Blomfield Jackson

“ From the southern side of the village stretches out a long rock rampart, rising over sand and sea for nearly half a mile, and crowned, just where it seems to be sinking under the surface, by a huge battered fort, riven by the strokes of a hundred storms; glorious to be seen when great gales toss the spray high above its grey old height, and liken it to the head of some mighty Viking sinking into the sea, his white hair beaten backwards and forwards by the wind. From the beach little of Orbec can be seen, for the cliffs nearly meet at the rivulet’s mouth. ”

“ When no more letters came from Paris, and the Squire began to act as though he had no son, Mistress Bessie evidently deemed herself of increased importance. She had never pretended any love for the disinherited Horace. His airs and graces annoyed her. He could say prettier things than Harry, and he danced a minuet better than—hardly, at least, better than Harry, for that more rustic gentleman could not dance at all. But he had once craned at a hedge; and, on the whole, his sister did not regret his loss. She began to esteem herself the heiress of Gwynne. ”

“ Where Normandy bares its weather-beaten brow to meet the north-west winds lies the village of Orbec. A merry brook hurrying from the inland hills marks the middle of a ravine between the tall tawny cliffs; and the little hamlet nestles just where the clear fresh water soaks into the smooth sea sand, or meets the highest sweep of mounting tide. To the right and left rise wide undulating downs. Behind, dull straight roads and hedgeless fields stretch far away in gradual ascent to the forest that fringes the horizon. ”

“ Of the many ships “of Filby,” one good brig was the property of Master Henry Harborough, a kindly and prudent seaman. The skipper of the “Camilla” brig could not have been more than ten years younger than Mr. Jonathan Gale; but for all that he had won the heart, and a promise of the hand, of Patience. Patience was one of those natures who love to cling to something stoutly set. The quiet earnestness and unobtrusive self-reliance of her friend outweighed the more boisterous attractions of a score of younger wooers. ”

“ Deeds and a clerk drive up the avenue in a chaise. She heard them ushered into her father’s bed-room. The Squire had felt weaker than usual, and had retired to his room immediately after his mid-day meal. The noise of the footsteps on the marble, and the shutting of the doors, was as oil on fire. Elizabeth Gwynne was all but in the last stage of passion. She chafed and fumed in her own room till suspense became unbearable. She rang a hand-bell that summoned a maid, and sent a message.
“Tell some of the people to ask Mr. Harry if he will speak with me immediately.” ”

“ There was all Orbec—men, women, and children—save the helpless old and the helpless young—all kneeling on their knees. The crowd reached to the door, and I could scarcely find a square foot of tile unoccupied. We less impulsive islanders may moralise as we will about popery and superstition, but it is a very solemn service—that Commemoration of the Dead. Think of all the love, and all the sorrow, and all the hope welling out of the souls of those simple Orbec fishermen! ”

“ The oftener this wilful lady was told to be a good child, the more pertinaciously she asserted her independence. Poor Harry still worshipped, but he received more frowns than smiles for his pains. One day when he was more than ordinarily definite and demonstrative in his professions of attachment, his mistress stamped her little foot and vowed she hated him—that her father gave too much love to the nephew and too little to his child, and that so far from having any intention of surrendering her heart, she regarded her suitor as the chief bar to her earthly happiness. ”

“ They are arched, and too nearly meet for mere beauty. The eyes are of that dark grey which flashes with the fiercest of all fire when it is roused. The expression of the mouth is a strange mixture of passion, of tenderness, and of resolution. The lips are firmly compressed, but they are too full for meanness, and too wavy for malice. The chin is prominent and large. The whole face beams with intelligence and life. I looked at it at one moment and said within myself, that woman must have been fearful in a rage. ”

“ When they were laid not far from Henry Harborough in the graveyard attached to the old abbey, she was not left all alone. Certain cousins of her own, and certain nephews and nieces of the dead sailor, had a tender interest in “Aunt Patience.”
Loving and loved by poor and rich alike; never merry, but always cheerful; Patience Gale was Patience Gale to the day of her death.
Strangers who saw a grave elderly woman wandering alone and apparently purposeless and dreaming round the ruin of Filby Abbey, fancied that the poor lady was a little wrong in her head. ”

“ The Squire said not a word of his intentions, but the greater the gulf between him and his son, the tighter appeared the bond that united him to his nephew; and the fonder he grew of his nephew, the oftener did his daughter wax wrath with her cousin, and indeed with everyone else. She was but twenty years old, but she was a notorious termagant; and the old housekeeper at the manor surmised that she would be the last of her branch of the house, for no one would woo so wild a bride—no one, that is, but Master Harry, and she seemed daily less inclined to stoop to the faithful cousin. ”

“ Little Jules was clinging to the wreck to the last. Jacques himself was tossed on a shelving rock, bruised and bloody, but alive. And all this happened on the north-east coast of England, on the very night on which the Orbec people had been awakened by the cries at sea.
Such was the story I heard from Madame Barjac. It differed from ordinary ghost stories in this. Most ghosts are seen by only one person. This was a vision seen—no; there was nothing seen; nothing but the calm sea. ”

“ Mistress Elizabeth Gwynne, at nineteen years of age, was said to have been particularly beautiful. I have described the features of the woman, and from them may be guessed the loveliness of the girl. She was very beautiful, and very clever: but her temper was high and passionate. The visitor, who should see her unruffled and serene, might deem it impossible for so gentle a being to transcend the ordinary limits of the anger of her sex. But on the comparatively rare occasions, when her passion mastered her, her paroxysms of rage were fearful. ”

