Part 15

'You cannot leave me. Where shall I go? I cannot leave my bed, and I don't think the frost will get out of my bones for a week or more.'

'I can not, I will not, remain here.'

'Where can we go?'

Mehalah put both her hands to her brow. She could not answer this question. Were she alone, she could get a situation in a farmhouse, perhaps; but with a sick mother dependent on her, this was not possible. No farmer would take them both in for the sake of her services.

'Where else can we go?' again asked Mrs. Sharland; then in a repining voice, 'If Master Rebow houses us for a while, it is very good of him, and we must be thankful, for we have no chance of shelter elsewhere. Where is the money to pay for rebuilding the farmhouse? Do you think my cousin, Charles Pettican----'

'No, no,' exclaimed Mehalah, 'not a word about him.'

'He spoke up and promised most handsomely,' said Mrs. Sharland.

'He can do nothing, mother, I will not ask him.'

'A man that has a gilded balcony to his house wouldn't miss a few pounds for running up a wooden cottage.'

'I will not go to him again.'

'My dear child,' said Mrs. Sharland, 'I don't doubt he would take us in on a visit for a while, when we are forced to leave Red Hall.'

'You think we shall not be obliged to remain here?'

'I don't see how we can. It is very good of Master Rebow to house us for a bit, but I doubt we can't stick as fixtures. I only wish we could. Anyhow stay here a bit we must. We have nowhere else to go to, except to my cousin Charles.'

Mehalah knew what this alternative was worth. It was a relief to her to hear her mother speak of their stay in Red Hall as only temporary. She could not endure to contemplate the possibility of its being permanent. She formed a hope that she would be able to find work somewhere, and hire a small cottage; she was strong enough to do as much as a man.

During the day, everything that had been rescued from the fire on the Ray was brought to Red Hall, even the cow, which was driven round by land, a matter of eleven miles. The old clock arrived, and was set up in the large room below, an old cypress chest or 'sprucehutch' as Mrs. Sharland called it, covered with curious shallow carvings picked out with burnt umber, representing a hawking party, that contained her best clothes, and was a security against moth, was conveyed into her bedroom. It weighed half a ton. The old Lowestoft dishes she valued were placed in the rack in the hall along with the ware that belonged to Elijah. The toad-jug, a white jug with a painted and glazed figure of a toad squatting inside it in the neck, was also brought to Red Hall, so even were two biscuit-china poodles with shaven posteriors and with manes and tufted tails, that had stood on the chimneypiece at the Ray. The warming-pan of brass with a stamped portrait of H.M. George I. on it was likewise transported to Red Hall, and hung up in the little oak-panelled parlour behind the entrance hall generally occupied by Rebow.

By degrees most of the property of Mrs. Sharland was brought to the house, and the small oak parlour was furnished with it. Her arm-chair of leather with high back was placed in the hall by the great fireplace that bore the inscription, 'When I hold, I hold fast.' There were also some things belonging specially to Glory that had been saved, and these were put in the oak parlour. The satisfaction of Mrs. Sharland at finding herself surrounded by her goods was extreme. She did not leave her bed, but she insisted on her daughter bringing her up everything that could be carried, that she might turn it about, and inspect it minutely and rejoice over what was uninjured, and bewail what had suffered. One of the poodles had lost an ear and part of its tail. The old woman cried and grumbled and scolded about this injury, as though it were on a level with the destruction of the house. She would see the men Jim and Joe who had brought it from the Ray in the boat; she catechised them minutely, she insisted on knowing which had brought the dog out of the burning house, where it had been placed till removal, and fretted, till they promised to examine the spot beneath the thorn tree where the china brute had spent the night, and also the bottom of the boat, for the missing tail tuft and ear tip.

'You know,' she said, 'if I boil them in milk with the dog, I can get them to stick on.'

