and
talked about her silent delicate-looking friend Miss Wilkins, and perhaps
planned some little present out of their fruitful garden or bounteous
stores, which should make Miss Monro's table a little more tempting to
one apparently so frail as Ellinor, for the household was always spoken
of as belonging to Miss Monro, the active and prominent person. By-and-
by, Ellinor herself won her way to their hearts, not by words or deeds,
but by her sweet looks and meek demeanour, as they marked her regular
attendance at cathedral service: and when they heard of her constant
visits to a certain parochial school, and of her being sometimes seen
carrying a little covered basin to the cottages of the poor, they began
to try and tempt her, with more urgent words, to accompany Miss Monro in
her frequent tea-drinkings at their houses. The old dean, that courteous
gentleman and good Christian, had early become great friends with
Ellinor. He would watch at the windows of his great vaulted library till
he saw her emerge from the garden into the Close, and then open the
deanery door, and join her, she softly adjusting the measure of her pace
to his. The time of his departure from East Chester became a great blank
in her life, although she would never accept, or allow Miss Monro to
accept, his repeated invitations to go and pay him a visit at his country-
place. Indeed, having once tasted comparative peace again in East
Chester Cathedral Close, it seemed as though she was afraid of ever
venturing out of those calm precincts. All Mr. Ness's invitations to
visit him at his parsonage at Hamley were declined, although he was
welcomed at Miss Monro's, on the occasion of his annual visit, by every
means in their power. He slept at one of the canon's vacant houses, and
lived with his two friends, who made a yearly festivity, to the best of
their means, in his honour, inviting such of the cathedral clergy as were
in residence: or, if they failed, condescending to the town clergy. Their
friends knew well that no presents were so acceptable as those sent while
Mr. Ness was with them; and from the dean, who would send them a hamper
of choice fruit and flowers from Oxton Park, down to the curate, who
worked in the same schools as Ellinor, and who was a great fisher, and
caught splendid trout—all did their best to help them to give a welcome
to the only visitor they ever had. The only visitor they ever had, as
far as the stately gentry knew. There was one, however, who came as
often as his master could give him a holiday long enough to undertake a
journey to so distant a place; but few knew of his being a guest at Miss
Monro's, though his welcome there was not less hearty than Mr.
Ness's—this was Dixon. Ellinor had convinced him that he could give her
no greater pleasure at any time than by allowing her to frank him to and
from East Chester. Whenever he came they were together the greater part
of the day; she taking him hither and thither to see all the sights that
she thought would interest or please him; but they spoke very little to
each other during all this companionship. Miss Monro had much more to
say to him. She questioned him right and left whenever Ellinor was out
of the room. She learnt that the house at Ford Bank was splendidly
furnished, and no money spared on the garden; that the eldest Miss
Hanbury was very well married; that Brown had succeeded to Jones in the
haberdasher's shop. Then she hesitated a little before making her next
inquiry: