The Old Curiosity Shop

Chapter 71

The dull, red glow of a wood fire--for no lamp or candle burnt
within the room--showed him a figure, seated on the hearth with
its back towards him, bending over the fitful light. The attitude
was that of one who sought the heat. It was, and yet was not. The
stooping posture and the cowering form were there, but no hands
were stretched out to meet the grateful warmth, no shrug or shiver
compared its luxury with the piercing cold outside. With limbs
huddled together, head bowed down, arms crossed upon the breast,
and fingers tightly clenched, it rocked to and fro upon its seat
without a moment's pause, accompanying the action with the mournful
sound he had heard.

The heavy door had closed behind him on his entrance, with a crash
that made him start. The figure neither spoke, nor turned to look,
nor gave in any other way the faintest sign of having heard the
noise. The form was that of an old man, his white head akin in
colour to the mouldering embers upon which he gazed. He, and the
failing light and dying fire, the time-worn room, the solitude, the
wasted life, and gloom, were all in fellowship. Ashes, and dust,
and ruin!

Kit tried to speak, and did pronounce some words, though what they
were he scarcely knew. Still the same terrible low cry went on--
still the same rocking in the chair--the same stricken figure was
there, unchanged and heedless of his presence.

He had his hand upon the latch, when something in the form--
distinctly seen as one log broke and fell, and, as it fell, blazed
up--arrested it. He returned to where he had stood before--
advanced a pace--another--another still. Another, and he saw the
face. Yes! Changed as it was, he knew it well.

'Master!' he cried, stooping on one knee and catching at his hand.
'Dear master. Speak to me!'

The old man turned slowly towards him; and muttered in a hollow
voice,

'This is another!--How many of these spirits there have been
to-night!'

'No spirit, master. No one but your old servant. You know me now,
I am sure? Miss Nell--where is she--where is she?'

'They all say that!' cried the old man. 'They all ask the same
question. A spirit!'

'Where is she?' demanded Kit. 'Oh tell me but that,--but that,
dear master!'

'She is asleep--yonder--in there.'

'Thank God!'

'Aye! Thank God!' returned the old man. 'I have prayed to Him,
many, and many, and many a livelong night, when she has been
asleep, He knows. Hark! Did she call?'

'I heard no voice.'

'You did. You hear her now. Do you tell me that you don't hear
THAT?'

He started up, and listened again.

'Nor that?' he cried, with a triumphant smile, 'Can any body know
that voice so well as I? Hush! Hush!'
Motioning to him to be silent, he stole away into another chamber.
After a short absence (during which he could be heard to speak in
a softened soothing tone) he returned, bearing in his hand a lamp.

'She is still asleep,' he whispered. 'You were right. She did not
call--unless she did so in her slumber. She has called to me in
her sleep before now, sir; as I have sat by, watching, I have seen
her lips move, and have known, though no sound came from them, that
she spoke of me. I feared the light might dazzle her eyes and wake
her, so I brought it here.'

He spoke rather to himself than to the visitor, but when he had put
the lamp upon the table, he took it up, as if impelled by some
momentary recollection or curiosity, and held it near his face.
Then, as if forgetting his motive in the very action, he turned
away and put it down again.

'She is sleeping soundly,' he said; 'but no wonder. Angel hands
have strewn the ground deep with snow, that the lightest footstep
may be lighter yet; and the very birds are dead, that they may not
wake her. She used to feed them, Sir. Though never so cold and
hungry, the timid things would fly from us. They never flew from
her!'

Again he stopped to listen, and scarcely drawing breath, listened
for a long, long time. That fancy past, he opened an old chest,
took out some clothes as fondly as if they had been living things,
and began to smooth and brush them with his hand.

'Why dost thou lie so idle there, dear Nell,' he murmured, 'when
there are bright red berries out of doors waiting for thee to pluck
them! Why dost thou lie so idle there, when thy little friends
come creeping to the door, crying "where is Nell--sweet Nell?"--
and sob, and weep, because they do not see thee. She was always
gentle with children. The wildest would do her bidding--she had
a tender way with them, indeed she had!'

Kit had no power to speak. His eyes were filled with tears.

