Chapter XVI: The Odour of Rosemary

It happened as Joshua had calculated. The sun was setting as he entered quiet Penmoyle. The walk from Truro had tired him more than he had supposed possible. He could hardly drag himself along the last mile or so of the dusty road, between hedges where the dog-roses and honeysuckle climbed high above his head, and where the foxgloves were opening their purple bells. The salt sea-wind, sweeping over yonder swelling hills, seemed to have lost its refreshing power. He turned his eyes wearily towards the western point--the wild Land’s End, with its rocks of many-hued granite, on which the sea-gulls and cormorants were perching in the rosy evening light. The scene was so familiar to him that he could see it all, in that clear vision of the mind, as he turned his gaze westward. Was there anything on this vast earth more beautiful, he wondered, than that wild point of English soil, with the great Atlantic waves for ever beating up against it--an impregnable natural fortress, the rocky seat of dead and gone giants, for ever defying the assaults of ocean?

His thoughts wandered a good deal during these last miles, when his body was racked with the pains of exceeding fatigue. He thought of Nicholas Wild, his old pupil, and the little chapel among yonder hills. The young man had written him long letters, telling him of the rich reward that had crowned his labours, and how he had built a school for the children of his flock. Joshua had been too preoccupied to take any notice of the letters, and the memory of that neglect smote him now as he came nearer his pupil’s home.

‘Poor Nicholas! he was always faithful and affectionate. We will go and see him, my wife and I,’ Joshua said to himself.

At last the old square tower of Penmoyle church rose in its gray severity above the avenue of limes that led to it. Then came the well-known street; the chestnut-grove where the children played at eventide; the inn; the village pump; the cocks and hens, and a vagabond pig picking up unconsidered trifles in the middle of the road; the old yellow wagon turned up on end after a day’s usefulness. The sun was still visible--a shining crimson disk on the edge of the western hill.

It was a mere foolishness, no doubt, and Joshua chid himself for so weak a regret, but he felt strangely disappointed when he came in sight of the little green gate before Miss Webling’s cottage, and did not see the graceful figure of his wife standing there, just as he had seen her that happy afternoon two years ago, when he had come full of benevolent intentions, and ignorant of his heart’s mystery. He had counted on seeing her there. It would have been the natural fulfilment of his dream, it seemed to him, that she should be on the watch for his coming. She had called him, and, by some mystic power beyond the limits of flesh and blood, he had heard her summons. Why was she not watching for him, full of faith in his obedience? Was his sympathy with her stronger than hers with him?

He passed the chestnut-grove. It seemed to him that the children were less noisy than of old. They were there under the spreading branches, the same boys and girls--the fustian jackets and lavender pinafores, the petticoated little ones, with chubby cheeks and great staring brown eyes. But there was a hush upon the scene. The elder children were congregated in little knots talking. Some of them suddenly perceived him, and there was a curious excitement among them immediately, and much whispering, and some pointing at him with eager fingers; and he could see that they all stopped their talk or games to watch him.

Joshua walked slowly towards the green gate, strangely disappointed and depressed. The windows of the Webling cottage faced south-west, and it was only natural that the spotless blinds should be drawn to exclude such a blaze of sunset; but it gave the house a blank look not the less. The casements offered him no smile of welcome.

Here was a friendly welcome, however, from an unexpected direction. Before Joshua had opened the gate, Mr. Martin, the kind old minister, came hurrying across from his dwelling on the other side of the road, and clasped him by both hands, and looked at him with eyes brimming over with tears.

‘God bless you! God sustain and comfort you, my beloved friend!’ he cried. ‘I was watching for you. O, be composed, my friend, be composed! Such a blessed euthanasia! The precious soul of my Elizabeth was not more spotless or fitter for heaven. Dear friend, let us go in together.’

Joshua turned and looked at him with wild wondering eyes; then wrenched himself suddenly from the old man’s friendly grasp, and moved towards the door.

‘No, no,’ he muttered; ‘I don’t want you. I am going alone--to see my wife. Cynthia!’ he called, as he opened the door. ‘Cynthia!’ in a louder and more urgent tone--‘Cynthia, where are you?’

