Wilkie Collins

“ Naomi did not hesitate for an instant.
“You are quite right, sir,” she said with the most perfect composure. “If things go well, I mean to marry Ambrose.”
“If things go well,” I repeated. “What does that mean? Money?”
She shook her head.
“It means a fear that I have in my own mind,” she answered—“a fear, Mr. Lefrank, of matters taking a bad turn among the men here—the wicked, hard-hearted, unfeeling men. I don’t mean Ambrose, sir; I mean his brother Silas, and John Jago. Did you notice Silas’s hand? John Jago did that, sir, with a knife.” ”

“ Meadowcroft’s interests; all for your sake, Naomi Colebrook—all for your sake! I have done with it now; I have done with my life at the farm. You will never be troubled with me again. I am going away, as the dumb creatures go when they are sick, to hide myself in a corner, and die. Do me one last favor. Don’t make me the laughing-stock of the whole neighborhood. I can’t bear that; it maddens me only to think of it. Give me your promise never to tell any living soul what I have said to you to-night—your sacred promise to the man whose life you have broken!’ I did as he bade me ”

“ The dismal presence of Miss Meadowcroft had passed over my bedroom, and had blighted it. My spirits sank as I looked round me. Supper-time was still an event in the future. I lighted the candles and took from my portmanteau what I firmly believe to have been the first French novel ever produced at Morwick Farm. It was one of the masterly and charming stories of Dumas the elder. In five minutes I was in a new world, and my melancholy room was full of the liveliest French company. The sound of an imperative and uncompromising bell recalled me in due time to the regions of reality. ”

“ Knowing how I loved her in secret, I felt an invincible reluctance to be the person who revealed Ambrose Meadowcroft’s degradation to his betrothed wife. Had any other member of the family told her what had happened? The lawyer was able to answer me; Miss Meadowcroft had told her.
I was shocked when I heard it. Miss Meadowcroft was the last person in the house to spare the poor girl; Miss Meadowcroft would make the hard tidings doubly terrible to bear in the telling. I tried to find Naomi, without success. She had been always accessible at other times. Was she hiding herself from me now? ”

“ There he was! His beard and mustache were shaved off; his hair was close cut. But there was no disguising his wild, brown eyes, or the peculiar movement of his spare, wiry figure, as he walked slowly to and fro in the moonlight waiting for Naomi. For the moment, my own agitation almost overpowered me; I had so firmly disbelieved that John Jago was a living man!
“What shall I do?” Naomi repeated.
“Is the door of the dairy open?” I asked.
“No; but the door of the tool-house, round the corner, is not locked.” ”

“ Naomi’s bright eyes looked up at me, flashing with indignation.
“What does he mean, Mr. Lefrank, by speaking to me in that way? Rude brute! How dare he do it?” She paused; her voice, look and manner suddenly changed. “This has never happened before, sir. Has anything gone wrong? I declare, I shouldn’t know Ambrose again, he is so changed. Say, how does it strike you?”
I still made the best of a bad case.
“Something has upset his temper,” I said. “The merest trifle, Miss Colebrook, upsets a man’s temper sometimes. I speak as a man, and I know it. ”

“ Suppose we know no more of him than we know now when the trial begins? Suppose the jury—” She stopped, shuddering. Death—shameful death on the scaffold—might be the terrible result of the consultation of the jury. “We have waited for news to come to us long enough,” Naomi resumed. “We must find the tracks of John Jago for ourselves. There is a week yet before the trial begins. Who will help me to make inquiries? Will you be the man, friend Lefrank?” ”

“ Ambrose answered. “How could we foresee that the neighbors would search the kiln, and say what they have said of us? All we feared was, that the old man might hear of the quarrel, and be bitterer against us than ever. I was the more anxious of the two to keep things secret, because I had Naomi to consider as well as the old man. Put yourself in my place, and you will own, sir, that the prospect at home was not a pleasant one for me, if John Jago really kept away from the farm, and if it came out that it was all my doing.” ”

“ Ah! she has imposed on you as she imposes on everybody else. The false wretch! She is secretly at the bottom of half the bad feeling among the men. I am certain of it—she keeps Mr. Meadowcroft’s mind bitter toward the boys. Old as she is, Mr. Lefrank, and ugly as she is, she wouldn’t object (if she could only make him ask her) to be John Jago’s second wife. No, sir; and she wouldn’t break her heart if the boys were not left a stick or a stone on the farm when the father dies. ”

“ Lefrank? May I die if it isn’t my stick! I have been looking for it everywhere!”
The thick beechen stick had been feeling uncomfortably heavy in my invalid hand for some time past. There was no sort of need for my keeping it any longer. John Jago was going away to Narrabee, and Silas Meadowcroft’s savage temper was subdued to a sulky repose. I handed the stick back to Ambrose. He laughed as he took it from me.
“You can’t think how strange it feels, Mr. Lefrank, to be out without one’s stick,” he said. “A man gets used to his stick, sir; doesn’t he? Are you ready for your breakfast?” ”

