Barbara Who Came Back/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I
THE RECTORY BLIND
THIS is the tale of Barbara, Barbara who came back to save a soul alive.
•••••
The Reverend Septimus Walrond was returning from a professional visit to a distant cottage of his remote and straggling parish upon the coast of East Anglia. His errand had been sad, to baptize the dying infant of a fisherman which, just as the rite was finished, wailed once feebly and expired in his arms. The Reverend Septimus was weeping over the sorrows of the world. Tears ran down his white but rounded face, for he was stout of habit, and fell upon his clerical coat that was green with age and threadbare with use. Although the day was so cold he held his broad-brimmed hat in his hand, and the wind from the moaning sea-tossed his snow-white hair. He was talking to himself, as was his fashion on these lonely walks.
“I think that fresh milk would have saved that child,” he said, “but how was poor Thomas to buy fresh milk at threepence a quart? I ought to have given it to him. I could have done without these new boots till spring. But I thought of my own comfort—the sin that doth so easily beset me—and poor Barbara, my darling Barbara, hanging between life and death.”
He sobbed, then began to pray, still aloud: “O God of Pity, in the Name of the loving and merciful Christ, help me and poor Thomas in our troubles.”
“I ought to have put Thomas’s name first—my selfishness again,” he ejaculated, then went on: “Give consolation to Thomas, who loved his baby; and if it pleases Thee in Thine infinite wisdom and foresight, spare my dearest Barbara’s life, that she may live out her days upon the earth, and perhaps in her turn give life to others. Or if Thou decreest otherwise, then take me also, O God, for I can bear no more. Four children gone! I can bear no more, O God.”
He sobbed again and wiped away a tear, then muttered: “My selfishness, always my selfishness! With six remaining to be looked after, that is counting Barbara if she still lives, I dare to ask to be relieved of the burdens of the flesh. Pitiful Christ, visit not my wickedness on me or on others. I will have faith. I will have faith.”
He thrust his hat upon his head, and walked forward quite jauntily for a few yards. “What a comfort these new boots are!” he said. “If I had stepped into that pool with the old ones my left foot would be wet through now. Let me thank God for these new boots. Oh! how can I, when I remember that the price of them should have been spent in milk for the poor baby? If I were really a Christian I ought to take them off and walk barefoot, as the old pilgrims used to do. They say it is healthy, and I tried to think so because it is cheap, though I am sure that this was the beginning of poor little Cicely’s last illness. With her broken chilblains she could not stand the snow. Well, she has been in bliss three years, three whole years, and how thankful I ought to be for that! How glad she will be to see Barbara too, if it pleases God in His mercy to take Barbara! I ought to remember that: But I can’t, for I am a man still. Oh! curse it all! I can’t; and like Job, I wish that I had never been born. Job got a new family and was content, but that’s their Eastern way. It’s different with us Englishmen.”
He stumbled on for a hundred yards or more, vacuously, almost drunkenly, for the hideous agony that he was enduring half paralysed his brain, and by its very excess was bringing to him some temporary relief. He looked at the raging sea to his right, and in a vague fashion wished that it had swallowed him. He looked at the kind earth of the ploughed field to his left, and wished vividly—for this idea was more familiar—that six feet of it lay above him. Then he remembered that just beyond that sand-heap he had found a plover’s nest with two eggs in it fifty years ago when he was a boy, and had taken one egg and left the other, or rather had restored it because the old bird screamed so pitifully about him. In some strange way that little, long-forgotten act of righteousness brought a glow of comfort to his tormented spirit.
In its way the November afternoon was very beautiful. Where the sun would shortly vanish long bars of purple lay above the horizon; to his excited fancy they looked like the gateway of another and a better world, set above the uttermost pylons of the West. What lay there beyond the sun? Perhaps even now Barbara knew!
A figure appeared standing upon a sand-dune between the pathway and the sea. Septimus was short-sighted and could not tell who it was; but in this place at this hour doubtless it must be a parishioner, perhaps one waiting to see him. He must forget his private griefs. He drew himself together and walked on briskly.
“I wish I had not been obliged to give away Jack,” he said. “Somehow I always met people with more confidence when he was with me; he seemed to take away my shyness. But the licence was seven-and-sixpence, and I haven't got seven-and-sixpence; also he has an excellent home with that stuffy old woman, if a dull one, for he must miss his walk. Well, I’ll fancy he is with me. Jack, come here, Jack. Who’s that? Don’t bark at him if he is honest. Now then, Jack, let us go on like two gentlemen. Oh! it’s you, Anthony. What are you doing here at this time of night? Your father told me you had a bad cold, and there’s so much sickness about. You should be careful. Anthony; you know you're not too strong—none of you Arnotts are. Well, I suppose you are shooting, and most young men will risk a great deal in order to kill God’s other creatures.”
The person addressed, a tall, broad-shouldered, rather pale young man of twenty-one, remarkable for his large brown eyes and a certain sweet expression which contrasted somewhat oddly with the general manliness of his appearance, lifted his cap and answered: “No, Mr. Walrond, I am not shooting to-night. In fact I was waiting here to meet you.”
“What for, Anthony? Nothing wrong up at the Hall, I hope?”
“No, Mr. Walrond; why should there be anything wrong there?”