'Her little homely dress,--her favourite!' cried the old man,
pressing it to his breast, and patting it with his shrivelled hand.
'She will miss it when she wakes. They have hid it here in sport,
but she shall have it--she shall have it. I would not vex my
darling, for the wide world's riches. See here--these shoes--how
worn they are--she kept them to remind her of our last
long journey. You see where the little feet went bare upon the
ground. They told me, afterwards, that the stones had cut and
bruised them. She never told me that. No, no, God bless her! and,
I have remembered since, she walked behind me, sir, that I might
not see how lame she was--but yet she had my hand in hers, and
seemed to lead me still.'

He pressed them to his lips, and having carefully put them back
again, went on communing with himself--looking wistfully from time
to time towards the chamber he had lately visited.

'She was not wont to be a lie-abed; but she was well then. We must
have patience. When she is well again, she will rise early, as she
used to do, and ramble abroad in the healthy morning time. I often
tried to track the way she had gone, but her small footstep left no
print upon the dewy ground, to guide me. Who is that? Shut the
door. Quick!--Have we not enough to do to drive away that marble
cold, and keep her warm!'

The door was indeed opened, for the entrance of Mr Garland and his
friend, accompanied by two other persons. These were the
schoolmaster, and the bachelor. The former held a light in his
hand. He had, it seemed, but gone to his own cottage to replenish
the exhausted lamp, at the moment when Kit came up and found the
old man alone.

He softened again at sight of these two friends, and, laying aside
the angry manner--if to anything so feeble and so sad the term can
be applied--in which he had spoken when the door opened, resumed
his former seat, and subsided, by little and little into the old
action, and the old, dull, wandering sound.

Of the strangers, he took no heed whatever. He had seen them, but
appeared quite incapable of interest or curiosity. The younger
brother stood apart. The bachelor drew a chair towards the old
man, and sat down close beside him. After a long silence, he
ventured to speak.

'Another night, and not in bed!' he said softly; 'I hoped you would
be more mindful of your promise to me. Why do you not take some
rest?'

'Sleep has left me,' returned the old man. 'It is all with her!'

'It would pain her very much to know that you were watching thus,'
said the bachelor. 'You would not give her pain?'

'I am not so sure of that, if it would only rouse her. She has
slept so very long. And yet I am rash to say so. It is a good and
happy sleep--eh?'

'Indeed it is,' returned the bachelor. 'Indeed, indeed, it is!'

'That's well!--and the waking--' faltered the old man.

'Happy too. Happier than tongue can tell, or heart of man
conceive.'

They watched him as he rose and stole on tiptoe to the other
chamber where the lamp had been replaced. They listened as he
spoke again within its silent walls. They looked into the faces of
each other, and no man's cheek was free from tears. He came back,
whispering that she was still asleep, but that he thought she had
moved. It was her hand, he said--a little--a very, very little--
but he was pretty sure she had moved it--perhaps in seeking his.
He had known her do that, before now, though in the deepest sleep
the while. And when he had said this, he dropped into his chair
again, and clasping his hands above his head, uttered a cry never
to be forgotten.

The poor schoolmaster motioned to the bachelor that he would come
on the other side, and speak to him. They gently unlocked his
fingers, which he had twisted in his grey hair, and pressed them in
their own.

'He will hear me,' said the schoolmaster, 'I am sure. He will hear
either me or you if we beseech him. She would, at all times.'

'I will hear any voice she liked to hear,' cried the old man. 'I
love all she loved!'

'I know you do,' returned the schoolmaster. 'I am certain of it.
Think of her; think of all the sorrows and afflictions you have
shared together; of all the trials, and all the peaceful pleasures,
you have jointly known.'

'I do. I do. I think of nothing else.'

'I would have you think of nothing else to-night--of nothing but
those things which will soften your heart, dear friend, and open it
to old affections and old times. It is so that she would speak to
you herself, and in her name it is that I speak now.'

'You do well to speak softly,' said the old man. 'We will not wake
her. I should be glad to see her eyes again, and to see her smile.
There is a smile upon her young face now, but it is fixed and
changeless. I would have it come and go. That shall be in
Heaven's good time. We will not wake her.'

'Let us not talk of her in her sleep, but as she used to be when
you were Journeying together, far away--as she was at home, in the
old house from which you fled together--as she was, in the old
cheerful time,' said the schoolmaster.