Among certain persons, the mind is destitute of perspective, and consequently magnifies trifles and disregards great evils. Mrs. Sharland had a mind thus constituted. She harped all day on the battered biscuit-china dog, because it was placed on the mantelpiece of her bedroom, and was under her eyes whenever she turned her head that way. The farmhouse was almost forgotten in her distress about the tail; her flaming home formed but a red background to the mutilated white poodle.

Mehalah saw nothing of Elijah Rebow all day. He was several times in the house; directly her foot sounded on the stairs, however, he disappeared. But she saw and felt that he was considering her; his care to recover all the little treasures and property on the Ray evinced this; and in the house he provided everything she could need; he placed meat on the table in the hall for her dinner, and had boiled potatoes over the fire. They were set ready for her, she had only to take them out. Her mother ate heartily, and was loud in expressions of satisfaction at the comfort that surrounded them.

'I hope, Mehalah, we shan't have to leave this in a hurry.'

Glory did not answer.

Towards evening Abraham Dowsing arrived with the cow. The girl heard the low, and ran down--she could not help it--and threw her arms round the neck of the beast. There was a back stair leading to the kitchen and yard, by which she could descend without entering the hall, and by this means she avoided Elijah, who, she was aware, was there.

Elijah, however, came to the top of the steps after she had descended, and looked into the yard where she was. Mehalah at once desisted from lavishing her tenderness on the animal.

Abraham stood sulkily by.

'I've had a long bout,' he said.

'I dare say you have, Abraham,' she answered.

'I want something to eat and drink, I haven't bit nought since morning. There's nothing but ashes on the Ray now, and they are red-hot. You don't expect me to fill my belly on them.'

Mehalah put her hand to her mouth and checked her tongue, as she was about to tell him to go indoors and get some supper. She had now nothing to give the old man. She lived on the bounty of Rebow.

'I cannot go without my wittles,' persisted Abraham. 'Now I want to know where my wittles are to come from. I paid fourpence at the Rose for some bread and cheese, and you owes me that.'

'There is the money,' said Mehalah producing the coin.

'Ah! that is wery well. But where am I to get my wittles now? Am I your servant or ain't I? If I am,--where's my wittles?'

'Come here, Abraham,' said Elijah, from the kitchen door. 'There is bread and cold potatoes and meat here. You shall have your supper, and you can sleep in the loft.'

'Look here, master,' pursued the sullen old man, 'I want to know further where I'm to look for my wages.'

'To me,' said Rebow. 'I take you on.'

'Where am I to work?'

'Here, or on the Ray, looking after the sheep.'

'The sheep are not yours, they are hers,'--pointing to Mehalah with his thumb.

'The Ray and Red Hall are one concern,' answered Rebow. 'You look to me as your master, and to her as your mistress;' then he entered and slammed the door.

Abraham shrugged his shoulders. He leered at Mehalah, who had put her hands to her forehead.

'When are you going to church? Eh, mistress? I thought it was coming to this. But I don't care so long as I gets my wittles and wage.'

Abraham went slowly into the cattlehouse with the cow. Mehalah remained rooted to the spot, pressing her brow.

This was more than she could endure. She ran up the steps, she would speak to Rebow while her heart was full. She dashed through the kitchen and into the hall. He was not there. As she ran on, she tripped and almost fell; and recovered herself with horror. She had almost precipitated herself through the trap into the vault beneath. The door was thrown back, her foot had caught this. Faugh! an odour rose from the cellar as from the lair of a wild beast. She looked in, there was the maniac racing up and down in the den fastened by his chain, jabbering and uttering incoherent cries. He was almost naked, covered with filthy rags, and his hair hung over his face so that she could distinguish no features by the dim light that strayed down from the trap, and from the horn lanthorn that Elijah had placed on the steps. Rebow had a pitchfork, and he was tossing fresh straw to his brother, and raking out the sodden and crushed litter of the wretched man.