“ But whether it was or was not true, it made Harry very miserable. He was in a dilemma. If he was cold to his uncle, his uncle looked pained. If he was not cold to his uncle, he was accused of winning away a father’s love from the personage whom, more than any other, he desired to encircle with all love. On the whole, the household was a stormy one; but now and then a patch of blue sky smiled through the clouds. Bessie forgot her grievances, and spent a merry day with her old playfellow. ”

“ We have high authority for believing that in the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. It cannot be unreasonable to hold that the same phenomenon may be observed in a young woman.
Let none, therefore, deem it an exaggerated impossibility that the afore-mentioned Henry and Patience should be described as meeting in the ruins of the old abbey of Filby, on an evening in the May of 18—, to discuss their matrimonial prospects. Let none, however, imagine, from the mention of a meeting in a ruin, that the alliance under consideration was in the least degree clandestine. ”

“ These fifteen hundred guineas formed one subject of the lovers’ talk in the ruined abbey. As yet, their existence was only a possibility. Henry did not despair of acquiring them; but he was of opinion that their acquisition would be easier if he were cheered in his work by the smiles of a wife. Patience by no means disagreed with him. But her father was immovable. Harborough must make more than one other voyage en garçon; and this was the eve of his departure. The moon and the ruin and the far sea make up a fine set scene for a parting lovers’ dialogue. ”

“ She could not insult her cousin in his own home with her presence, after what had occurred. Immediately after the funeral she should leave Gwynne. Mrs. Griffiths had promised to go with her. She had enough to maintain her in decent respectability from what her mother had left her for pocket-money. She should not require much, for she should not live long.
“And, Harry,” she added, “when you hear that I am dead, will you let me be buried with papa in our own churchyard?” She looked him tearfully in the face.
“O Bessie, Bessie!” he broke out; “you go away!—you leave Gwynne! ”

“ I thrust my way through the crowd that in London rises in an instant, like the men of Pyrrha and Deucalion, from the stones. A pitiful, senseless, huddled heap, lay the poor old man. By his side was the precious MS. that he loved so well, soiled with the filth of the street. I hastily snatched it up, proclaimed that I knew the residence of the fallen man—that my companion was a surgeon—that I would take him home immediately in a cab. A policeman, who, strange to say, was on the spot, mounted the box, and we were suffered to proceed.
In two minutes it was all over. ”

“ And perhaps it would bring in the Camilla all the more quickly. Patience dozed. She was unconscious for an hour and a half or two hours, and then was roused again. There was more noise now. The wind was shrieking up the street, and the roar of the sea was deep and loud. The girl sprung from her bed, and looked from the window. The night was very dark. The roaring of the gale was enough to drown every sound of passers by. But the street was deserted; more deserted than the streets of a seaport usually are, even in the dead of night. The men of Filby were all down at the port. ”

“ And now the Squire fell ill. The career of his son had afflicted him more than had been supposed. He was struck with paralysis, and lost the use of his lower limbs. Stretched in his bed or on a couch, he was dependant on others for his necessities and for his pleasures. Harry and his cousin vied with one another in unwearied attention, but a state of things which ought to have healed all breaches seemed to widen the gulf between them. When the Squire called for Harry to read him the Gazette, or to write a letter to the bailiff, the fair Bessie sulked over her harpsichord. ”

“ The invincible unbelief of my friend did little to satisfy myself, although I felt that in the face of what he said I could adduce little proof to satisfy others. I drove with him to —— Street. It still wanted some time of the hour fixed for the inquest. The slattern was ready to bind herself by any oath to prove that the door of the old man’s room had never been unlocked since I had left him. We went up to see the corpse again. I gazed with strange interest. It seemed to me—though I did not communicate my thought—that the face expressed something more than it did on the previous day. ”

“ Good orthodox novels always leave their hero and heroine on the point of setting out on their wedding tour. In this sad tale there is no such event with the details of which to weave a peroration. And perhaps the most useful part of this true story is the end come to by the principal character. It is no end invented to point a moral. It is what really happened to the real Patience. ”

“ It certainly is a very comfortable place. The cushion on my chair is luxuriously padded. The table before me is just the right height for writing. That elaborate and intricate contrivance, all pad and hinge and snap and rest, that comes down with such a startling bang and clatter, is the very thing for fat folios and unwieldy lexicons. I sit in a room of which I am sure Aladdin, had he ever seen it, would have built a duplicate in his mushroom palace, so spacious its area—so vast its cærulean dome. ”

“ Round ruddy nets will be grouped some bigger boys and men. Nor is there wanting at Orbec the symbol of death as well as the personifications of strong healthy life. The symbol of death is there; speaking, however, not only of the death that will crumble away those lusty forms and still those cheery voices, but also of a better life. High over the housetops, and within sight of the homeward or outward bound fishermen for many a mile, is reared a tall rude crucifix of wood. ”

“ Terrible to a heart full of taste for the Puginesque is that church at Orbec; for nowhere does a more hideous example of the most hideous eighteenth century style insult the ground it occupies. But the interior is richly characteristic. ”

“ Besides, certain whaling adventures in the South Seas had made Harborough somewhat of a hero. A hero with a frank fearless face, strong and tender, and withal steady and sober, is no bad match for any girl, though he be forty instead of thirty. ”

“ Patience Gale should never be Patience Harborough, with his willing blessing, until Henry, the bridegroom, should be able to show fifteen hundred guineas side by side with the dowry he intended for his daughter. ”

“ The waves that had loomed so threatening in the darkness now seemed the very personification of strong joyous life. They swelled up tall and bulky before the wind, their green summits gladly housing the sunlight. ”