CHAPTER LII.

A WANDERING GLEAM.

MY uncle, however, was not like that. He had suffered too largely from rogues himself, in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, to have any calm way of considering them.

“Either a man is honest through and through, or else he is a thief all over. It is humbug to talk as if a fellow didn’t know when he is stealing, or when he is not. He knows it pretty sharp when it is done to him; and he puts it short, as he has a right to do. And then he turns the corner, and he wipes his mouth, and serves others with the dose that made him sputter. To cheat the man that cheated you, is Christian enough; but not to pass it on to other people. Ask Mr. Golightly what he thinks about it.”

That pious clergyman would scarcely have been satisfied even with my uncle’s view of Christian conduct, although he was moderate in his expectations of us, after all his experience of our doings. This made it very pleasant to be with him frequently; and for my part I am certain that I never could have lasted through all this gloom, and suspense, and indignation, without his example and quiet comfort. All that we had found out, at Shepperton and at Woking, I owed to him, or at any rate to my acquaintance with him; and although it might not seem as yet to carry me much further, still I found some happiness in knowing that little, and hope of learning more from it. And now I went to him about another question, which I could not settle for myself.

It may be remembered that Tabby Tapscott, who came to attend to my uncle’s house, had more than once given me good advice; and some may have set me down as ungrateful for keeping her out of sight since my great disaster, as if she were of no importance. But the real truth is, that I had sought her counsel almost every time I saw her, and had found much comfort from it, because she was so scornful. For the little woman tossed her head, and shot forth her under-lip, as if she could not trust herself to speak, so thoroughly was her mind made up. She looked upon all that had happened as the fruits of a foul conspiracy on the part of man against woman, and she scarcely held me guiltless. And she had no patience with me, because I would not do the proper thing, to find out all about it. Until I did that, she would say no more, but leave me to listen to a set of zanies. Why on earth I refused was more than she could understand; and she went so far as to declare, once or twice, that I could not be in earnest about getting Kitty back, or I would have done it long ago. She herself had known a girl, of Westdown parish in the North of Devon, who found out all about her sweetheart’s murder, and got two men hanged for committing it.

The means were certainly simple enough, if anything would come of them. The bereaved one must let the full moon pass for as short a time as possible; and then, at twelve of the middle-day, go to the dress last worn by the lost one, and take something from the left side pocket, or failing that cut a piece out. Then he might carry on as he pleased, until it came to bed-time, and then do as follows. Under the pillow on his left-hand side, he must place whatever he had taken from the dress, and then instead of his common prayers, pray in the following manner—

“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Bring me back my love that’s gone. Bring her white, or bring her red, According as she is ’live or dead.”

Then he must throw the window up, or out, if it was a lattice, and look at the moon which would then be up (for he was supposed to keep good hours, as all gentle lovers should); and after that he must lie down, with his left ear on the pillow, and repeat the Doxology—which Tabby called the “Doxy”—until it made him go to sleep. Then, as sure as he was a living man—or in the other case a living woman—the lost one would appear at midnight, and tell him all about it. Only he, or she, must ask no questions, and above all offer no contradiction.

Now, I have never been superstitious; though some of the wisest men I have met with seem at times to be so; and I laughed at all this stuff of Tabby’s, although I had found her truthful. Then I asked her to go through it all for me; but she stared at my stupidity; “As if her would come nigh me!” she said. “It is the love as does it, and the angels to the back of it.”

But when she kept on so about it, and assured me that much wiser people than I, and a long sight better—as she was good enough to say—had tried this plan and been set up by it; I began to think that it could do no harm, and if it afforded her any pleasure—why, no one else need hear of it. Except that the sin of witchcraft is most strongly denounced in the Bible; and many might think that this proceeding savoured of that character. However, if the Church of England could be brought to sanction it, the Powers of the air might do their worst; for our church is built upon a rock.

The Rev. Peter Golightly said, when I opened out this case to him, that he was a little surprised to find me listening to such nonsense. I told him that it was very far from my desire to do so; but if it was likely to ease the minds of others, it might be my duty to go on with it. At this he laughed, and did not say, but seemed perhaps to mean it, that I was not bound to make a fool of myself, because my brother fools wished it. However, I was not going to be argued down about it; and I put the question point-blank to him, whether there was any sin in it. He could not say that there was any; but being more on his mettle now, declared that it was rank folly, and insisted very strongly on the superiority of prayer. There I had him on the nail; for what was this but a mode of prayer, invoking also those holy writers, who alone have taught us the use of prayer? He shook his head, as if unconvinced; but his daughter called him away just then, and I did not care to renew the subject, feeling that now I had his permission; which he might recall, if argued with.