A fiery impatience had taken hold of him. He could not wait for formalities of any kind. The Miss Weblings would come, and there would be stately greetings, and cake and wine brought out of the wainscot cupboard, and all manner of ceremonies before he could open his arms and clasp his ill-used wife to his heart, and weep over her and be forgiven.

Deborah came out of the kitchen, and took his hands, just as old Mr. Martin had done, and looked at him in the same tearful way.

Were the people all mad here, or was he? Even the children had seemed to look at him strangely.

‘Dearest friend,’ said Deborah, ‘this is a sore trial for all of us. Priscilla has been in hysterics all day; out of one fit into another. Quite dreadful! The feathers we’ve burnt, and the vinegar, and all to no purpose. She has such a feeling heart.’

It was Priscilla who was ill, then. That’s what all this fuss meant.

‘I want to see my wife,’ Joshua said shortly.

‘At once?’ faltered Deborah, looking at him timorously.

‘Yes, at once; this instant. Have I not come all these weary miles to see her? This instant.’

‘O dear sir, what need of impatience? Be calm, I beg you.’

The doors of both parlours were open. Joshua had glanced in and seen that both rooms were empty.

‘Where is she?’ he asked. ‘Up-stairs?’

‘Yes, in our spare room,’ Deborah answered huskily. ‘Let me show you the way.’

‘I know it,’ he said; and went up-stairs before her.

The narrow corkscrew staircase was close and dark, like the winding stair in a church-tower. Midway Joshua started as if he had been shot, and came to a standstill.

There was a pungent odour of freshly-gathered herbs, a perfume he had not smelt thus, on the threshold of a bedchamber, since his mother’s death.

‘My God!’ he cried. ‘Is it rosemary?’

‘Yes,’ sobbed Deborah, ‘we always use it here. We’ve a bush in the garden on purpose. The neighbours come and beg a bunch of it when they’ve a death in the house.’

Joshua staggered up the few steep stairs, lifted the jingling latch of the low wainscot door, and went into the room in which he had slept two years ago, when the new joys and pains of love began to grow in his heart.

That odour of rosemary had forewarned him what he was to see. No living wife, standing on the threshold to greet him, with warm arms ready to be wound about his neck--no sweet eyes lifted shyly to meet his own--no faltering words, or half-broken sobs: only a fair marble statue lying on a white flower-strewn bed, hands meekly folded, violet-veined eyelids closed over wearied eyes--a broken heart for ever at rest.

He stood looking at her for a long time, as it seemed to the heart-stricken Deborah--looking at her with eyes that hung upon that silent beauty in a rapture of despair; then flung up his arms with a sudden gurgling cry, and fell upon the floor beside her bed like a stone.

* * * * *

He remained unconscious for many hours, breathing stertorously, and lying like a log upon the bed where his faithful attendants had laid him. The village doctor had bled him, and administered various orthodox remedies of a severe character, with but little result. Mr. Martin, the good old dissenting minister, stayed with him all through the weary night, which might know no dawn in this world. The spinster sisters were indefatigable, Priscilla waiving her peculiar prerogative of hysterics in her desire to be useful.

The sun had risen, and the birds were singing outside the open casements, when Joshua slowly lifted his heavy lids and looked about him with dim bloodshot eyes.

For some minutes after he had struggled back to consciousness there was a dimness in his brain as well as in his eyes, and he looked at the anxious watchful faces vaguely. Then memory came back with cruel distinctness.

‘Tell me--everything,’ he said.

‘Dear friend,’ pleaded Mr. Martin, ‘let your mind be at rest for a little while. Repose, dear sir; you have been heavily afflicted, and you have had a stroke of illness which might have been fatal, had God refused to hear our earnest prayers.’

‘Tell me about my wife,’ urged Joshua vehemently.

‘She is at rest. She has gone to her heavenly home. I, who was with her at the last, have no doubt of her calling and election. She was one of God’s chosen vessels, with a mind naturally attuned to heavenly things, like that pure spirit, my heavenly-minded Elizabeth, whose deathbed conversations it was my precious privilege to preserve for the edification of many. Yes, she came very near that sainted young woman in the holy simplicity of her nature.’