“ Naomi nodded her head in undisguised approval of my candor.
“That will do, that’s speaking out,” she said. “But—oh my! you put it a deal too mildly, sir, when you say the men don’t seem to be on friendly terms together here. They hate each other. That’s the word, Mr. Lefrank—hate; bitter, bitter, bitter hate!” She clinched her little fists; she shook them vehemently, by way of adding emphasis to her last words; and then she suddenly remembered Ambrose. “Except Ambrose,” she added, opening her hand again, and laying it very earnestly on my arm. “Don’t go and misjudge Ambrose, sir. ”

“ It was impossible to acknowledge this to my little friend. I diverted her mind from the question of her lover’s innocence by proposing that we should get the necessary order, and visit him in his prison on the next day. Naomi dried her tears, and gave me a little grateful squeeze of the hand.
“Oh my! what a good fellow you are!” cried the outspoken American girl. “When your time comes to be married, sir, I guess the woman won’t repent saying yes to you!”
Mr. Meadowcroft preserved unbroken silence as we walked back to the farm on either side of his invalid-chair. ”

“ But for my interest in Naomi, and my other interest in the little love-looks which I now and then surprised passing between her and Ambrose, I should never have sat through that supper. I should certainly have taken refuge in my French novel and my own room.
At last the unendurably long meal, served with ostentatious profusion, was at an end. Miss Meadowcroft rose with her ghostly solemnity, and granted me my dismissal in these words:
“We are early people at the farm, Mr. Lefrank. I wish you good-night.” ”

“ Silas turned about, and addressed himself ironically to the three laborers.
“You hear him, boys? He can’t tell the truth, try him as you may. He wasn’t making love to Naomi in the garden last night—oh dear, no! He has had one wife already; and he knows better than to take the yoke on his shoulders for the second time!”
Greatly to my surprise, John Jago met this clumsy jesting with a formal and serious reply.
“You are quite right, sir,” he said. “I have no intention of marrying for the second time. What I was saying to Miss Naomi doesn’t matter to you. ”

“ We two banished ones met the same day in the hall, with our traveling-bags in our hands.
“We are turned out together, friend Lefrank,” said Naomi, with her quaintly-comical smile. “You will go back to England, I guess; and I must make my own living in my own country. Women can get employment in the States if they have a friend to speak for them. Where shall I find somebody who can give me a place?” ”

“ He pointed to a gravel-walk beyond us, bathed in the full flood of the moonlight. “There,” he said, “where we can see all round us, and be sure that nobody is listening. At ten o’clock.” He paused, and addressed himself to me. “I beg to apologize, sir, for intruding myself on your conversation. Please to excuse me.”
His eyes rested with a last anxious, pleading look on Naomi’s face. He bowed to us, and melted away into the shadow of the tree. The distant sound of a door closed softly came to us through the stillness of the night. John Jago had re-entered the house. ”

“ The persons beneath me were Silas Meadowcroft, John Jago, and three strangers, whose dress and appearance indicated plainly enough that they were laborers on the farm. Silas was swinging a stout beechen stick in his hand, and was speaking to Jago, coarsely and insolently enough, of his moonlight meeting with Naomi on the previous night.
“Next time you go courting a young lady in secret,” said Silas, “make sure that the moon goes down first, or wait for a cloudy sky. You were seen in the garden, Master Jago; and you may as well tell us the truth for once in a way. ”

“ We three had a dreary little interview in a parlor of bare walls; and then I was permitted to go upstairs, and unpack my portmanteau in my own room.
“Supper will be at nine o’clock, sir,” said Miss Meadowcroft.
She pronounced those words as if “supper” was a form of domestic offense, habitually committed by the men, and endured by the women. I followed the groom up to my room, not over-well pleased with my first experience of the farm.
No Naomi and no romance, thus far! ”

“ I am only sure Ambrose was not in fault. The old man got more and more dissatisfied, especially about his beasts. His pride is in his beasts. Without saying a word to the boys, he looked about privately (I think he was wrong in that, sir; don’t you?) —he looked about privately for help; and, in an evil hour, he heard of John Jago. Do you like John Jago, Mr. Lefrank?”
“So far, no. I don’t like him.”
“Just my sentiments, sir. But I don’t know: it’s likely we may be wrong. There’s nothing against John Jago, except that he is so odd in his ways. ”

“ Meadowcroft and his daughter, I went to Narrabee, and secured the best legal assistance for the defense which the town could place at my disposal. This done, there was no choice but to wait for news of Ambrose, and for the examination before the magistrate which was to follow. I shall pass over the misery in the house during the interval of expectation; no useful purpose could be served by describing it now. Let me only say that Naomi’s conduct strengthened me in the conviction that she possessed a noble nature. ”

“ Turning the corner, we met John Jago on his way to Narrabee. I was too angry, I tell you, to let him pass quietly. I gave him a bit of my mind. His blood was up too, I suppose; and he spoke out, on his side, as freely as I did. I own I threatened him with the stick; but I’ll swear to it I meant him no harm. You know—after dressing Silas’s hand—that John Jago is ready with his knife. He comes from out West, where they are always ready with one weapon or another handy in their pockets. ”