Mehalah could not bear the sight; she withdrew. She needed a little while by herself to consider what was best to be done, to think of what had taken place. She opened the front door, and descended by the long flight of steps over the arch. Then she saw that a shutter covered the circular window that in summer lighted the den of the maniac. This was now closed to shut out the cold of winter. There was a door. As she looked, Rebow opened it from within, and appeared, raking out the litter and the gnawed bones, the relics of his brother's repasts. He did not notice her, or he pretended not to do so, and she shrank back. Her wish to speak with him had gone from her. She was not equal to an interview till she had been alone for a while, and had gathered up her strength. An interview with him must be a contest. It was clear to her that he was resolved that she should stay at Red Hall. She was equally determined not to do so. But how to get away and remove her mother was more than she could discover.

She left the house and the garden round it, and walked through the meadow till she reached the sea-wall. She ascended that, and went along it to the spot where the Red Hall marsh divided the Tollesbury Fleet from the Virley and Salcott Creeks.

Then she threw herself beneath the windmill, the mill that pumped the water out of the dykes, and worked day and night whenever there was wind to move the sails. The mill was now at work. The wings rushed round, and the pump painfully creaked, and after every stroke sent a dash of water into the sea over the wall.

Mehalah hoped that here, away from her mother and Rebow, and the sights and sounds of Red Hall, she might be able to think. But it was not so. Her numbed head was unable to form any plans. She looked out at sea, it was leaden grey, ruffled with angry waves, and the mews screamed and dipped in them. The sky overhead was overcast. The Bradwell shore looked grey and bleak and desolate; there was not a sail in the offing. The fancy took her to sit and wait, and if she saw a ship pass to take it as a good omen, a promise of escape from her present perplexity.

She sat and waited. The sea darkened to a more sullen tint. The mews were no longer visible. Mersea with its trees and church tower disappeared. Bradwell coast loomed black as pitch against the last lingering light of day. Not a sail appeared.

Far away, out to sea, as the darkness deepened, gleamed a light. It gleamed a moment, then grew dim and disappeared in the blackness. A minute, and then it waxed, but waned again, and once more all was night. So on, in wearisome iteration. What she saw was the revolving Swin light fifteen miles from land, a floating Pharos. She thought of Elijah's words, she thought of the horrible iterations in the barrow on the hill, the embracing and fighting, embracing and fighting, loving and hating, loving and hating, till one should conquer of the twin but rival powers.

*CHAPTER XVII.*

*FACE TO FACE.*

Mehalah returned slowly to the house, her spirits oppressed with gloom. It was night without and within, before her face, and in her soul. The wind sighed and sobbed among the rushes and over the fen, in a disconsolate, despairing manner, and the breath of God within--the living soul--sighed and sobbed like His breath that blew over the wintry marsh without. Not a star looked down from His heaven above, and none looked up from His heaven below in the little confines of a human heart. Mehalah could scarce see her way in the fen, among the dykes and drains; she was as unable to find a path in the level of her life.

She reached Red Hall at last, and mounted the front stairs to the principal door. She would see Elijah now. It were better to speak with him and come to some understanding at once. It was intolerable to allow the present position to remain unexplained, and the future undetermined. She hesitated at the door. It was not without a struggle that she could open it and go in and face the man whose hospitality she was receiving and yet whom she abhorred. She knew that she was greatly indebted to him. He had saved her mother's life, he had secured from destruction a large amount of their property; yet she could not thank him. She resented his intrusion into their affairs, when anyone else would have been unobjectionable. She disliked him all the more because she knew she was heavily in his debt; it galled her almost past endurance to feel that she and her mother were then subsisting on his bounty.

'Come in, Glory!' shouted Elijah from within, as she halted at the door.

She entered. He was seated by the fire with his pipe in his hand; he had heard her step on the stairs, and had paused in his smoking, and had waited in a listening, expectant attitude.

He signed her to take a chair--her mother's chair--on the other side of the hearth. She paid no attention to the sign, but stood in the middle of the room, and unconsciously covered her eyes with her hands. Her pulses quivered in her temples. Her heart grew cold, and a faintness came over her.