“I don’t know, I am sure, only as a rule people don’t wait for the parson unless there is something amiss, and there seems to be so much misfortune in this parish just now. Well, what is it, my boy?”
“I want to know about Barbara, Mr. Walrond. They tell me she is very bad, but I can’t get anything definite from the others—I mean from her sisters. They don’t seem to be sure, and the doctor wouldn’t say when I asked him.”
The Reverend Septimus looked at Anthony, and Anthony looked at the Reverend Septimus, and in that look they learned to understand each other. The agony that was eating out this poor father’s heart was not peculiar to him; another shared it. In what he would have called his “wicked selfishness” the Reverend Septimus felt almost grateful for this sudden revelation. If it is a comfort to share our joys, it is a still greater comfort to share our torments.
“Walk on with me, Anthony,” he said. “I must hurry, I have every reason to hurry. Had it not been a matter of duty I would not have left the house; but, so to speak, a clergyman has many children—he cannot prefer one before the other.”
“Yes, yes,” said Anthony, “but what about Barbara? Oh! please tell me at once.”
“I can’t tell you, Anthony, because I don’t know. From here to the crest of Gunter’s Hill,” and he pointed to an eminence in front of them, “is a mile and a quarter. When we get to the crest of Gunter’s Hill perhaps we shall know. I left home two hours ago, and then Barbara lay almost at the point of death, insensible.”
“Insensible!” muttered Anthony, “oh! my God, insensible!”
“Yes,” went on the clergyman in a voice of patient resignation. “I don’t understand much about such things, but the inflammation appears to have culminated that way. Now either she will never wake again, or if she wakes she may live. At least that is what they tell me, but they may be wrong. I have so often known doctors to be wrong.”
They walked on together in silence twenty yards or more. Then he added, as though speaking to himself: “When we reach the top of Gunter’s Hill, perhaps we shall learn. We can see her window from there; and if she had passed away I bade them pull the blind down, if she was about the same to pull it half down, and if she were really better, to leave it quite up. I have done that for two nights now, so that I might have a little time to prepare myself. It is a good plan, though very trying to a father’s heart. Yesterday I stood for quite a while with my eyes fixed upon the ground, not daring to look and learn the truth.”
Anthony groaned, and once more the old man went on: “She is a very unselfish girl, Barbara—or perhaps I should say, was, perhaps I should say, was. That is how she caught this horrible inflammation. Three weeks ago she and her sister Janey went for a long walk to the Ness, to—to—oh! I forget why they went. Well, it came on to pour with rain, and just as they had started home, fortunately, or rather unfortunately, old Stevens the farmer overtook them on his way back from market and offered them a lift. They got into the cart, and Barbara took off the mackintosh that her aunt gave her last Christmas—it is the only one in the house, since such things are too costly for me to buy—and put it over Janey, who had a cold. It was quite unnecessary, for Janey was warmly wrapped up, while Barbara had nothing under the mackintosh except a summer dress. That is how she caught the chill.”
Anthony made no comment, and again they walked forward without speaking, perhaps for a quarter of a mile. Then the horror of the suspense became intolerable to him. Without a word he dashed forward, sped down the slope and up that of the opposing Gunter’s Hill, more swiftly perhaps than he had ever run before, although he was a very quick runner.
“He’s gone,” murmured Septimus. “I wonder why. I suppose that I walk too slowly for him—I cannot walk so fast as I used to do—and he felt the wind cold.” Then he dismissed the matter from his half-dazed mind and stumbled on wearily, muttering his disjointed prayers.
Thus in due course he began to climb the little slope of Gunter’s Hill. The sun had set, but there was still a red glow in the sky, and against this glow he perceived the tall figure of Anthony standing quite still. When he was about a hundred yards away the figure suddenly collapsed, as a man does if he is shot. The Reverend Septimus put his hand to his heart and caught his breath.
“I know what that means,” he said. “He was watching the window, and they have just pulled down the blind. I suppose he must have been fond of her and it—affects him. Oh! if I were younger I think this would kill me, but thank God! as one draws near the end of the road the feet harden; one does not feel the thorns so much. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; bl—bl—yes, I will say it—blessed be the Name of the Lord. I should remember that she is much better where she is; that this is a very hard world; indeed sometimes I think it is not a world, but a hell. Oh! Barbara, my sweet Barbara!” And he struggled forward blindly, beating at the rough wind with his hands as though it were a visible foe, and so at last came to the crest of the hill where Anthony Arnott lay prone upon his face.
So sure was he of the cause of his collapse that he did not even trouble to look at the Rectory windows in the hollow near the church two hundred yards or so away. He only looked at Anthony, saying, “Poor lad, poor lad! I wonder how I shall get him home; I must fetch some help.”
As he spoke Anthony sat up and said, “You see, you see!”
“See what?”
“The blind; it is quite up. When I got here it was half down, and some one pulled it up. That’s what finished me. I felt as though I had been hit on the head with a stick.”
The Reverend Septimus stared, then suddenly sank to his knees and returned thanks in his simple fashion. “Don't let us be too certain, Anthony,” he exclaimed at length. “There may be a mistake, or perhaps this is only a respite which will prolong the suspense. Often such things happen to torment us; I mean that they are God’s way of trying and purifying our poor sinful hearts.”