The moon was full at six o’clock in the morning, as Uncle Corny said; and he always knew everything about her, except the weather she would bring. And at noon I went to my dear wife’s frock, the one she had worn on the very day before she disappeared from me. She had kept them on a row of hooks—for we were not rich in wardrobes—with a scarf of something drawn along to keep the dust from settling. It had been one of my sorest jobs to unhang them very reverently, remembering when she had worn them last, and how my arm had been round them. For she had a very pretty way of coming up in the morning (when her hair was done, and her collar on) for me to tell her how she looked, and to see that all her strings were right But now these empty dresses lay, all folded, and locked in the bottom drawer.

I may be soft beyond most people—although it is a fault more shared than shown—but when I had spread that simple frock upon the bed, which I never entered now, and passing both hands down the bosom, clumsily searched (as a man must do) for the mouth of the little pocket, and then could only get three fingers in—all the strength of my resolve to be quite firm and manly quivered on my lips, and melted in the haze that crept across my eyes. A tiny notebook, with a pencil, and a silver thimble, a little house-wife, and a button meant to be sewn on my coat, two or three jujubes (which she kept to pop into my mouth, because she fancied I was hoarse sometimes) nothing for herself, but all for me, or for my service; and then a little scrap of paper, my last scribble from the garden—“Darling, not till nine o’clock”—as I took them one by one, all seemed fragrant with her sweetness, and holy from her loving hand.

I could not bring myself to go through Tabby’s rigmarole that night; for my mind was full of larger thoughts, neither would I go upstairs into the lonely bedroom; but I gazed for some time at the moon, as people when in sorrow do, by some mysterious instinct. And then I placed a pillow, instead of the roll of mat beneath my head, and under it my dear wife’s house-wife, and her pretty thimble, not for that night only, but as my companions henceforth; and therewith I cast myself on the hard church-cushion, and thought of her. Before very long, I fell asleep, having done a good day’s garden-work at sundry jobs that were sadly in arrear.

But Tabby’s jingle was still in my head, moving without my will or wish, as a mouse comes in the wainscote; and with the moon shining into the room, one of my last reflections was that I had been very lucky in yielding to no witchcraft. Not that there could be anything to frighten me in my darling, “whether white, or whether red;” by which the old chant seemed to mean, whether she might be in the bloom of health, or the wan hue of the winding-sheet. In either case she would love me still; and that was the thing I cared most to know.

Suddenly, I sat up and looked. The old church clock was striking slowly, and the sleepy sound loitered on the drowsy air. The moon was gliding calmly on her southern road, and being in her humble summer state, she could scarcely top the big pear-tree which stood before my window. The room was full of light and shade, in bars, in patches, and in triangles, with no strong contrast in and out, but fused, like silver-wire netting, or water parted by the weir-posts, and rejoining under them. And there, in this faint flow of light and wavering ebb of shadow, I saw my Kitty, sitting calmly, and gazing at me steadfastly.

No surprise or fear whatever crossed my mind—which seems to show that I was not altogether wide awake; but I waited for her to say something, while she kept on looking at me. I had left off wearing a nightcap ever since I went to Hampton School; not that I ever slept there, but because the boys had laughed at it. My Uncle Corny always said that this was tempting Providence; and now I tried to put up my hands, but they would not go, and I sat and gazed, being a little surprised, but not amazed, as some people might have been. Then Kitty put up her hand to me, showing the palm of it quite rosy, as it always had been; and I saw that her dress was the one in the drawer; but that did not surprise me.

“Darling, you must be patient still. I am thousands of miles away from you;” she spoke as quietly as if she were saying—“The tea is not quite drawn yet,” and I received it as quietly. “There is a good reason for my going; and you know it better than I do. Only, be happy till I come back; for whatever you feel, I feel. When I come home, we shall never part again.”

This was a little too much for me, high and tragical as it seemed.

“I want you now. Oh Kitty, Kitty, don’t run away again!” I cried; and over went both my Windsor chairs, as I sprang up, to fling my arms round her.

But when I came to the place where she had been, lo, there was no one! Everything was cold and hard; instead of her soft warm figure, all I embraced was a kitchen towel; and the handle of a gridiron came between my vainly opened lips.