'The light is not too strong to dazzle you,' said Elijah, 'put your hands down, I want to see your face.'

She made an effort to retain them where they were, but could not; they fell.

'Sit down.'

She shook her head.

'Sit down.'

'I want to speak with you, Elijah, for a moment. I must speak with you.' Her heart palpitated, her breast heaved. She could only utter short sentences.

'Sit down there!' he beckoned with the stalk of his pipe.

She still refused to obey. Her power was slipping from her. The exhaustion after the excitement she had gone through had affected even her stout will. She resolved to oppose him in this trifling matter, but knew that her resolution was infirm. She clung desperately to what remained to her of power.

'I will not listen to a word you say unless you sit down.'

He paused, and looked at her; then he said, 'Go to your mother!' and continued his smoking, with face averted.

'Elijah, I know what you have done, and are doing now for my mother.'

He sprang from his seat, and strode up and down the room, turning and glowering at her, sucking at his pipe, and making it red and angry like his eyes in the firelight. He walked fast and noisily on the brick floor, with his high shoulders up and his head down. She watched him with painful apprehension; he reminded her of the mad brother pacing in the vault below. She could not speak to him whilst he persisted in this irritating, restless tramp. There was no help for it. She dropped into her mother's leather chair.

'There!' said he, and he flung a ring with some keys attached to it, into her lap. 'Take them. They are yours now. The keys of everything in the house, except of----' he jerked his pipe towards the den beneath.

'I cannot take them,' she said, and let them slide off her lap upon the floor.

'Pick them up!' he ordered.

'No,' she said firmly, 'I will not. Elijah, we must come to an understanding with each other.'

'We already understand each other,' he said, pausing in his walk. 'We always did. I can read your heart. I know everything that passes there, just as if it was written in red letters on a page. I understand you, and there's nobody else in the world that can. I was made to read you. I heard a Baptist preacher say one day that God wrote a book, and then He created mankind to read it. You are a book, and God made me to read you. I can do it. That wants no scholarship, it comes by nature to me. Others can't. They might puzzle and rack their heads, they'd make nothing of you. But you are clear as light of day to me. You understand me?'

'I do not.'

'You _will_ not. You set your obstinate, wicked mind against understanding me. I heard a preacher once say--I went to chapel along of my mother when I was a boy; I goes nowhere now but to the Ray after you--What is God? It is that as makes a man, and keeps him alive, and gives him hopes of happiness, or plunges him in hell. Every man has his own God; for there is something different makes and mars each man. What do I want but you, Glory? It is you that can make and keep me alive, and you are my happiness or my hell.'

