Part 42 (2/2)
She came instantly.
”Ruth,” he repeated, ”this lady is Mrs. Faber. She is come to visit us for a while. n.o.body must know of it.--You need not be at all uneasy, Mrs. Faber. Not a soul will come near us to-day. But I will lock the door, to secure time, if any one should.--You will get Mrs. Faber's room ready at once, Ruth. I will come and help you. But a spoonful of brandy in hot water first, please.--Let me move your chair a little, ma'am--out of the draught.”
Juliet in silence did every thing she was told, received the prescribed antidote from Ruth, and was left alone in the kitchen.
But the moment she was freed from one dread, she was seized by another; suspicion took the place of terror; and as soon as she heard the toiling of the goblins up the creaking staircase, she crept to the foot of it after them, and with no more compunction than a princess in a fairy-tale, set herself to listen. It was not difficult, for the little inclosed staircase carried every word to the bottom of it.
”I _thought_ she wasn't dead!” she heard Ruth exclaim joyfully; and the words and tone set her wondering.
”I saw you did not seem greatly astonished at the sight of her; but what made you think such an unlikely thing?” rejoined her uncle.
”I saw you did not believe she was dead. That was enough for me.”
”You are a witch, Ruth! I never said a word one way or the other.”
”Which showed that you were thinking, and made me think. You had something in your mind which you did not choose to tell me yet.”
”Ah, child!” rejoined her uncle, in a solemn tone, ”how difficult it is to hide any thing! I don't think G.o.d wants any thing hidden. The light is His region, His kingdom, His palace-home. It can only be evil, outside or in, that makes us turn from the fullest light of the universe. Truly one must be born again to enter into the kingdom!”
Juliet heard every word, heard and was bewildered. The place in which she had sought refuge was plainly little better than a kobold-cave, yet merely from listening to the talk of the kobolds without half understanding it, she had begun already to feel a sense of safety stealing over her, such as she had never been for an instant aware of in the Old House, even with Dorothy beside her.
They went on talking, and she went on listening. They were so much her inferiors there could be no impropriety in doing so!
”The poor lady,” she heard the man-goblin say, ”has had some difference with her husband; but whether she wants to hide from him or from the whole world or from both, she only can tell. Our business is to take care of her, and do for her what G.o.d may lay to our hand. What she desires to hide, is sacred to us. We have no secrets of our own, Ruth, and have the more room for those of other people who are unhappy enough to have any. Let G.o.d reveal what He pleases: there are many who have no right to know what they most desire to know. She needs nursing, poor thing! We will pray to G.o.d for her.”
”But how shall we make her comfortable in such a poor little house?”
returned Ruth. ”It is the dearest place in the world to me--but how will she feel in it?”
”We will keep her warm and clean,” answered her uncle, ”and that is all an angel would require.”
”An angel!--yes,” answered Ruth: ”for angels don't eat; or, at least, if they do, for I doubt if you will grant that they don't, I am certain that they are not so hard to please as some people down here. The poor, dear lady is delicate--you know she has always been--and I am not much of a cook.”
”You are a very good cook, my dear. Perhaps you do not know a great many dishes, but you are a dainty cook of those you do know. Few people can have more need than we to be careful what they eat,--we have got such a pair of troublesome cranky little bodies; and if you can suit them, I feel sure you will be able to suit any invalid that is not fastidious by nature rather than necessity.”
”I will do my best,” said Ruth cheerily, comforted by her uncle's confidence. ”The worst is that, for her own sake, I must not get a girl to help me.”
”The lady will help you with her own room,” said Polwarth. ”I have a shrewd notion that it is only the _fine_ ladies, those that are so little of ladies that they make so much of being ladies, who mind doing things with their own hands. Now you must go and make her some tea, while she gets in bed. She is sure to like tea best.”
Juliet retreated noiselessly, and when the woman-gnome entered the kitchen, there sat the disconsolate lady where she had left her, still like the outcast princess of a fairy-tale: she had walked in at the door, and they had immediately begun to arrange for her stay, and the strangest thing to Juliet was that she hardly felt it strange. It was only as if she had come a day sooner than she was expected--which indeed was very much the case, for Polwarth had been looking forward to the possibility, and latterly to the likelihood of her becoming their guest.
”Your room is ready now,” said Ruth, approaching her timidly, and looking up at her with her woman's childlike face on the body of a child. ”Will you come?”
Juliet rose and followed her to the garret-room with the dormer window, in which Ruth slept.
”Will you please get into bed as fast as you can,” she said, ”and when you knock on the floor I will come and take away your clothes and get them dried. Please to wrap this new blanket round you, lest the cold sheets should give you a chill. They are well aired, though. I will bring you a hot bottle, and some tea. Dinner will be ready soon.”
So saying she left the chamber softly. The creak of the door as she closed it, and the white curtains of the bed and window, reminded Juliet of a certain room she once occupied at the house of an old nurse, where she had been happier than ever since in all her life, until her brief bliss with Faber: she burst into tears, and weeping undressed and got into bed. There the dryness and the warmth and the sense of safety soothed her speedily; and with the comfort crept in the happy thought that here she lay on the very edge of the high road to Glaston, and that nothing could be more probable than that she would soon see her husband ride past. With that one hope she could sit at a window watching for centuries! ”O Paul! Paul! my Paul!” she moaned. ”If I could but be made clean again for you! I would willingly be burned at the stake, if the fire would only make me clean, for the chance of seeing you again in the other world!” But as the comfort into her brain, so the peace of her new surroundings stole into her heart. The fancy grew upon her that she was in a fairy-tale, in which she must take every thing as it came, for she could not alter the text. Fear vanished; neither staring eyes nor creeping pool could find her in the guardians.h.i.+p of the benevolent goblins. She fell fast asleep; and the large, clear, gray eyes of the little woman gnome came and looked at her as she slept, and their gaze did not rouse her. Softly she went, and came again; but, although dinner was then ready, Ruth knew better than to wake her. She knew that sleep is the chief nourisher in life's feast, and would not withdraw the sacred dish. Her uncle said sleep was G.o.d's contrivance for giving man the help he could not get into him while he was awake. So the loving gnomes had their dinner together, putting aside the best portions of it against the waking of the beautiful lady lying fast asleep above.
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