‘What was it that killed her?’ asked Joshua, putting aside all these words with a motion of his strong hand. ‘Did she die of a broken heart? Was it my ill-usage that caused her death?’

‘Your ill-usage, dear friend! Your senses must be wandering. She always talked of you as the best and most honoured of husbands. Ill-usage, and from you! She loved you above all earthly things. Your name was on her lips with her last breath.’

‘Yes,’ cried Joshua, ‘she called me, and I heard her. Give me my watch,’ pointing to the chest of drawers where it lay; ‘see, I stopped the hands at the moment in which I heard her voice calling to me in a kind of dream--not a common dream, mark you--twice as vivid and lifelike. It was after midnight on Sunday; see, twenty minutes past one.’

‘“This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes!”’ exclaimed Mr. Martin piously. ‘It was at that very hour her spirit took flight.’

‘Why was I not told that she was ill--dying?’ asked Joshua.

‘It was her wish that you should not be troubled. “He will send for me or come for me when he wants me to go home again,” she said. “He has higher things than me to think about.” She was so earnest in this wish that we did not like to overrule her.’

‘And nobody thought that she was dangerously ill,’ explained Deborah. ‘The doctor couldn’t make her out. That was what he always said. It was one of the strangest cases he’d ever had to deal with. Some days she seemed so well and bright; and she was always industrious, anxious to be doing something for us; household work or needlework, it was all the same--we couldn’t give her enough to do.’

‘The journey here hurt her a great deal, I think,’ said Priscilla, ‘though she would never own to it. She walked a good bit of the way, I believe, and she was footsore and very weak when she came. I opened the door to her at dusk one evening, and I almost thought she was a ghost. “I want to be your servant, dear Miss Priscilla,” she said, “as I was in the old happy days.” “Why, Mrs. Haggard,” said I, “what would your honoured husband think of such a notion?” But I’d hardly got out the words before she fell down in a faint at my feet; and for a week after that we had her laid up, and as low as could be.’

‘And you never wrote to me about her!’ cried Joshua, with agonised reproach.

‘Well, the truth was we didn’t like. We thought there was something wrong--a family quarrel perhaps, second marriages often turn out so--and the poor thing seemed to have come to us for refuge, and clung to us so; and if ever we talked of writing to you she seemed so distressed. And we had always been fond of her, and had missed her dreadfully after her marriage. She seemed like a daughter to us now she had come back; and I’m sure we nursed her and took care of her in her illness as if she’d really been a daughter, as I know Mr. Martin will bear witness.’

‘You did,’ said the minister; ‘she could not have had better nursing or kinder treatment.’

‘It was only just at the last that there was any mention of danger,’ continued Deborah. ‘On Saturday morning the doctor found her very low, poor dear, and her mind was wandering a little. He seemed quite distressed as he came down-stairs with me, as if it was a shock to him to find her so. “I don’t at all like her looks this morning, Miss Webling,” he said; “I begin to be afraid we shall lose her.” I never had such a turn in my life. Poor Priscilla and I were almost beside ourselves with grief, and it was as much as I could do to write you a letter, begging you to come at once. You don’t seem to have received that letter.’

‘No, it must have been delivered after I left home. The post is so slow; you should have sent a messenger. Tell me, for God’s sake--did she die happy, and did she love me at the last?’

‘At the last, and always,’ answered Mr. Martin earnestly. ‘She bared her heart to me. I knew all its secrets, its waverings from the right, its weakness. She had always loved and revered you. She had been tempted, poor child, and her fancy had strayed to another for a little while--only a little while. Heart and mind were true to her duty. She was worthy of your fondest love; she was worthy of your deepest regret.’

‘And I cast her from me, I repudiated her, I spurned her as the vilest of sinners! O friend, can her injured spirit look down upon me from heaven, and pity? Can God ever pardon my sin? He gave me this sweet flower to wear in my bosom, and I cast it from me, and trampled it under foot. I have steeped my soul in sin, I have dyed my hands with blood!’

The two spinsters and the minister looked at each other with an awful significance. These remorseful utterances seemed to them the tokens of a wandering mind. That this man, their model and pattern of uprightness, could deeply err came hardly within the limits of belief.