'But,' said he standing still again, and flourishing his hand and pipe, 'as I was saying, I heard a preacher say once, that God made every man of a lump of clay and a drop of spittle, and that He made always two at a time. He couldn't help it. He has two hands and ain't right and left handed as we, but works with both, and then He casts about the men He has made, anywhere. Hasn't He made all things double? Have not you two hands and two feet and two eyes? Is there not a sun and a moon, are there not two poles to the earth, and two sexes, and day and night, and winter and summer? and--' he went up before Mehalah, and with a burst of passion--'and you and me?' Then he recommenced his pacing, but slower, and continued, 'Wherever those two are that God made with His two hands, they must come together. It don't matter where they be, if one is in Mersea, and t'other is in Asia, or Africa, or China, or America, or London, it don't matter, soon or late, they must come together, and when they come together then they are in heaven. Now if a man takes some other left-handed figure--it was the left hand made woman--then it don't matter, he can't go against his destiny. He has taken the wrong woman, and he is not happy. He knows it all along, and he feels restless and craving in his soul, and if he does not find the proper one in this world when he goes out of it, he waits and wanders, till the proper one dies and begins to hunt about for her right-hand man. That is what makes ghosts to ramble. Ghosts are those that have married the wrong ones, wandering and waiting, and seeking for their right mates. Do you hear the piping and the crying at the windows of a winter night? That is the ghosts looking in and sobbing because they are out in the cold shivering till they meet their mates. But when they meet, then that is heaven. There's a heaven for everyone, but that is only once for all when the two doubles find each other, and if that be not in this life, why it is after. And there is a hell too, but that isn't reserved for all, and it does not last for ever and ever, but is only when one has taken the wrong mate and has found it out.' He stopped. He had become very earnest and excited by what he had said. He came again over against Mehalah. 'Glory!' he continued, 'don't you see how the moon goes after the sun and cannot come to him? She is his proper mate and double, and the sun don't know, and won't have it, and so day and night, and winter and summer, and waxing and waning goes on and on. But that won't go on for ever. The sun will grow sad at heart, and wane for want of the moon some day, and then there will be a great flare and blaze and glory, and they will be in heaven. And now the two poles of the earth are apart, and so long as they keep apart, the world rolls on in misery and pain, and that is what makes earthquakes, and volcanoes, and great plagues--the poles are apart which ought to be together. But they are drawing gradually nearer each other. The seasons now are not what they used to be, and that is it. The poles are not where they were, they are straining to meet. And some day they will run into one, and that will be the end. I've heard say that in the Bible it is spoken that there'll be an end of this world. I could have known that without the Bible. The poles must come together some day, and be one. Glory!' he went on, 'you and I are each other's doubles, you was made with God's left hand, and I with his right, at the same moment of time, and He cast you into the Ray, and me to Red Hall. There was not much space between, only some water and ooze and marsh, and we've been drawing and drawing nearer and closer for ever so long, and now you are here, under my roof. You can't help it. You cannot fight agin it. You was made for me and I for you, and you'll have a life of hell unless you take me now. I must be yours. You thought you'd resist and take George De Witt. It might have been. Suppose you had, and I had died years before you. You would have heard me crying at your window and beating at your door, and you would have felt me drawing and drawing of you, whether you chose or not, taking the heart away from your George, and bringing it to me. Then at last, you'd have died, and then, then, you'd have been mine, and you would have found our heaven after thirty, forty, fifty years of hell.'

The terrible earnestness of the man imposed on Mehalah. He spoke what he believed. He gave utterance, in his rude fierce way, to what he felt. She, untaught, full of dim gropings after something higher, vaster, than the flat, narrow life she led, was startled.

'Heaven with you!' she cried, drawing back; 'never! never!'

'Heaven with me, and with none but me. You can't get another heaven but in my arms, for you was made for me by God. I told you so, but you would not believe it. Try, if you like, to find it elsewhere. God didn't make you and George De Witt out of one lump. He couldn't have done it--You, Glory! strong, great, noble, with a will of iron, and that weak, helpless, vulgar lout, tied to his mother's apron. He couldn't have done it. He made, like enough, Phoebe Musset and George De Witt out of one piece, but you and me was moulded together at the same time, out of the same clay, and the same breath is in our hearts, and the same blood in our veins. You can't help it, it is so. You can not, you shall not, escape me. Soon or late you must find your proper mate, soon or late you must seek your double, soon or late find your heaven.'

He came now quietly and seated himself in his chair opposite Mehalah.

'What did you fare to say, Glory?' he asked. 'I interrupted you.'

'I must thank you first for what you have done for my mother.'

'I have done nothing for her,' said Elijah sharply.

'You drew her out of the burning house. You saved her goods from the flames. You have sheltered her here.'

'I have done nothing for her,' said Elijah again. 'Whatever I have done, I did for you. But for you she might have burned, and I would not have put out a finger to help her. What care I for her? She is naught to me. She wasn't destined for me; that was you. I saved her because she was _your_ mother. I collected your things from the blazing house. I have taken you in. I take her in only as I might take in your shoe, or your cow, because it is yours. She is naught to me. I don't care if I never saw or heard her again.'

He got up and went to the window, took a flask thence; then brought his gun from a corner, and began to polish the brass fittings with rag, having first put on the metal some of the vitriol from the bottle.