'She was always cheerful--very cheerful,' cried the old man,
looking steadfastly at him. 'There was ever something mild and
quiet about her, I remember, from the first; but she was of a happy
nature.'

'We have heard you say,' pursued the schoolmaster, 'that in this
and in all goodness, she was like her mother. You can think of,
and remember her?'

He maintained his steadfast look, but gave no answer.

'Or even one before her,' said the bachelor. 'it is many years
ago, and affliction makes the time longer, but you have not
forgotten her whose death contributed to make this child so dear to
you, even before you knew her worth or could read her heart? Say,
that you could carry back your thoughts to very distant days--to
the time of your early life--when, unlike this fair flower, you
did not pass your youth alone. Say, that you could remember, long
ago, another child who loved you dearly, you being but a child
yourself. Say, that you had a brother, long forgotten, long
unseen, long separated from you, who now, at last, in your utmost
need came back to comfort and console you--'

'To be to you what you were once to him,' cried the younger,
falling on his knee before him; 'to repay your old affection,
brother dear, by constant care, solicitude, and love; to be, at
your right hand, what he has never ceased to be when oceans rolled
between us; to call to witness his unchanging truth and mindfulness
of bygone days, whole years of desolation. Give me but one word of
recognition, brother--and never--no never, in the brightest
moment of our youngest days, when, poor silly boys, we thought to
pass our lives together--have we been half as dear and precious to
each other as we shall be from this time hence!'

The old man looked from face to face, and his lips moved; but no
sound came from them in reply.

'If we were knit together then,' pursued the younger brother, 'what
will be the bond between us now! Our love and fellowship began in
childhood, when life was all before us, and will be resumed when we
have proved it, and are but children at the last. As many restless
spirits, who have hunted fortune, fame, or pleasure through the
world, retire in their decline to where they first drew breath,
vainly seeking to be children once again before they die, so we,
less fortunate than they in early life, but happier in its closing
scenes, will set up our rest again among our boyish haunts, and
going home with no hope realised, that had its growth in manhood--
carrying back nothing that we brought away, but our old yearnings
to each other--saving no fragment from the wreck of life, but that
which first endeared it--may be, indeed, but children as at first.
And even,' he added in an altered voice, 'even if what I dread to
name has come to pass--even if that be so, or is to be (which
Heaven forbid and spare us!)--still, dear brother, we are not
apart, and have that comfort in our great affliction.'

By little and little, the old man had drawn back towards the inner
chamber, while these words were spoken. He pointed there, as he
replied, with trembling lips.

'You plot among you to wean my heart from her. You never will do
that--never while I have life. I have no relative or friend but
her--I never had--I never will have. She is all in all to me.
It is too late to part us now.'

Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he
went, he stole into the room. They who were left behind, drew
close together, and after a few whispered words--not unbroken by
emotion, or easily uttered--followed him. They moved so gently,
that their footsteps made no noise; but there were sobs from among
the group, and sounds of grief and mourning.

For she was dead. There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest.
The solemn stillness was no marvel now.

She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace
of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from
the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who
had lived and suffered death.

Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and
green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favour.
'When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and
had the sky above it always.' Those were her words.

She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her
little bird--a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would
have crushed--was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong
heart of its child mistress was mute and motionless for ever.

Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and
fatigues? All gone. Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and
perfect happiness were born; imaged in her tranquil beauty and
profound repose.

And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change.
Yes. The old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had
passed, like a dream, through haunts of misery and care; at the
door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the
furnace fire upon the cold wet night, at the still bedside of the
dying boy, there had been the same mild lovely look. So shall we
know the angels in their majesty, after death.

The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand
tight folded to his breast, for warmth. It was the hand she had
stretched out to him with her last smile--the hand that had led
him on, through all their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it
to his lips; then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it
was warmer now; and, as he said it, he looked, in agony, to those
who stood around, as if imploring them to help her.

She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient rooms
she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was waning
fast--the garden she had tended--the eyes she had gladdened--the
noiseless haunts of many a thoughtful hour--the paths she had
trodden as it were but yesterday--could know her never more.

'It is not,' said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on
the cheek, and gave his tears free vent, 'it is not on earth that
Heaven's justice ends. Think what earth is, compared with the
World to which her young spirit has winged its early flight; and
say, if one deliberate wish expressed in solemn terms above this
bed could call her back to life, which of us would utter it!'